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Hannah's Birth

This is the story of Hannah's birth. I write this in preparation for the birth of Hannah's sibling later this year. I conceived while I was a graduate student living in New York (city). My husband, who works in Western Massachusetts, was on sabbatical in NYC with me, but his sabbatical ended when I was two months along, and we went back to our normal pattern of weekend visitation. We planned to have the baby in NYC, then move to MA when she was a few weeks old. That way, I wouldn't have to switch doctors. Once I got into my second trimester, the doctor began telling me that I seemed large for my dates. By the third trimester, he was doing extra glucose tolerance tests (to check for gestational diabetes that could lead to a big baby), and giving dire warnings about how large the baby seemed to be. About a week before my due date, I found out that this doctor had stopped delivering babies while he was involved in a malpractice suit. So our plan for continuing with our prenatal care provider was shot, and I moved north a few days before my due date.

I had my first appointment with my new doctor just before my due date. I liked him very much; he was warm, caring and competent. When I got to be a week overdue, I asked the new doctor how large he thought the baby seemed to be. He said it seemed "just right", in other words about 7.5 pounds. I felt very relieved to hear this after being told so many times by the other doctor that the baby was going to be huge. I was still a bit worried though, becuase my baby had not "engaged", i.e. moved down into my pelvis, like first babies are supposed to. She was still "floating." After another week, I still hadn't gone into labor, and the baby was still not engaged. I should add that at this point, I was gigantic. I know that lots of pregnant women feel huge, and it's not that unusual. Truly, though, complete strangers would ask if I was OK, whether I should really be up and around, etc. It's funny, too, that I had gained only 11 pounds over my prepregnancy weight, "thanks" to feeling lousy and losing weight through the first and well into the second trimester. I felt dreadfully tired by this time, too, and was getting tremendously sick of people asking why I hadn't had that baby yet.

At two weeks overdue (and still not engaged), then, the doctor decided to do a biophysical profile (BPP), to assess how the baby was doing. This was a really fun "test" to have, since all it really is is a fancy ultrasound exam. The technician asked did I know what I was having, and did I want to. I didn't, but I sure did want to; I'd waited long enough to find out! She asked what direction the baby was facing. I told her, and she squirted a little goo on the correct area, put the probe there and exclaimed, "Look at those hot dog buns! It's a girl!" I was ecstatic; I really wanted a girl! We saw Hannah in all her glory in there, from ten tiny toes, to her cute little sticking out ears. It was the next best thing to having her born. The last thing that they did was to assess the size of the baby. They said that the estimated weight would be correct to within plus or minus one pound. The estimate was 10 pounds, i.e., anywhere from 9 to 11 in reality!

This scared the pants off of me, and my blood pressure (never high before) suddenly went sky high. I was put in a quiet room to calm down. It did not work. Finally the nurse told me that with a BP that high, I would have to be hospitalized, so please could I try to calm down! Eventually I did, and then went in to see the doctor. I begged him to induce me. I was late; the baby was huge; I was pooped! I couldn't keep going, and I wasn't even in labor yet! I would take walks trying to get labor to start and/or to get the baby to engage, and in addition to all the people who would stop me to ask if I really ought to be out walking (on a (very flat) trail around a lake), I would quite literally have to take a nap afterward, it was that exhausting at that point. In addition, my mom, who was going to come help me with the baby, was leaving on a long trip, and would be unavailable if I went on much longer. The doctor finally gave in when I explained all this, so I was scheduled for induction by pitocin that next Monday.

I went to the hospital at before dawn, and had the pitocin started. I had very very mild contractions that lasted all day long, and did not hurt one bit. They also did nothing in terms of pushing the baby down or opening the cervix. At about seven that night I was sent home. What a drag. Everyone was being very nice, and joking about how I'd probably be back before the night was through, and that I'd surely not be seeing the doctor in his office on Wednesday (my next appointment). Well, Wednesday came, and in I went for another visit to the Dr's office and another BPP. This time, there had been a decrease in the amount of amniotic fluid, so I was scheduled for an induction, this time with artificial rupture of the membranes, the next day.

That night, we went out for dinner, and came home on the bumpiest road we cound find, at top speed, to no avail. I spent the night in extreme physical discomfort--though at the time I had no idea why. I was in constant pain; no coming and going like contractions were supposed to be. In the morning, my underpants were wet; I thought the baby hd pressed on my bladder while I slept, and I'd lost control breifly. No fluid was leaking in the morning. We went to the hospital, and got my IV started. The doctor came in to rupture the membranes, and found he couldn't get any fluid to come out. Eventually we decided that my "accident" the night before, had been my membranes rupturing themselves. The nurse came in to put on the fetal monitor. She asked which way the baby was facing. She had been facing my right side for the past three months, and I told the nurse so. The nurse tried to get the heart beat, no luck. (Fortunately, Hannah was still squirming and kicking, so this did not worry me at all.) Then she tried the other side, and bingo! Hannah, after not doing any major moving since the end of the seventh month, had turned--maybe that's what had been hurting me so much in the night.

