August 1, 2011 @ 12:24am
7lbs, 10z

Hi Sue,

Here is the story of how Anna came into the world!  Jessica's labour definitely didn't follow the stages as we expected.  Starting out extremely sporadic and not progressing through all the stages of hard labour and transition.

Jessica's due date was Saturday, July 30th, 2011.  On Thursday morning, the 28th, she had her bloody show.  Contractions started Friday, July 29th during the day - which felt like mild menstrual cramps, slowly getting stronger over the course of the day.  By evening around 7:00 PM, the contractions were about 15-25 seconds to the peak anywhere from 3 to 15 mins apart.  Because the contractions were so sporadic and irregular at this time, we decided the best thing to try to do was rest up and conserve our energy because we thought we were starting labour.  Well almost no rest was had that evening, and Jessica had the same sporadic contractions all night long.  But by about 6:00 AM Saturday morning they had completely faded away to nothing.  Remembering that Sue said that labour can be nocturnal, we emailed her for some advice which was to get active!  So after a quick sleep to catch up on the lack of rest the night before, we were off!!  We walked, lunged up the stairs and onto chairs, did lots of pelvic rocking and vigorously cleaned the house. It started to work because contractions picked up at about 2 that afternoon!!  By that evening, Jessica was starting to get uncomfortable and we were getting prepared to settle in for a night of labouring.  We went for one final walk at 11:30 that night which seemed to actually slow the contractions down.  Jessica was getting aggravated by all the starting and stopping and was afraid that all this work would mean nothing if labour was going to stall again the next morning.  We definitely wanted to get the show on the road!!  Unsure if we were going to have another night of labour just to have it go away in the morning, Jessica sent Mark to the basement to sleep so at least one of them could get some rest.  Over the course of the night though, contractions slowly built so that by 8:30 in the morning, they were lasting up to 45 seconds to the peak every 7-8 mins, but still with sporadic variations.  Jessica tried to eat breakfast, but soon vomited which was exciting as we took this as a sign that we really were going to have our baby soon!

By 10:30, Jessica had started moaning through her contractions but was alert, they were 45-50 seconds to the peak and around 5-8 mins apart.  Over the next few hours she spent time on the birthing ball, in the tub, trying to walk around and on all fours as she worked through increasing contractions.  By 2 o'clock, the contractions were longer - getting to 1 min to the peak almost everytime, around 4 and a half mins apart, but sometimes 3 as well. By 2:30 Jessica was increasingly uncomfortable and had a strong urge to get ready to leave for the hospital.  Mark thought they should wait a little longer, but Jessica had her mind made up to go - she was really worried about the uncomfortable car ride and hoped to just get it over with.  It's funny now, because the car ride really wasn't all that bad at all.  We arrived at the hospital around 3.30 and a vaginal exam showed almost 4 cms dilated which was slightly disappointing as we would have liked to be further along.  We started the EFM test strip which showed the baby's heart rate was actually slowing with contractions instead of increasing.  However, Jessica was convinced this was because they had her on her back.  During most prenatal check ups they found that Anna's heart rate decelerated when Jessica was on her back, but quickly returned to normal when turned to her side.  This proved true when Jessica turned onto her side and the heartrate stabilized almost immediately.  However, the triage nurse was somewhat difficult, having in her mind that she wanted things done a very specific way and was convinced that the brief test strip results indicated a serious problem.  She insisted on having Jessica on the EFM for almost 45 mins before agreeing to let her off.  She also often referred to breaking Jessica's water and starting oxytocin, even though we declined every time and said we wanted things to progress naturally.  Once release from the monitor we were able to walk the halls.  Thats when the contractions started to get really intense,  Jessica would drop to her knees in the hall making lots of moaning noises.  We were getting funny looks from a lot of people passing by, but who cares!

When we returned from our half hour walk we were told that the doctor wanted Jessica admitted just to keep an eye on the heart rate, and thought that it was potentially due to dehydration so started an IV.  We had hoped to avoid an IV, however we figured it was a fairly minor issue and wanted to be careful about the battles to pick.

Once admitted, things began to go much better.  The labour and delivery nurse was amazing and definitely on our side to help us fight for a natural labour.  A vaginal exam showed progression to 5 cms, about 75% effaced, and soon after that Jessica's water broke spontaneously.  Because of the earlier EFM test strips, our doctor wanted Jessica on EFM - but was wonderful about compromising so Jessica could move around and get in the shower. We began by trying the portable fetal monitor, but it wasn't picking up in the shower, so we agreed to alternate every half hour on the EFM and the shower where the nurse would periodically check on the doptone.

By around 7:30 PM we were settled in our new rotation of half an hour in the shower, half out.  Contractions steadily increased in length to the peak, but were always around 3 mins apart.  Jessica went through only 2 rotations of shower and monitoring when she started to feel pressure in her bum and the urge to push.  She was checked but found to still be only 5 cms dilated, but fully effaced.  One more cycle of monitoring and  shower though and Jessica was shuddering with the effort to not push.  Asking the nurse to check again showed that Jessica had progressed to fully dilated in that short amount of time with just a small rim of cervix left.  Jessica struggled to try to ride out two more contractions without pushing in order for the cervix to move out of the way.  At around10.00 PM when she told the nurse she couldn't hold back anymore, she was the given the go ahead to start pushing.

Jessica started pushing on her knees leaning over the back of the bed, but wasn't finding that comfortable.  The bed was set up with a bar and Jessica moved into a squat.  Anna descended very quickly and in about  30 minutes had crowned.  We were sure we having a baby that day as it wasn't even 11 o'clock that evening - but that wasn't meant to be.  Jessica moved into a sitting squat with her feet against the squat bar.  An hour an half later Anna was stuck still in the same crowned position and hadn't moved, her head was just not coming out.  The Dr. had mentioned an episiotomy which at first we declined stating that we preferred to tear naturally.  But after several more contractions and no further progress Jessica could feel her energy was waning.  The Dr. stated her concern that if left to tear naturally Jessica could 'blow out' with extreme tearing and promised to do her best to keep the cut small and control the tearing as much as she could.  After one further contraction and again no progress Jessica realized that she couldn't keep pushing much longer and we agreed to the episiotomy.  With the next contraction the incision was made and Anna made her appearance.  She was placed on mom's tummy right away where she -to the amazement of everyone there - immediately passed the largest amount of meconium imaginable.  Soon the doctors and nurses were less concerned with mom and baby than they were with controlling the flow of poop.  We all had a good laugh at that.  As requested, the Dr. allowed the cord to stop pulsing before having Mark cut it and we were given valuable skin to skin time where Anna immediately latched on.  Routine procedures were all carried out later.  The doctor did a great job with the episiotomy and was able to keep it quite small, mom is healing extremely well.

Some strange things we realized once we had talked through the labour a few days after was that Jessica never had contractions one on top of the other, they were always around 2 to 3 minutes apart, and Jessica was often falling asleep between contractions.  She showed no signs of transition and she also never got to a phase where she was unresponsive and 'in the zone' staying very alert through the whole process.

Overall we are completely thrilled with our birth!!  Though we originally would have said we did not want the extensive fetal monitoring or the epsiotomy, we feel like we made the best decisions given our circumstances and never would have been able to do that confidently if it weren't for Sue and her great instruction!!

Thanks Sue!,

Mark & Jess