The Story of Elsie Ruth’s Birth Part 2: Labor of Love

So here’s where we left off in part 1.  I had planned to have a natural birth without induction, pitocin, or an epidural.  At 38 weeks my doctor told me that I needed to go to the hospital to be induced because Elsie hadn’t grown significantly in the past 3 weeks.

It was a Tuesday evening when we were sent straight from our doctor’s appointment to the hospital, and my adrenaline levels were off the charts.  I was about to have a BABY, after all!!!  Danny lugged our bags (I swear it looked like we were planning to live in the hospital for at least a year with the amount of things I packed) up to the fifth floor and we got settled into our labor and delivery room.  I changed into my fabulously attractive hospital gown, handed the nurse our birth plan, sat on the hospital bed, and waited.  Having a baby.  And waited. Pushing a baby out of my body. And waited.  I wish I had some ice cream.  And waited. 

Finally after three hours of waiting and worrying (and a serious craving for an Andy’s M&M concrete), my obstetrician came in the room and said “Let’s get this show on the road!”  I, still wanting to have as natural of a birth as possible, asked if there was any way that we could break my water and see if the contractions would start on their own before attempting to use pitocin.  Due to the nature of my situation (Elsie being small, the timeframe of the labor once the water broke, etc.), my obstetrician said that she wanted to insert a mechanical balloon in my cervix and that hopefully by the morning I’d be dilated to a 5.  If I hadn’t started contractions on my own by 5 am, then we’d start the pitocin.  All I really heard was “mechanical balloon” and I pictured a huge red balloon robot filling up my insides until I blew up like the blueberry girl on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  Thank goodness they gave me an Ambien to help me sleep that night. J

Despite my concerns about transforming into a balloon robot, when I woke up at 5 am, I was still in human form.  The pitocin was started, and I tried to prepare myself mentally for the pain that was inevitably headed my way any moment.  Except, funny thing, there was no pain.  The nurse told me that for every 15 minutes that went by and I wasn’t having steady and strong contractions, my pitocin would be bumped up by 2.  I started off at a 4 and watched every 15 minutes as the nurse came in and bumped up the pitocin.  I grimaced, braced myself…and felt the same.  Typically my body reacts very strongly to any type of medication, but this time I didn’t feel a thing.  I convinced myself that I was going to be the miraculous .0001% of women who didn’t experience pain during childbirth, that I would probably just sneeze and the baby would simply pop out.  No such luck.

Danny suggested we try some of the Lamaze strategies we had discussed to practice for when the contractions started kicking in.  I would like to briefly mention that the Lamaze classes we took that were provided by the hospital, while hilarious, appeared to send us a mixed message.  I got the impression they were telling us “We want you to feel guilty if you use drugs to ease your labor pains, but we have no intention of actually helping you achieve that lofty goal.  Baths are good for easing labor pain…but we don’t even provide you with a sink in your bathroom.  Birthing balls are very helpful…but bring your own because we only have 5 in the whole hospital.  Moving around the room is a fantastic way to get through your labor pains, but we’re going to restrict you to these cords and wires that only allow you to travel 2 inches.” 

Nevertheless, I hopped on the birthing ball (we brought our own for fear the hospital would be unable to spare one of their precious 5) and Danny started reading me some Bible passages (I love my husband so so much).  Instantly, the nurse came in the room and told me that my fetal heart rate monitor had slipped off my belly.  I got it situated back in the right place, and no sooner had the nurse left the room than my contractions monitor slid off my belly.  The nurse came back in the room, jokingly cursed the roundness of my basketball belly, and adjusted the contractions monitor.  This dance continued, with monitors sliding off my belly, the nurse coming and adjusting them over and over again until I decided to just sit on the bed for awhile to give myself and my poor nurse a break.  In the mean time, my nurse continued to bump up my pitocin every 15 minutes until it was at 24 at about 8:45 a.m.

Lucky number 24.  While I was pregnant with Elsie, Danny and I had decided to watch every season of 24 on Netflix.  Talk about INTENSE!  After we finished the series, I told Danny it might not have been the best idea to watch the shows while I was pregnant because all of the action and drama stressed me out.  Danny pointed out that maybe Elsie would come out of the womb being a hardcore terrorist avenger like Jack Bauer.  Once my pitocin hit 24, like the TV series, things got INTENSE!  All of a sudden, after hours of feeling nothing, I got slapped in the face with very strong, lengthy painful contractions.  When I asked people what a contraction felt like, most people said “Oh, like period cramps” or “Just a feeling of pressure in your belly”.  I felt like a giant had picked me up, given me a wicked Indian rugburn all over my stomach and back, and then kicked me with steel-toed boots just for good measure. I closed my eyes, pictured the strong and silent woman from the natural birth video, and screamed my head off.

