As the end of my pregnancy got near, and I realized that I was in fact going to birth this baby, I started imagining how it was going to go. Of course, many individuals will warn you against doing precisely this, as it will inevitably never occur as you expect. But such thoughts are unavoidable. As for my own narrative, I envisioned myself moving through the early labor contractions at home, sometimes in the shower, other times walking up and down our short hallway or doing yoga. In fact, that’s how I pictured most of my labor going; as I’d done throughout my pregnancy, I would be active. My due date approaching, I became something of a self-appointed sleuth, inspecting the toilet bowl for signs of my mucus plug, suspecting that the 3am trip to the loo would provide the evidence I was so anxious to discover. Not surprisingly, time passed considerably slower than I would have liked. Fortunately, I had anticipated an early arrival from our little monkey – call it mother’s intuition – and baby J did not disappoint.
I had reached the 39-week mark and was feeling great. In fact, from about week 37, I was feeling better than almost the entire month prior. I wasn’t waddling as much, and while my lung capacity was diminishing with each day, my workouts felt more comfortable. Simply put, my roll was slow, but steady
January 23rd was a Monday. I had made it to my regular 6am CrossFit class and was feeling good. There had been no cervix opening (dilatation), water breakage, or losing of my mucus plug. Baby J (still to be named) was active in my belly, but according to my practitioner team, showed no signs of wanting to foil his estimated due date. With that in mind, I went about my day as planned, finishing up with some clients by 2:30pm and setting out for a 3:30 appointment with my midwife for my 39-week checkup. Upon arrival, I went through the motions of all my other appointments: pee in cup, get weighed and have my blood pressure taken. But wasn’t long before we veered off from the typical. Most glaring, my blood pressure (BP) was elevated – and I mean ELEVATED. For the past few weeks, my BP had been higher than normal but no one seemed concerned. Many women experience a higher BP in their 3rd trimester and as long as there are no other out-of-the-ordinary symptoms, there is no reason to be concerned. I wasn’t experiencing spotty vision, light headedness, nausea or stomach pain, and there was no protein detected in my urine. “Everything seems fine,” had been recited to me by my doctor, nurses, and midwife. “You’re having an easy pregnancy. We’ll see you around your due date.”
Suddenly, however, things had changed. My midwife walked in my exam room and said, “this is the real deal: elevated blood pressure and protein in your urine. You have preeclampsia and with baby J being 39-weeks, he’s fully developed and there is no benefit to prolonging this delivery. If we wait, your health risk factors will only go up.” Shock would underestimate the feelings that were coursing through me. As I was trying to wrap my head around the news, I searched through my mental filings for “preeclampsia.” Yet there was no time for a Q&A session. “You’re having this baby,” said my midwife. My response? The obligatory F-bomb followed closely by the impulse to call my husband (who mind you was working an hour away and bound to be caught in afternoon traffic, further sending my BP spiking). All I could think was “OMG I’m having this baby RIGHT NOW and he’s not here! Thankfully, that wasn’t the case. I was to be induced which would take plenty of time for him to get to me. So I calmed down and called my hubs.
My mind racing, I followed my midwife’s order to go to the hospital immediately; I couldn’t even go home to get the hospital bag I had so meticulously packed (checking my list twice and then adding even more stuff for the past few weeks – full disclosure of my hospital bag to come!) So here I was, foley balloon delicately inserted, driving myself to the hospital. Granted, my midwife’s office was right across the street from the hospital but still… Once there, I was further encouraged by the arrival of my husband and, not incidentally, my bag of accoutrements – yoga mat, cooler, pillow, etc. – within the hour. Another crisis averted. It was game on!
In addition to foley balloon, I had an IV inserted for when it would be needed down the road, and a magnesium drip to help lower my BP. Ugh – this was a bummer. Magnesium is a relaxant – aimed at lowering BP with minimal intervention in an attempt to stick to my birth plan. But the side effects were nasty. To say I felt drugged is putting it lightly: not dull-the-pain drugged. We’re talking flat-out loopy drugged.
Once the foley balloon came out, the Pitocin went in. Contractions started. Check. Unfortunately, I wasn’t allowed to move out of my bed (so much for doing yoga throughout my labor and forget about walking the halls). Wa, waa.
After a night of laboring without making much progress in terms of dilatation or increased contractions, the team concluded they needed to break my water. Tuesday late morning, I had my water broken. This is the point KJ and I look back on as when ‘shit got real.’ Actually, I look back on it as when “shit got real.” He looks at it, I suspect, and thinks of flash flooding 😉 In all honesty, this was the single most painful moment of my labor. I remember my midwife asking if I was ready. It being my first pregnancy, I nodded my head yes without hesitation. I had prepared myself for painful contractions but not this. It could obviously be different for everyone, but for me it was no Bueno. Contractions intensified significantly and without being allowed to move, the need to stay mentally focused increased. If I was off on my breathing by a millisecond, I suffered.
Meanwhile, the magnesium that was intended to manage my BP was not doing the trick. At one point, I was even informed that I had been given too much, resulting in elevated blood levels (and further contributing to my loopiness). Great. The low-intervention birth that my midwife and I had mapped out had by now been scrapped. But it honestly didn’t matter. As intent as I was on going all-natural, maternal instinct took over and all I cared about was getting Baby J out safe and sound.
I was given an epidural to lower my BP. It worked, and my BP began to stabilize. The pain relief that I assumed would come as a side effect, however, did not. A second attempt was moderately successful. There was some pain relief on the right side of my body but the contractions on my left side were…eh…robust. The next few hours were a bit foggy. With high blood magnesium levels placing me in an alternate dimension, and the epidural numbing some of the pain, I slipped in and out of sleep a few minutes at a time as my contractions alternated from right side (numbed) to left side (un-numbed). Once my water had been broken, the team took care as to how many times they checked my dilatation in order to cut down on the possibility of infection. My nurse explained to me that when Baby J’s head was in place I would feel significant pressure.
I remember telling KJ that I thought I could feel the pressure. After a game of telephone from KJ to the nurse, the nurse to my midwife, and the midwife back to KJ, my cervix was finally checked again. What do you know? I was fully dilated and we were oh-so-close to meeting Baby J!!! While my midwife was walking to the room from visiting another patient, my nurse was walking me through a practice ‘push session.’ As I gave my practice push a go, my nurse excitedly – or perhaps more apt, anxiously – said, “okay, okay, stop…I can see the baby’s head.” Hah! Little did she know that I’d been squatting my tush off throughout this pregnancy and was ready for this part. 😉
As soon as my midwife was in the room, we went through three rounds of pushing and our beloved Baby J was here. And he was perfect. We had immediate skin-to-skin contact, delayed cord clamping, and he worked his way up to my breast for his first feeding. While much of my birth plan went off script, January 24th, 2017 was more beautiful than I could have ever imagined.
And that’s all there is. There isn’t anymore.
Ok, there’s a lot more.
That’s all there is. For now.
