Cole's Birth Story pt. 1

What a whirlwind!  It's hard to believe that we are all tucked in at home, one big happy family of four!  I wanted to sit down and write out Cole's birth story before I forgot all of the details, but first I re-read Finn's Birth Story from 2 1/2 years ago!  It seems like yesterday.  I thought Cole's delivery was completely different from Finn's- and in a lot of ways it was- but there were a lot of similarities, too.  So it was cool to look back and see that.

After Finn's c-section delivery, and the discovery of my unbridled love for epidurals, I had to go with a different practice for this pregnancy.  I said goodbye to the midwives and hello to a small practice of all female obgyn's in our area.  At my very first prenatal appointment, I told the doctor to go ahead and sign me up for a repeat c-section.  I thought it would be the easiest and safest route, and to be honest, not many practices around here are even willing to let you try to have a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean section), and I didn't even know if my new practice did or not.  In my mind, I had already done the scary dramatic delivery, and I was totally content with a safe and predictable scheduled c-section for the second time around.

Surprisingly, the doctors in the practice- although supportive- questioned my decision.  Over the course of the next few months at my prenatal appointments they asked me questions like "Why would you choose to have a major surgery when you might not need one?" and reminded me how much better a recovery from a vaginal birth would be than a recovery from a c-section- especially with a two year old at home.  I did some thinking, and towards the end of my pregnancy, I decided I'd give a vaginal delivery a shot.  I have heard c-section horror stories and vaginal delivery horror stories- there's really no easy way out- but I thought, hey, let's just see how things go and hopefully we'll end up with the best possible outcome. 

Because Finn was so big and so late, my doctor had me go ahead and schedule a c-section for Cole on his actual due date, Thursday the 5th at noon.  She told me that second babies are generally bigger than first babies, and boys are bigger than girls.  So the decision to take Cole right on time was a good one, as I didn't have much luck with pushing out Finn's huge overdue head, and Cole was stacking up to be just as big or bigger.  The hope was that I would go into labor on my own before then.  Despite having regular contractions and tons of signs of impending labor for the whole last month of my pregnancy, I didn't go into labor.  But by the time Wednesday, September 4th rolled around, I was walking around at 3 1/2cm dilated and 90% effaced, with Cole's head at a -2 station.  That basically means he was halfway born but I wasn't in labor.  My doctor didn't know how I was walking.  We decided maybe he just needed a little kick in the pants to get things moving.  The plan was for my doctor to try to sneak me into the hospital the night before my c-section and break my water to see if that was enough of a kick start to throw me into real labor on my own.  I was supposed to call the hospital at 5:45p.m., right after my doctor's shift started, and then she was going to ask the charge nurse if I could come in.  She said if it wasn't busy, and the charge nurse was nice, then I should be able to head in Wednesday night.

Wednesday night came with the utmost anticipation.  My parents were here to watch Finn, our bags were packed, my floors were mopped, and I had written something like 13 pages of instructions on how to pack Finn's bag for school.  Let's just say I was prepared.  But when I called, my doctor told me that the charge nurse said "no."  Major womp womp.  But there was still hope!  The shift change was at 7 p.m., and maybe the new charge nurse would be in better spirits.  My doctor promised to plead my case to the new nurse at 7 and call me back.  At around 7:30 I got the call.  "Can you be here by 9?" she said.  YES!  We were thrilled.  And we had gotten to tuck Finn into bed one last night before we left, so it all worked out great.

We got to the hospital and got settled in.  I got hooked up to the monitors and Billy tested out the daddy cot he thought he was going to be sleeping on that night.  As much as I have always wanted that suspenseful hollywood rush to the hospital labor, it really is fun to pack your bags and go to the hospital like you're going on vacation.

My doctor came in at 9:30 to break my water and get things moving.  I was super excited and ready.  I was totally expecting to feel a huge fluid rush while she poked around down there and to immediately know that my water had broken, but it didn't work out that way at all.  My water didn't break.  "I'm sure I got it" my doctor said, "But the baby's head is right there, and I don't want to scratch it much harder."  I was instructed to walk around for a while and see if I was going to spring a leak.  Billy and I walked the halls for an hour.  He stole a milk out of the nurse's break room fridge.  I chewed some ice.  Nothing else exciting happened.  We were bored.