It’s funny how when you’re in pain, all rational thought goes out the window.  In my optimistic pre-labor, semi-rational mind I had decided that pain is subjective, that I would have the strength of mind and willpower to tell myself that the pain wasn’t that bad, and perhaps even convince myself that contractions felt great.  Sigh…you guys…contractions don’t feel great at all!  I was dilated to a 7 when all of this started, and my optimistic pre-labor brain told me, “See, look at you!  You’re over half way there!  You can do it!”…to which my crazed in-labor brain replied, “YOU GONNA DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”. 

I want to cry when I think about how sweet and patient my husband was with me as I felt myself transform from calm, semi-rational pregnant woman to insane monster beast.  He was by my side the entire time kissing my hand, telling me I was doing great, whispering Bible verses in my ear, encouraging me to try the pain-management strategies we’d discussed, and attending to my every need.  He suggested I get back up on the birthing ball to ease my back labor.  When I felt a contraction coming, I would yell “Put pressure on my back!”, and then a few seconds later I’d say “No, hands off!”.  He suggested turning on some music to get my mind off the pain.  I had planned on burning a “Birthing Mix” and playing it at the hospital, but since it was towards the end of my to-do list, it didn’t get made.  We turned the TV onto the Christian music channel, and the Francesca Battistelli song “This is the Stuff” came on.  I listened to the song for about 3 seconds, felt another contraction coming on, and yelled “Turn it off, it’s too happy!”.  My vision of the strong and silent woman was quickly giving way into the nightmarish reality of the evil witch monster.

My obstetrician came in around 10:30 when I was dilated to a 7 and broke my water.  That’s when I seriously lost all control of any essence of being a human being anymore.  Afterwards when I asked Danny what I was like during that time, he said “You were like a caged wild animal who was wounded and had nothing to lose.”  The only thing that had been keeping me semi-sane at that point was my ability to move around (it was only like a 3 foot radius, but it was better than nothing!).  Then my worst nightmare came true…because the contractions monitor and fetal heart rate monitor kept sliding off and they couldn’t get the internal fetal heart rate monitor to work properly, my nurse told me I’d have to lay still in the bed, to which I promptly replied “I can’t!”.  The end result?  My nurse had to physically hold me down in the bed while I had contractions to prevent me from moving.  And now….drum roll please…it’s time for the three things I yelled most frequently during labor:

1.      “I’VE GOTTA MOVE!!!!”  The literal one strategy I had for easing labor pain was to keep moving.  So imagine my dismay when I was being held down in a bed during extremely painful contractions.  I was completely unable to cope with having a contraction while laying down, and despite being held down, attempted to sit up during each contraction…which did not make my nurse very happy.

2.      “GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!!”  Somewhere in the fog of pain and panic, I convinced myself that if I could just break free from the nurse’s grips and rip off all of the wires and monitors, I could get to the door, run down the hall, and be free.  That I could literally run from the pain and it would stay in the labor and delivery room.  Does that make any sense at all?  Nope.  Welcome to my insane labor brain.

3.      “I’M POOPING!!!!!!”  Did I really yell that?  Sadly true and highly embarrassing.  Towards the end when the baby’s head was moving down, I kept screaming “I’m pooping!”, to which the nurse replied “And that’s okay!”.  I didn’t actually poop, I just felt all the pressure of the head coming down and apparently the only sensation I had to compare it to was…well...you know.  What little was left of my dignity had vanished at that point.

Once I lost my ability to move anywhere, I found a new pain management strategy.  During each contraction, I would grab my sweet husband’s arm, find a small portion of flesh, pinch it as hard as I could, and then twist it.  Sweet Danny just allowed me to inflict pain on him the first few times I did this.  By about the third or fourth time, Danny gently suggested, “Hey babe, next time you feel like you need to squeeze something, why don’t you do it to the sheet instead of my arm?”  My response, direct quote, was “The sheets won’t react.”, to which my frightened husband replied “Babe, I think you might be a sociopath.”

When Danny and I were writing our birth plan and had decided on natural childbirth, I had warned Danny that I would be nuts during labor, and that I would more than likely tell him I needed an epidural and he would have to be strong and tell me no, no matter what I said.  After my obstetrician broke my water and felt the contractions becoming even more intense and painful, I looked at Danny with pain and panic in my eyes and said, “I can’t do this.”  My sweet husband grabbed my hand, kissed my forehead, and said “You can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens you.”  Full of holiness and grace, I replied “SHUT UP!”.  Danny calmly but firmly told me that we had decided not to do an epidural and that I had specifically told him “It’s not even an option.”  After another strong contraction and yelling “STOP TALKING!” (my fourth most common thing yelled during labor…poor Danny), I looked at my sweet husband and said “Danny, it has to be an option.” 

