The Birth Survey Booby Traps

Birth Stories
Emily's Birth

baby foot pink

On December 20 I was two days past my due date, I went to my husband's Company Christmas party where everyone decided I was "ready to drop." I had a small contraction before going to bed then at 4:45 A.M. December 21 another contraction woke me. I figured it would be a while before we had to go to the hospital so I went to the bathroom and returned to bed. That's when my water broke, a huge gush of water. I jumped out of bed and began yelling at my husband to get up. We called the hospital because they had told us at the childbirth classes to come in if my water broke.

We called our families (my husband is in the military, stationed in California our families are in Oklahoma and Texas) and I stood on a towel (water still gushing) while he packed the car. We arrived at the hospital within a few minutes (it's only about a mile away). We went in and they checked to make sure it was amniotic fluid (even though it was still gushing) and put me in a birthing room and started an I.V.

Several hours later I had only had a few contractions and they put me on Pitocin. Almost immediately my contractions started coming a minute apart and very strong. At that point they gave me an LIA which is a lumbar injection that does not make you numb (you can still feel the contractions) but takes away the pain. Soon afterwards I began to vomit (they told me many women react that way to the Pitocin) but after about an hour of vomiting every few minutes they gave me something that helped stop the naseua.

They repeatedly took me off and put me back on the Pitocin because they said I was very sensitive to it and it was making the contractions come too strong, too close together and too soon but when off it my contractions would stop almost altogether. Because of the vomiting they couldn't monitor the baby very well with the external monitors and inserted the internal monitors when I was only dialated to 2 cm. The first set they inserted wouldn't work but they couldn't get the fetal monitor out of the baby's head so had to insert another with the first still in. Then they realized that the contractions were so stong they were making the baby's heart-rate drop so they began an amnioinfusion. Also, I had not been able to urinate so they inserted a cathater and inserted an I.V. in my other hand.

They let me start pushing when I was dialated to 9 cm (about 11 P.M.). After two hours of pushing and making little progress the contractions were slowing down and they decided I would need a Vaccum-Extractor or Forceps delivery or they would do a Cesarean.

They gave me a spinal which made me numb from about waist down and took me to an O.R. At this point one of the nurses removed my glasses which was depressing since I can't see six inches without them. I pushed while they made two attempts with the vaccum extractor which moved her far enough down the birth canal they were able to use forceps. They told me it was a girl (born at 2:09 A.M Dec. 22) and held her up for me to see (which I couldn't because they had not returned my glasses) they suctioned her nose and mouth out and cleaned her up while they stiched up the episiotomy. They took me to recovery and said that I could go to the Mother-Baby Ward and hold Emily as soon as I could move myself onto the gurney. I rubbed my legs until I got some feeling in them and about 3:30 could move myself. The labor nurse brought Emily to me and helped get her latched on my breast which she did almost immediately. Emily was beautiful and healthy although a little beat-up. The nurse also gave me an ice-pack for the stiches which helped. The hospital had a rooming-in policy so we really got to know each other before going home. I was glad I got to care for her because as a first-time Mom with no family near it helped me to be more confident.

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After listening to our readers, we found that many of you read a collection of stories during your lunch hour. So we decided to break the stories down into groups of five stories per collection. The newest stories will be added to the bottom.

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