Damien’s Birth Story
My due date was Thursday, December 15, and while it really seemed like I should be in at least a little bit of labor by then (3cm dilated, 80% effaced) I wasn’t feeling a single painful contraction. I had been feeling regular Braxton-Hicks contractions since week 20, but other than that it seemed that baby Damien wanted to stay put.
Staying put, however, wasn’t in the cards for him. With gestational diabetes plus rising blood pressure during the last couple weeks, my doctor decided it was time for an induction. At my 40-week appointment he instructed me to call Labor & Delivery that evening to see if they had room for me. I spent the rest of the day being incredibly antsy (our bags had been packed since week 36, and the carseat had been in the car for at least a week, because I’m OCD like that) until it was time to call. They told us to finish dinner (which we already did) and come on in, so off we went!
At the hospital, we were quickly and painlessly put in a L&D room. I put on my gorgeous gown, and Dan took one last bump photo of me:
As huge as I got!
Originally the plan was to use Cervadil overnight to dilate my cervix further, but after a doctor examined me she worried that it would send me into labor overnight, since I was already somewhat dilated/effaced. Instead they decided to monitor the baby (and my contractions, which I apparently was having but not feeling) overnight and starting Pitocin the next morning. Dan and I settled in – me on the uncomfy L&D bed, him on the even uncomfy-er reclining chair – and watched TV (specifically, the end of Beauty and the Beast and some History Channel documentary on sex/reproduction in space) until a nurse came by and told us to go to sleep. Yes, we got in trouble for our night owl ways, kind of like being at a sleepover! At least we weren’t too loud…
The next morning my nurse woke me up at 7am to get ready. I took a shower, ate breakfast, and then had various fluids pumped through my IV ports (Pitocin, Penicillin because I’m GBS positive, and regular hydrating fluids of some kind.) My parents, sisters, and Dan’s mom all stopped by to say hi at some point during the morning, and I was fine with that because apparently I’m immune to Pitocin. My contractions were getting stronger, but they still were painless and at the very most uncomfortable. The nurses kept dialing up my dosage; I made it up to 9 before we decided it was time to break my water. I ate lunch (yay! I was afraid breakfast was my last meal!), bounced on a birth ball, and walked around (until they made me get back in bed because my blood pressure was being stupid.)
The only problem was, we couldn’t find a doctor to break my water. Finally at 2:30pm the nurses tracked one down, I was violated with a crochet hook, and my bed was flooded with strangely hot water (good think we had tons of those absorbent pads, which are apparently called chucks but I can’t stop calling them puppy pads. I was very good friends with the puppy pads by the end of my hospital stay.) Immediately after my water was broken I felt my first painful contraction. They kept getting worse and worse; I wasn’t timing them, but they seemed closer together too. I got up to go to the bathroom (which had to happen often because of my IV, but was a really big pain because I was hooked up to so many monitors, plus the IV) and decided to stay in there for awhile, because I couldn’t walk through the contractions anymore.
My nurses came back (at this point I had two assigned to me) and made me leave the bathroom, so I tried laboring on the ball for awhile. It was no use – though I have a pretty high pain tolerance, the pain was suddenly unbearable and I decided to talk pain meds. First I was given Nubain, a narcotic that would wear off in an hour, but was supposed to tide me over until the epidural could get there. It made me instantly dizzy and out of it, which I hated, but it did keep me from becoming suicidal (or homicidal) while waiting for the epidural, and for that reason I’m glad I got it. I’m not really sure how long I had to wait, since I was clinging to the bed with my eyes closed (I felt like I was going to fall off, like gravity no longer worked.) I do know that the nurses examined me again and found I was 8cm dilated and 100% effaced, which explained all the pain – I progressed from 3 to 8 in under 45 minutes.
I started getting nauseous, which I was told meant I was in transition, so I got to cling to a barf bag along with the bed (I never did throw up though, which was nice.) When the anesthesiologist arrived he made me sit up, which I was kind of surprised I could do, and lean over what looked like a massage chair. I held on to the handles of the chair for dear life as he inserted the needle, and I could feel it scraping between my vertebrae… ow. But, soon after the epidural kicked in the Nubain wore off, and suddenly I felt much better. I guess it could be considered a ‘walking epidural’, though they didn’t let me walk – I could feel my legs and move them on my own, and I could feel pain too. I’d say the epidural blocked 60% of the pain, which made my contractions doable but still allowed me to feel human. I was wary of getting an epidural initially but actually ended up having a really good experience with it, and am glad I got one.