Once the Pitocin was started, labor got going fast, with painful, regular contractions that lasted 90 seconds each and came every three minutes. I knew that I ought to walk around, and at first I did try to, but with the monitor plus the IV that we had to drag along, I felt plain silly. On top of that, the only place to walk was out in public, and I was leaking and bleeding from the amniotomy (and therefore making a mess everywhere I went), and didn't like to be out in public in a hospital johnny. I sat in a rocking chair, getting up to go to the bathroom every hour or so. In retrospect, I feel I should have made more effort, or at least been less concerned about inconveniencing the labor nurse, but it really seemed (to me--she certainly didn't complain) to be a pain in the neck for her to move the monitor and the IV and me, and whoever had to clean up my drips, would have to get to work... I just couldn't do it at the time. Hours went by, but dilation was very slow. The nurse asked if I would like pain medication. I had no serious objection, and everybody seemed to think it was a good idea, so I had Demerol. This wasn't exactly pain relief; the pain was the same, but I dozed between contractions. More time went by, and I seemed to be stuck at four centimeters. It was evening by now, and after being at 4 cm for several hours, I had an epidural on the idea that I needed to sleep and regain some strength. The epidural gave instant and complete relief, and I slept until it wore off. During all this time, Hannah never moved down. Still, it didn't occur to me that there was anything wrong, or abnormal about this labor. First labors can be long, right?

Well, eventually, at about ten that night, I was at eight centimeters, and the doctor decided to put a scalp monitor on the baby, and an internal monitor in me to measure how strong the contractions "really were." The internal monitor showed that the contractions were apparently not all that strong, and the baby still had not moved down. At this point the doctor ordered that I be prepped for a C-section, but to let them know if I felt the urge to push. I, because I had left my wits at home by mistake, still didn't believe I would have a C-section. I thought to myself how surprised they'd all be when the baby came popping out in a little while. I did have the wit to ask to be gotten up into a squatting position, since I knew that that was supposed to open up the pelvis as much as possible. I squatted for two hours while we waited for the operating room to become available, but I never felt an urge to push.

We went into the delivery room, and everyone bustled around getting ready. I sort of lay there in a daze; my blood pressure was pretty low, and I was sort of out of it. Denial was an important defence mechanism for me, I suppose, since the idea of surgery of any kind really scares the hell out of me. As soon as the reality hit (when the anesthisiolgist began to try to tie my arms down), I went into a complete hysterical panic. Fortunately, the doctor told him not to tie me down, that my husband would hold my hand, and I wouldn't move. This was really the low moment for me. This terrible thing was about to happen, like it or not. I had not done my job as a mother and gotten this baby born; I couldn't even go into labor by myself, let alone actually deliver. Every cell in my body protested against what was about to happen, but I could not do anything about it or I'd be physically restrained. I think they may have slipped me something in the IV to get me to calm down at this point, because somehow, I did.

The operation proceeded, with the doctor starting out telling me exactly which layer he was cutting through now--information I did not want. I said so, and he replied that they'd just talk about baseball, then, and they did. It was very soothing. (I really like this doctor; he was unabatingly nice to me even when I felt like a wreck.) They got into my uterus, and started trying to get Hannah out. The doctor remarked that, "She isn't going to come out this way either." The cord had wrapped around her neck during the night while she'd been doing all that moving around. They check the cord during the BPP, and it hadn't been wrapped the day before. They unwrapped the cord, and pulled her out. I couldn't see, but my husband exclaimed, "She's bright blue!" All I could think was "Cry, baby, cry!" She was silent for what seemed like a long time, but finally started crying, much to my relief. As they whisked her over to the table to get checked by the pediatrician, she pooped and peed all over the floor. They bundled her up, and held her for me to see for a few minutes. I didn't get to hold her, and didn't feel like I could see her very well; I had to sort of crane my neck and look backwards.

The doctor started stitching me up, and the anesthesiologist told me he was putting the Duromorph into my epidural, and that would keep me out of pain for the next 24 hours. The Duromorph only "took" on one side, and I started to be able to feel the stitches going in. Things get hazy here, I started to faint, and heard a nurse ask whether I was in pain. I thought I had been moaning or screaming, or saying something, but apparently I wasn't. I managed to nod, and they realized what was happening. The nurse came back with a shot to relieve the pain. Somehow I was in recovery, and my husband was there asking whether he should "stay". I had no idea what he was talking about and yelled at him that he could do nothing for me, and to go. Turned out he meant should he stay overnight in the room with me, which would've been great, but I didn't understand and wanted him to go to Hannah in the nursery, not stay and watch me writhe. He went to the nursery and held Hannah. A nurse took pictures, and he looks so intent on her! Then he left. So the first time I saw my daughter really, I was alone.

She was so perfect, and beautiful, and worth all it had taken to get her born. She nursed like a champ from that very first time, and I could tell, we were going to be just fine. The feeling of failing because of the C-section still (almost seven years later) has not completely gone. For a couple of years after Hannah was born, I had the crazy notion that I had to get pregnant again, not because I wanted a second child just then, but because I wanted to have a chance to get it right. Fortunately, I did not act on this impulse and end up having a baby for the wrong reason. Now that I am actually pregnant again, I know that the kid I'll produce is the reason I'm going though all this. I still hope, though, that things will be different this time around.

Beth