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Sarah's Birth

At 11:00 a.m. on Thanksgiving day, I went in to labor. I wasn't due for another 6 days so I was convinced it was false labor. My contractions were consistent - about 5 minutes apart, but they weren't too strong. I had read that if you're having false labor and you walk, the contractions will diminish. So, my husband and I walked for about an hour, but the contractions continued to come every 5 minutes. Since they still were not very strong, and were only lasting 30 - 45 seconds, we decided to wait before calling the doctor or going to the hospital.

That afternoon, we went to my husband's parent's house for Thanksgiving dinner. I thought for sure the contractions would stop once we got there, but they continued to come every 5 minutes. The last thing I wanted was turkey dinner so we walked some more while everyone else ate. By 5:30 that evening, the contractions were every 3 minutes apart and lasting almost a minute so we called the doctor. She told us to go to the hospital.

When we arrived, I could hardly wait to see how far I was dilated - I thought for sure I would be at 5 cm at least. I just about died when the nurse told me I was only 1 cm dilated and 90% effaced. The nurse was terrific - she ran the hot tub for me while she called the doctor. I labored in the tub for about 45 minutes. It felt wonderful. When I got out, the nurse told me that the doctor wanted to keep me in the hospital and start me on Pitocin to get things going. At that point, I was still handling the contractions really well. Things changed dramatically after that.

About 45 minutes after the Pitocin had been started I couldn't handle the contractions anymore - they were incredibly intense and were coming one after another with no breaks in between. They gave me an epidural at that point. My doctor was fantastic. She held my one hand and my husband held my other hand while the anesthesiologist administered the epidural. Once the epidural took effect, I felt great. I was much more in control and could handle some whopper contractions. Unfortunately, my blood pressure dropped dramatically and the doctor had to turn the epidural off. They kept the Pitocin on, however, and I dilated from 5 to 10 cm in twenty minutes. I kept telling the doctor that I had to push and she kept saying "I just checked you and you're only at 5 cm." Well, I insisted and she did another internal exam, and, lo and behold, I was at 10 cm already. She told me I could start pushing - what a relief. After about an hour and 15 minutes of intense pushing, the doctor said that the baby's head was stuck underneath the pelvic bone. She asked me if I wanted her to use a vacuum to extract the baby. I was so exhausted from pushing that I said yes. It was incredibly painful while the vacuum was being inserted but I kept telling myself it was all going to be over in a few minutes. Boy, was I wrong. It still took another 10-15 minutes to push the head out and then the baby's shoulders got stuck. It's called shoulder dystocia where the baby's shoulders are too big for the birth canal. Things got very hectic all of a sudden. Within seconds, the room filled up with about 9 or 10 doctors and nurses and my doctor was asking if anyone had called for the "red team" yet. By this time, the epidural had completely worn off and I was feeling everything. When the doctor performed an episiotomy I screamed at her because it hurt so much. The doctor then inserted her arm up the birth canal to grab the baby's shoulders and she told my husband to push as hard as he could on the top of my belly to try and push the baby out. I was screaming my head off at this point. My doctor yelled at me to focus and concentrate and something within me snapped. I knew I had to stay in control in order to get this baby out in one piece. Finally, at 12:25 a.m on November 29th, Sarah was born. I felt tremendous, tremendous relief. Sarah was whisked away to start her breathing (she had not been breathing for over 4 minutes while her shoulders were stuck). It turned out she was completely healthy. Her Apgar scores were 7 and 9.

I started hemorrhaging afterwards and I had to be stitched up so it was a while before I could hold her but what a great feeling to finally meet her. She weighed 8 lbs, 8 oz. and was 20 inches long. She is now almost three months old and weighs over 13 lbs. She's an absolute doll and I would go through it all over again in a heartbeat.

Sarah's mom