Around that time my nurse came in and asked “Would you like an epidural?”.  Our birth plan had said not to offer pain medication, that we’d ask for it if needed, but at that moment I saw an opportunity and decided to take it.  Unfortunately, it involved throwing my saint of a husband under the bus.  I looked at the nurse and said in my most pathetic battered housewife voice, “My husband doesn’t think I need one.”  The nurse glared at Danny with the devil’s fire in her eyes, then passionately said to me “He does NOT know what you’re going through. He’s NOT pregnant, and he NEVER WILL BE pregnant.  This is YOUR decision, not his.”  By the time she finished her speech, she was practically yelling.  There was an awkward moment of silence in the room and I felt like I needed to defend my sweet husband who, after all, was only trying to enforce what I had told him to enforce.  I had another strong contraction and quickly forgot about the awkwardness and told her we’d let her know.  After the nurse left the room, Danny gave one last ditch effort plea for me to remember what I said and to just hold out because I was at an 8 at that point.  I looked at my husband’s kind, compassionate eyes and tried to muster what it felt like to be a human again, back when I was semi-rational and didn’t want an epidural.  The nurse came back in the room, asked “Have you made a decision?” and I quickly blurted out “Yes, I want an epidural please!”

I was in a haze of pain at that point and had no concept of the passage of time, but Danny told me afterwards that it took the anesthesiologist about an hour to get there after I had asked for the epidural.  Once he got there, I was dilated to a 9, but my semi-rational optimistic brain was no longer there to tell me “A 9!  That’s awesome!  It’s almost time to push, you don’t need an epidural because you’re SO CLOSE!”.  All I heard was the steady tribal chant of the crazed in-labor brain shouting “Pain! Pain! You gonna diiiiiieeee, you gonna DIIIIIIEEEEEE!”  I do remember asking my nurse at that point how much longer it would be until the baby came, to which she replied “I’m not sure…it could be 30 minutes or 3 hours.”  I looked at the anesthesiologist and said “I’m hurting dude, let’s do this thing.”  He started calmly and casually telling me all of the risks associated with an epidural.  I felt another strong contraction coming on, and yelled “Get him out of here!  I’m having another contraction!”.  After the contraction was over, I looked at my nurse and told her “You tell that man to come back in here, but tell him to STOP TALKING!”.  The anesthesiologist quickly finished explaining the list of precautions to Danny (I think he was scared of me at this point), and before I could say “Ginormous needle in my spine”, it was done and he was gone.

At that point, I laid back in the bed and closed my eyes. Danny told me afterwards that he was concerned that I had died because I was so still and silent (I knew I’d eventually get to strong and silent, I was just hoping to have done it without the epidural).  At one point he asked “Allison?”, to which I replied in a low, guttural voice “I’m here.”  My arms were shaking uncontrollably and I still felt the intense pressure of the baby moving down, but at least I had stopped screaming “I’M POOPING!!!!” at this point.  I’m sure my nurse was also relieved she no longer had to hold a screaming, flailing maniac down in the bed.  About 5-10 minutes after I had the epidural, the nurse said “I see the baby’s head.  Time to call the doctor.”

After that, everyone was in a hurry of activity preparing for the birth.  Me?  Just chillin’ on the bed with my eyes closed.  Epidurals are awesome.  My obstetrician came in, looked at me, looked at her phone, and said “Well, I’m going to be late.”  By the way, I will never again complain about having to wait for her during a routine exam…she’s birthing babies, it’s important work!  Before I knew it, it was time to push.  At one point, one of the nurses said “Do you know what color your baby’s hair is?  Because I do!”.  It sank in to me at that point I was not in an episode of “Extreme Pain Camp: Hospital Edition”, I was having a BABY!  A baby with HAIR that I would get to meet in a matter of minutes!  And, to my relief, I realized that Jell-O doesn’t have hair.  Pushing was my favorite because everyone was cheering “Push, push, you can do it!”  I think I finally had a taste of what it feels like to be an athlete J.  After about 15 minutes and a few pushes, out came Elsie Ruth Slone, the love of my life.  I cannot explain in words the flood of emotions that rushed over me as I saw that sweet baby for the first time.  The one we had prayed for, worried over, ate cheeseburgers for, and carried in my belly for all this time.  A perfect, tiny miracle from God that I didn’t deserve.  As I held her in my arms for the first time and cried all over her perfect face, I thanked God for the blessing of this precious life.  Every time I would pull it together and stop crying I’d look at my sweet husband and the pride and love oozing out of him for our brand-new daughter and start blubbering all over again.  We thanked God for His goodness and breathed a sigh of relief.  I had pushed a baby out of my body…with pitocin and an epidural…but I was too happy to feel any guilt.  We were snuggling a precious baby that was now ours to keep. The hard part was over, right?  Or so we thought.

Stay tuned for Elsie’s Birth Story Part 3: “My Breast Friend” to hear about Elsie’s stay in the NICU, our adventures in breastfeeding, and how God is good, even when things are hard.