Barrett Robert: A Birth Story

11 months, 28 days old

I wrote part of this when B was only about a week old. Then sleep deprivation got the best of me and I couldn't think to finish. I've managed to piece together the rest. This is the first installment of what I like to call "The Week of Barrett" (as if all other weeks aren't about him, but ya know).

Wednesday, Oct 5th arrived with much anticipation. The thing with being induced is that you have a chance to prepare but you also have a chance to obsess and freak out. I was in the former group, Joe was in the latter. That day, I spent off bed rest finalizing all the last minute tasks that I wanted to get done....like write the rest of my Thank You's, finish up every last piece of laundry, clean bathrooms, etc. Joe went into work...thank goodness...otherwise, he would have drove me nuts with his nerves. He came home a little bit late and I had dinner ready to go. We ate (me very little) and packed up to head to the hospital.

Without fail, we arrived a bit late. I had misplaced the video camera charger and did not want to leave it behind but thankfully I found it just in time. We get up to Labor & Delivery with a welcome hello from the nurses. We arrived just minutes before shift change so one of the techs brought us to our room and we waited a bit to get our new nurse for the evening. Wendy, one of the head shift nurses, was assigned to me. I was also given Denise, who is normally a nursery nurse but was being trained in labor and delivery. That night was pretty uneventful. I had to do all the normal prep work...get weighed, pee in a cup and wait. It was a pretty slow going process to start the induction so Joe and I hung out watching baseball. Eventually, I got the IV in place and Wendy came in to give me the cervadil. Um...Ouch! It felt like rough sandpaper...really really rough sandpaper. It had medication on it that gets inserted into the uterus. Unfortunately, lubrication is not allowed. I think I actually screamed. The goal of the cervadil is to get my body ready for the contractions. Prior to the induction, I was having light contractions but nothing that was doing much progress. I was measuring at 1 centimeter.

After the insertion, I was confined to my bed for 2 hours. This meant no peeing. TORTURE. Absolute torture is when you tell someone they have to hold their pee. I can't take it and barely survived. When I think back to the labor process, this sticks out as one of the worst which is pretty stupid. But I'm not even kidding when I tell you I thought I was going to literally explode. I was crying it was so bad. Best thing ever was when they let me go to the bathroom. However, even though I could pee, I still couldn't leave my bed. In comes the bedpan! Try squatting on top of a bed at 39 weeks pregnant to pee in a pan while your husband sits next to you laughing. Just your average evening!

By this point, I'm incredibly annoyed with all the wires and monitors and devices strapped to me, as well. The external monitors were one thing but the blood pressure cuff was another. I wanted to destroy that thing after 5 minutes. It was beyond uncomfortable. It wouldn't stay on my arm and any time I moved, it would be worse. I probably whined to Joe every 15 minutes how much I hated that thing.

Then we began our lame and boring night. I'm sure it was no surprise that neither of us were very tired so we just kind of hung around wasting time watching tv and playing on our phones. About 10pm, I forced myself to unwind and try to get some sleep. The thing with those stupid monitors is that you can't move much without messing with the feed so it was pretty impossible to get comfortable. I had to lay on my back but have my torso laying a bit on my side all while sitting partially upright and then monitors hooked everywhere. Have I mentioned I hated those stupid things?

But I rested and tried to keep calm and centered. Actual sleep didn't happen much because nurses are always in and out checking different things but I was up at about 5am feeling good. Feeling ready. Feeling present. I'd say that was the strongest emotion I had throughout the whole experience. I tried to take everything in. Just after 5am, the nurses came in and took out the cervidil. It still hurt. Not quite as bad but I sure was hoping it wouldn't feel like it did going in. Then, I was able to get in the shower and prep ourselves for the days events. I knew I wanted to be fresh and showering always makes me feel better.

Oct 6th: The day was here for Baby Boy to be born!

After I was ready, my new nurse, Bernie, arrived and got my pitocin ready to go. It was hooked up on the IV but we were waiting for Dr. Bennett to make her rounds before getting it running. I was able to eat some cereal and drink some water which would be the last thing I could eat before delivery. When I have big events in my life, I'm not a big eater (it usually makes me sick) but I tried to force it down so I would have some energy for later. Here we are about 12 hours into labor and it's been mostly uneventful.

I should mention here that when we arrived last night, one of things they wanted to do was check my fluid with a sonogram because I had been low and was the reason for my bed rest. When they checked, Barrett was posterior which means he was facing upward and he needed to be facing downward for a more smooth delivery. Cue back labor....and a slow painful death for me. (just kidding!) So that was a little blip in the labor process at the start but nothing we couldn't deal with.