It seemed like right after I got the epidural, I started feeling pressure (which, by the way, also means pain!) that the nurses told me meant it was time to do some practice pushes. I discovered something at this point: I really don’t like pushing. It hurts, doesn’t feel like it’s accomplishing anything, and is really really exhausting – plus I had a catheter put in soon after the epidural, and every time I pushed it felt like the catheter was cutting a hole through my crotch. I’m pretty sure that’s not supposed to happen, and luckily the nurses removed it after a half hour, but that was another nasty surprise – catheters suck, as does pushing. Anyway, the nurses brought a mirror over so Dan and I could see the baby’s head as I pushed, which was pretty cool but ultimately I couldn’t keep my eyes open while pushing, so I didn’t get to watch much. We did discover the baby had lots of hair.
Soon the doctors came in, and the room was full of people – a pediatrician, a resident, an attending, my two nurses, plus Dan, all gathered around my bed. With Dan on one side with a leg and a nurse on the other, I soldiered through the horrible, awful pushing. Seriously, I hated pushing… and thankfully it only lasted a half hour, though it felt like days. They kept telling me we were getting closer, until with one push I felt a sharp tearing pain, screamed for the only time in labor, and they pulled a baby out of me at 5:34pm. Once the head was out, his shoulders just slid out and the placenta wasn’t far behind, so luckily my pain was over fast. I looked down at the table to see my beautiful son, Damien Isaac, who didn’t look at all like the newborns I’d read about. Dan and I had prepared ourselves for, to put it bluntly, an ugly baby, but that’s not what we got at all. Damien was adorable from the second he came out.
Right after they rubbed the blood and gunk off...
Opening his eyes for the first time - he looked right at Dan :)
I was disappointed that I didn’t get to hold him right away; I had to watch him from across the room as the pediatrician examined him (his Apgars were 8 and 9) and Dan cut his cord and took pictures. I was stuck in bed while the doctors stitched me up. I learned later that Damien was born with his left arm over his head, which resulted in a second-degree tear and an episiotomy (not sure which one was first.) My birth plan was pretty much No Episiotomy so that was a total fail, but in that situation there was really no avoiding it, and I definitely prefer it to a C-section. (That said, OW. Holy crap, OW, and an OW that took TEN WEEKS for just the STITCHES to heal. And we’ll say no more on the subject.)
Finally my stitches were complete (quick note: the doctor who delivered Damien and did my stitches was the resident, not the attending, and he was very attractive and looked all of 21 so that was awkward) and I was able to hold my baby. I was in total shock: how did I make this little person, and how did he fit in me and then come out of me, and was he really mine to keep? The pediatrician said she thought he’d breastfeed, so I recruited a nurse to teach me how (yeah, someone didn’t take the breastfeeding class…) and Damien actually ate for an hour! Then Dan held him, and finally we allowed the stampeding hordes of family who were about to break down the door to come visit.
Parents... how scary is that?
My parents, Dan’s mom, my sisters, and my grandparents all greeted Damien one by one (well, more like two by two) and agreed he was beautiful and perfect in every way. Then the baby was weighed and measured (8 lbs 6 oz, 19.5 in) and Dan gave him his first bath (with some help from the nurse, because slippery babies in hospital sinks are scary!) I was still stuck in bed at this point, thanks to my epidural, but was eventually allowed to get up and take a shower… where I promptly almost fainted a few times. Oops. (For the record, whatever smelling salts hospitals use are really freaking disgusting. Also, it’s really awkward to meet your new nurse for the first time when you’re naked and bloody in a shower. Good thing I didn’t actually faint because that could only make the situation more interesting!)
At the end of the night, we transferred to our new room in the postpartum wing, where we’d spend the next few days. Because the hospital wasn’t too full Dan was allowed to stay with me (he even got a real bed!) and we all three immediately took a nap.
My sleepy boys
I could go on about our hospital stay, but this is supposed to be a birth story and that’s all post-birth, so I’ll sum it up: at first Damien had low blood sugar (because of my GD) so we did lots of waking him up to make him nurse. The next night he didn’t want to sleep at all, so that was fun too, and just when we thought we were going home Damien’s bilirubin tested high. So we spent another day in the hospital, which sucked except I had two awesome nurses who taught me how to breastfeed better than the lactation consultants on staff, and also brought me many magical items to heal my poor battered crotch (for some reason my earlier nurses didn’t provide such items, I guess because I wasn’t writhing in pain?) which made it a lot more worthwhile.
Then we came home, and Ripley (the dog) promptly fell in love with Damien and started her lifelong mission to protect him and kiss him as much as possible. The end!
The kids :)
For some videos of Damien in the hospital, see this post – he was soo tiny and cute! :)
