My Birth Story

On November 11, 2014 I checked into the hospital to get induced, I was 41 weeks and 4 days pregnant. I checked in at 7:45pm and after filling out paperwork and answering 100 questions, the induction began.
At 10:15pm I took my first dose of Cytotec, it was half a pill that I took orally. The purpose of the medication was to help get my cervix dilated. When I checked into the hospital I was only 1cm dilated. The plan was to take the Cytotec every 4 hours. They gave me a shot of morphine so I could sleep, and then dosed me every 4 hours through the night. At 10:15am on November 12 they checked my cervix and I still was not more than 3cm dilated. They upped my dose of Cytotec to a full pill. I pretty much just sat around the room watching tv with mom and Mr. Z. It was a long day of waiting. At 3:30pm I finally started feeling very minor contractions. I worked through the contractions all afternoon and waited and waited for something else to happen. At 9pm the doctor finally came in and broke my water. She just reached in with her hand and did something inside and the next thing I know there was a crazy gush of liquid. After that my contractions picked up in intensity and eventually became unbearable. I asked for an epidural at midnight and finally got it at 1am. The anesthesiologist was quick, the process wasn’t horrible with my mom there to hold my hand and help me through it. The nurse then inserted a catheter and ended all opportunities for me to move anywhere. At this point I was still only 3cm dilated, so no progress all day. Once the pain was gone, I was able to finally get some sleep. At about 4am the next morning, November 13, I was finally 10cm dilated. This amazed me because I didn’t think that it would happen that fast. But by 4:45am I began pushing, hoping I’d finally get to meet my baby soon. Unfortunately, my contractions weren’t coming very quickly and the pushing wasn’t getting us anywhere. About an hour into it the nurse gave me Pitocin. The Pitocin was able to speed up my contractions, resulting in me pushing more often. However, 3 hours into pushing and we STILL weren’t getting anywhere. My doctor came in and let me know that she thought that I should consider getting baby girl out using the vacuum. She listed all the terrifying side effects and potential dangers and then reassured me by saying, “but those things are rare.” She told me that I had to make me decision immediately and that she thought it was the only option at this point other than a C section. She said that if baby girl wouldn’t come out with the vacuum that they’d immediately move onto the C section. With the decision made by my teary eyed self, Mr. Z and I were carted off to the operating room to extract my baby. I was terrified. I left my crying mom in the L&D room to worry until someone gave her word.
Once in the operating room I was given explicit instructions about what was going to happen, that the delivery was still all up to me and that baby coming out was all up to how hard and long I could push. No pressure. I waited for my next contraction, closed my eyes, and pushed like hell. A nurse grabbed each of my legs and pushed them back for counter pressure, mr. Z held my hand (I think?) and the doctor worked her magic down below. After 4 hard and long pushes, baby Isabel popped out in one shot. Mr. Z later told me that the doc had the vacuum attached to Baby’s head and pulled while I pushed. He said that he thought that the doc was going to rip her in half during the struggle to get her out. Poor baby. Luckily there was no ripping, only one little girl with a resulting cone head.
After Isabel was born they put her directly on my chest. I finally opened my eyes but couldn’t see much because I was crying. I put my hand on her head and felt her cone head and started laughing! And then Mr. Z started laughing. Poor Isabel. They let Mr. Z cut her cord and then they took her from me. Mr. Z watched her like a hawk and eventually had her in his arms and came to sit by me. The doctor started stitching me up, I had a 3rd degree perineal laceration. I don’t know how many stitches I ended up with but the doc said that it was in a good spot and that healing should be faster and easier than if it were in a different spot. Anyway, after the stitches were done we still had that pesky placenta to deal with. I was not having anymore significant contractions and my placenta was showing no signs of coming out unassisted. So she reached in there (I swear she was up to her elbows!) and yanked it out after several excruciating tugs. She pulled out the ultrasound to be sure that it was all out. FINALLY a I was free to go back to the L&D room to see and hold my baby girl. By the time all was said and done, I think I made it back to the room around 10am.

My story isn’t pretty or how I imagined it’d go at all. I had no idea what labor would be like, what any of this would be like. But what I learned, is that it’s NOTHING like it is in the movies.