So, now it's about 8:45am and Dr. Bennett arrives. I get another internal. (Have I mentioned yet how much these suck? Because they do. Not like the cervidil, oh no, but certainly worse than your average pap.) I'm 70% effaced and 3 cm when she decides to break my water and insert the internal monitor. That darn internal monitor was not something I was looking forward to (who wants a tiny screw screwed into their babies head?) but the external monitors were not doing the trick. They were just getting to many fluctuating readings. We moved on with pitocin flowing.

Shortly thereafter, the med student (I originally wrote "med stupid" and I probably should have left it) came in to introduce herself. She was maybe mid-20s, Asian girl, very soft spoken. No clue what her name was but she just kept checking my heart rate and picking up the contraction monitor papers from the machine and saying "ah hem" over and over. It was weird. In this very short span, my contractions started picking up thanks to the "breaking of the waters."

Contractions: Steady, coming every couple minutes. Not fun. Back labor. NOT FUN.

The next two hours are a big blur. I just remember burying my head into the pillow and telling Joe over and over that I hated this. "I don't like this. I don't like this. I really don't like this." Prior to this, I was hoping to go as far med-free as I could.

Ha. Haha. Hahahahahah.

After 2 hours of those freaking pitocin contractions, I was done. Well, I actually asked Bernie for some Nubain to let some of the edge off. I just could not relax. The contractions were coming back to back to back and the last thing I was doing was relaxing and working through them. I was tense which was not good. Bernie obliged and went to get the drugs. I spent the next 10 minutes pretty much moaning. Joe is dumbfounded and seemingly as scared as a little puppy. I wasn't yelling or being neurotic like you see on TV but I was certainly not calm, cool and collected Taryn. I realized that this was not happening and cutting my legs off would be better than spending the next however many hours dealing with this nonsense. Joe went down the hall and caught Bernie as she was coming back to our room with the Nubain. The epidural was on order!

It happens that we were in the hospital during a very busy time for babies. This meant that the anesthesiologist got to my room exactly an HOUR and 45 MINUTES after I put in the towel. I'm not kidding that it was the longest and most awful experience of my life. I wanted to jump out of the 7th floor window in my room. I thought holding my pee for 2 hours was bad.

Then an angel from heaven, Dr. Kelley, arrived to give me those drugs. She was a miracle worker. She set everything up and I had to move to a sitting position on the side of the bed. After signing away my rights, all I had to do was lean over and scrunch my back into an upright fetal position as hard as I could. Joe stood in front of me as I leaned on him for support. See the thing you might not realize about epidurals is that once you start, there is no stopping. So if you get a contraction, you have to breathe your way through it while not moving an inch so as not to paralyze yourself. Fun stuff, people. Dr. Kelley numbed me up with a shot of something. That stung a bit, not bad. Then a contraction hit and I held my breathe for an eternity and pushed through it while she stuck the needle in my spine. That part that everyone worries about? Totally fine. It hardly hurt, I imagine because I was numb, but it just felt like a prick and like a plastic tube or something. Without a doubt, the contractions were 18 times worse than any epidural.

The effects took less than a few minutes. It was amazing. A few minutes later, noon rolls around and the nurses check me again and set up my catheter since I'm bedridden. This internal was a synch and we've slowly made it another centimeter to 4. I was a teeny bit worried that my labor would slow down but now that I was relaxed and happy, I was able to focus on the whole process again...rather than moaning and writhing in pain. The next few hours were pretty uneventful. I was really set on resting as much as possible so I went in and out of sleep.

Joe hadn't had lunch yet and his allergies were bugging him so he went out to get something to eat and to pick up some meds. While he was gone, the baby's heart rate took a big dip to 60. A few nurses rushed in and put an oxygen mask on me. They laid my bed all the way down and forced me to lay all the way on my side. I stayed really calm, closed my eyes and breathed in the fresh oxygen. That didn't work. We switched sides and switched sides again. Bernie was just picking up cords and monitors left and right while asking me to flip and flip some more. Eventually, all was up again and it was as if nothing happened. We're still not sure what the deal was but they wanted me to keep the oxygen mask on. The epidural was giving me really bad shakes and making it hard to monitor my blood pressure so they aren't sure if that had something to do with it. Joe made it back to the room shortly and about had a heart attack when he saw that. He vowed to never leave the room again.

