part 5:
a baby is born!
8:05am notified nurse
the nurse came in and i told her that i felt tons of pressure ...
8:10am complete
the nurse did an internal exam, and sure enough i was complete! so she paged the doctor.
8:30am doc arrives
dr. wise arrived! she came from her house and was by my side, freshly showered, in 20 minutes flat!
8:35am started pushing
doctor wise, nurse bridget, and patrick were all ready to help me as i started pushing. it was nice and calm and i started pushing with the next contraction.
8:40am sunny side up
dr. w sat on the side/foot of my bed, kind of like she was hanging out with me in my dorm room. except it was at a hospital instead of a college. and i was married and my husband was there. and so was a nurse. oh yah, and i was trying to birth a baby :)
but i just really liked that informal, yet intimate, gesture and it immediately put me at ease. she was able to coach me, check for delivery progression, and carry on a conversation. she didn't seem rushed one bit.
after those first couple pushes, she told us all that the baby was "posterior." meaning that the baby was facing my abdomen instead of facing my spine.
shoot! that's why we saw his little eyes when she gave me an ultrasound at triage.
shoot! this also meant that the delivery would be more difficult and take longer.
"When the baby is in a posterior position, the bony part of the head is pressed against the bony part of the pelvis. The pressure of the contractions pushes the head into the pelvis and can cause tremendous back pain. Some women feel the pressure even between contractions."
"Because the posterior position puts bone near bone, it is more difficult for the baby to fit into the pelvis. Posterior babies generally require longer labors, and if the baby persists in a posterior position, second stage may be longer than average as well. This can be fatiguing for a woman.
When the baby remains in a posterior position (5.5% of labors), the mother is more likely to experience a longer than average labor (both first and second stages); the use of synthetic oxytocin to augment (speed up) labor; epidural for pain relief and a cesarean surgery."
normal presentation (occiput anterior):
baby faces mama's spine
occiput posterior presentation:
back of baby's head (the occiput) towards mama's spine (the posterior)
more on why it's more difficult:
besides bone on bone, this is more difficult for the mom because instead of having the skinnier, more pointed part of baby's head leading the way, it is the wider top of the head trying to exit first.
doctor wise explained all this, and i mentally prepared for A LOT of pushing.
8:45am chit chat
the nurse asked if we should try some strategies to turn the baby, but for some reason the doctor didn't want to intervene, and wanted to see if the baby would turn on his own. often a baby who starts in the OP position when labor begins, will turn during the first or second (pushing) stage.
after my first couple pushes, most of my pain went away. there was still pressure in my pelvis and left buttock/hip , but i could really hardly distinguish when my contractions were starting. patrick had to tell me when it was time to push by looking at my monitor.
throughout my pushing and rests, we all just talked. again it felt kind of like a dorm room. i learned a lot about dr. w, and her relationship with her step-daughter and step-son, and about her 6 month old baby. man, i can't imagine being an obstetrician and having my own baby at home at the same time. everyone was getting along well and i felt like we should have brought in some morning coffee and pastries since it seemed like we were just some friends hanging out at 9am. and we even remembered to have me push during most of my contractions. i thought it was funny that it seemed almost secondary to our "deep" conversations.
after awhile the doctor did have me intentionlly skip some of my pushing, just to see if that little guy would turn over.
i thought about how i didn't think that i liked dr. wise when i found out she was the doc on call, and it turned out that i loved having her there and thought she was great.
9:40am the baby crowned
the doctor said that i was doing a great job, and if this baby hadn't been posterior, i would have had him out in under 20 minutes!
and then she asked me if i wanted to feel his head. i was expecting to push way longer, so this surprised me. the doctor was so calm but also excited for me, so i reached down, and yep, felt his head about an hour after i started pushing. our little buddy never did turn over.
sidenote: ok, so while it was really neat to be able to do that, it was slimy and i didn't know where to wipe my hand afterwards. i finally decided that i didn't care and just wiped my fingers off on the bedding. they don't remind you that your hand is going to be gross if you touch your baby's head. so be sure to keep that in mind.
9:50am best seat in the house
i don't really remember any of the pushing after that. i just remember that i felt happy, and that it was seeming easy at this point. dr. wise said that i should sit up a little more so that i could see the baby come out with my last push.
9:51am and just like that, a baby is born
so i positioned myself for the view and with one last push, i watched as a little baby wriggled into my doctor's arms. i was so glad that i watched. it was so surreal, and then i said, "that was so cool."
i hate that what i said was soooo horribly dorky, but i had absolutely no control over what i was saying! at least it captured what i felt, which was awe. it was amazing to feel so present in the moment, to be not only a participant, as the one giving birth, but also to be an observer in what were just such calm and peaceful moments.
i had only glanced piper coming out at the very last second as a frantic doctor shouted for me to sit up (definitely it was a different kind of energy in the room that time!). but this time, i saw the whole thing like it was no big deal.
our baby took his first breath and cried for the first time.
and then he was on my chest.
our baby. on my chest.
i didn't get to hold piper right away, so this was a special first with my second child.
i didn't realize it when i put this on facebook, but you can still see his umbilical cord! whoops!
the doctor asked if the baby had a name, and without skipping a beat, patrick said, "graham."
(so for all the back and forth on the name that was to come, it was this first declaration that ended up being graham's name anyway!)
the doctor told me afterward that had this been my first, she likely would have moved me into a c-section because he just wouldn't turn and he was big, but that everything went very smoothly! his apgar scores were great (8 and 9 i think?), he had blond hair, the greatest chubby cheeks, a deep line across the bridge of his nose, and cute baby feet.
and there is our 8lb 15oz mother's day bundle of boy!