We went back to our room and turned on the tv when my nurse came in and discovered us.  "I don't think she got it."  I said.  We waited around a couple more hours, and then around 12:30 my doctor came back to give it another shot.  Again, I expected a huge rush of fluid, but nothing.  Either the baby's head was so low that it was blocking the fluid, or I didn't have any fluid.  We didn't know what to think.  My doctor left us once more, saying we could start me on a really low pitocin drip to encourage to labor if this second water breakage attempt didn't work.  But this time, a few minutes later I felt a leak.  We were in business!  I got up to go to the bathroom and finally my water broke.  Hooray!  My contractions started up like clockwork.  "How would you rate your pain on a scale of 1 to 10?"  my nurse asked.  "Oh, like a 1."  I said.  "I'm totally fine."  We figured it would take a while for things to really get going.  This was around 1:30 a.m.

My nurse left, and all of a sudden my contractions really stepped it up.  I think in the span of 15 minutes I probably had about 6 or 7 contractions, and I wanted no part of it.  No part.  Billy was laughing at me for being so dramatic, but I was not kidding.  "Call the nurse", I said.  "I want my anesthesiologist!"  When the nurse came back in, she thought I wanted a drink or something.  I had gone from a completely comfortable and excited "1 on the pain scale"  to a monster climbing the hospital bed in agony in the span of 15 minutes.  "I don't know if you can have an epidural yet," my nurse said, "you're only at 1cm."  I replied with
"I CAME IN AT 3 1/2 CM AND MY DOCTOR SAID I CAN HAVE AN EPIDURAL WHENEVER I WANT!"  then i wiped the foam from my mouth.
"Oh, that's right,  I forgot."  She said.  She called the doctor who, as predicted, said I could have my epidural.
By some blessed miracle the anesthesiologist came in within 5 minutes and got to work.  He was trying to make small talk but I could barely see, let alone speak.  "I don't know what happened to her," my nurse said, "she was totally fine 15 minutes ago."  Little did she know!

After about 30 minutes my epidural was in and starting to work.  It took a while for it to fully take effect, and I was still really struggling through my contractions.  Once I finally started to feel comfortable, the nurse left.  I asked her when she would come back to check me again and she said "not for a while, it doesn't really matter if you're 3cm or 6cm, it only matters when you're 10cm."
She came back five minutes later.
"I'm going to check you." she said.  "The baby looks like he's really dropped down."  (I guess they can tell these things by the monitor).
Sure enough, I was at 8 1/2cm.  I basically dilated 5cm in 20 minutes.  Billy got a big punch in the shoulder for calling me a wimp during those bone crushing contractions.

The nurse told us to try to get some rest and she would come back in an hour to check me and see if it was time to push.  Billy settled in comfortably on his man cot, but my anesthesiologist had given me a shot of ephedrine with my epidural to keep my blood pressure up, and I felt like I could run a 5k.  I also had one weird little window in my lower left abdomen where the epidural didn't take, and I felt like I had a hole in the side of my stomach that was on fire every time I had a contraction.  It was super weird.  After an hour passed, the nurse came in and checked me.  "You're definitely at 10!"  she said.  "I'm going to go get a drink and pee and then you can try pushing!"  (I swear the MOST casual nurse ever.)

At this point it was about 4:40 a.m.  We couldn't believe how fast everything was happening and how well!  I kept asking how the baby was doing, and he looked great the whole time.  In our minds, we still didn't have a guarantee for a regular delivery.  I was still expecting to be rushed into the OR for an emergency c-section after I pushed some more, just like I was with Finn.  I was fully prepared for that outcome.  

When my nurse came back she told me to push and she'd see how good of a pusher I was and then call Dr. Coldren when we got close.  After push one, she told me to stop pushing and she called the doctor right away.  It was baby time!