We made it to 3pm when it was time for another check. 6 centimeters and going on 20 hours of labor. It was about this time that my family was arriving. My parents and sisters stopped in shortly to check in but quickly left to do some shopping and get dinner. I was still shaking really badly at this point but feeling great. The epidural was working fantastic still. Everyone takes it differently and mine worked maybe a little too well. I couldn't lift my legs at all, let alone feel them. If I wanted to move in my bed, I had to have Joe literally lift them for me. It was a weird sensation for sure. Everything was pretty tingly and it was uncomfortable to feel "stuck" but gosh, I still freaking loved that thing, shakes included.

The next time Bernie came back in to check me was at 5:15pm. I was pleasantly surprised when she said I was fully dilated. I spent the previous few hours after our visitors left, pretty much just sleeping. I knew that I was going to need energy and the fact that I basically slept from noon to 5 was a godsend. I was still feeling relaxed and ready.

Happy. Excited.

Now, even though I was fully dilated, the nurses said that he was still relatively high up there due to his posterior position. They said we could start pushing right away, and it could potentially take a long time, or I could rest for another hour while he made his way down the birth canal on his own. I decided to wait. Joe called our families to get them back to the hospital and I went back to sleep. Resting comfortable.

The hour passed and we were still hanging around. It was getting to be close to shift change again so I imagined that's why they weren't getting me prepped for pushing. Close to 7:00 pm, the nurses came in and said we might wait just a bit longer. No big deal. I was comfortable and resting but I was getting just a bit anxious, mostly because our guests were in the waiting room for an hour already thinking we were pushing already. I made Joe go out quickly to update them. A little while later, that lovely med student came in randomly. She looked at the machines and then said "Well, he's not quite descending so I think we're going to stop your meds and try the cervidil again in the morning." ummmmmmm....... Still to this day, this chick makes me...speechless. She walked out with zero words from me but I immediately went ape on Joe. No way was this happening! I was fully dilated! That was the dumbest thing I had ever heard! Both of us just sat there trying to figure out what to do next. I actually told Joe he should maybe go back out to the waiting room and update the crowd.

Thankfully, a group of nurses entered right on que. Bernie was joined by Wendy and Denise from the night before who would be taking over the next shift. They all just said "Let's go." And my mouth dropped. Not minutes earlier, some idiot was telling me we were postponing. They got everything set up and I started pushing just before 8pm. I was still very much so numbed from the epidural and couldn't feel a thing. I'm sure my legs felt like boulders because there was no way I could move them even an inch on my own. One of the things that I was really shocked about this whole process was that I was laying completely flat on my back. I thought for sure they would prop you up but they don't. Second surprising thing was the process of pushing itself. When I heard people would push for 2 hours, I kinda just figured they pushed for 2 hours with very little break. That is not how it goes. I'm probably going to get killed for this but the pushing part was easy. Well, maybe not easy but it certainly wasn't hard for me either.

So pushing began. I couldn't feel the contractions so the nurses told me when to start while Joe counted to 10. That first one was rough. All of the sudden, the pressure came flooding down and as soon as Joe got to 10 and I could breath again, I gagged. The whole time I was pushing, I was trying to force myself not to throw up. They got me a bowl and I threw up the little water I had in my system. (I think this is funny because I basically puke at every major event of my life so why not add childbirth to the mix.) After that first push, we were good to go.

It was shortly after that Dr. Bennett arrived. Barrett was still posterior and I just figured I would deliver that way. Instead, doc suits up and manually turns him to anterior. TMI alert: She stuck her entire arm in, up to her elbow, and got him to the position she wanted.

I laid there. lalalalala. Couldn't feel a thing.

And we were back to pushing.

The process for pushing goes like this: when a contraction came, I would push for 3 counts of 10 back to back to back but then rest for a while. The next contraction comes and I would maybe push but I might not. In between each of my pushing sessions, I would turn my head and fall into the pillow. I still had the oxygen mask near so I would put that on and take big soothing breathes while I closed my eyes and relaxed into that pillow. Then we would start another round of pushing. It went by fast but I also had zero idea how things were going. Everyone was encouraging but I honestly felt nothing and was almost in a different state of mind of what was even happening. After about 10 rounds of pushing, at 8:37pm, Barrett Robert was here! 25 hours and 15 minutes total.

Dr. Bennett cleaned him up and put him on me. I can picture it so vividly still and I remember being shocked that it was over. There was no way that he was really there, but he was. He had a huge head and HUGE cheeks which surprised me. They asked Joe if he wanted to cut the cord. "No way, that's what I'm paying you for," he said to the nurses, so I did it. Yes, after all the hard work, Dad over here makes me do yet another thing. :) They cleaned him up while I was stitched up and soon Joe and I fawned over the new love of our life.