Zachary's Birth Story

Zachary's Birth Story

On Wednesday, July 18^th , at 39 weeks 4 days, I went to work as usual. In the afternoon I was talking to a coworker when another coworker came in and told me that my boss thought I should go home because she was afraid I would go into labor at the office that day. I brushed it off and continued my day. That evening, as I was getting out of the car, I felt a small gush. For the next few hours I would feel like I was leaking any time I moved around. Finally I asked a few friends about this and they suggested that I call my OB. Since it was after hours, I called Labor and Delivery instead and they asked me to come in and get checked. Todd and I rushed around getting the dogs ready, finished packing the hospital bag, and headed to the hospital at around 9pm. I texted Q and let her know we were heading to the hospital and would let her know if we were staying so she could head over.

We got the hospital around 10pm and were admitted to triage. They took urine and bloodwork and checked me for fluid pooling. While we were waiting for the test results, Q showed up. Thank goodness because I had no cell phone reception in triage. The doctors came back and explained that my water had broken so we would be staying. They told me that I was having contractions 2-3 minutes apart, even though I couldn't feel them, and I was dilated 1-2cm. So off to Labor & Delivery we went!

I got all admitted and into my lovely johnny and we all settled in for the night. Todd fell asleep pretty quickly, but I couldn't sleep so Q and I stayed up talking and listening to music. Around 5am, the contractions picked up and I could definitely feel them but they weren't overly painful. The doctors (I had about 5 of them) came in and discussed options. I was only dilated to about 2cm and it had been over 12 hours since my water broke so they wanted to find ways to get things going. They suggested that I walk to the halls to try to get the baby to drop more and speed things up and then we would talk about doing Pitocin and an Epidural. Todd and I began walking the halls, but after about 20 minutes of walking, the contractions slowed down and almost stopped!

We went back to the room and the doctors came back. They suggested that we start Pitocin to speed up contractions and then once it got painful, I would get an epidural. The anesthesiologist came in to talk to me and I signed a consent for the epidural The nurse suggested that I take a shower at this point because I wouldn't be able to once the medication started. So I showered and changed johnnies and they started the Pitocin in my IV at about noon. Within an hour, the contractions had picked up and were very painful so I asked for the Epidural. The doctor said that the anesthesiologist was about to go into a C-section so we needed to either start the epidural now or we would have to wait until he came back. I decided that we should do it now because I didn't know how long it would be before it got to be too painful. 

The nurse suggested that I go to the bathroom before the epidural because I wouldn't be able to get up once it started. She also told Todd he had to leave and suggested that he go get lunch. Q had gone home for a few hours to see her kids and husband and get something to eat. I went to the bathroom and when I came out, Todd was gone and there were 3 doctors there whom I had never met before. I was having very painful contractions at this point. They told me to sit on the bed, lean forward, and roll my shoulders forward. The nurse stood in front of me and held my shoulders forward. I tried to grab onto her when I was having a painful contraction, but she pushed my hands away and told me that I had to hold still. By this point I was in tears from pain, exhaustion, and confusion. The anesthesiologist applied numbing agent to my back, but it wasn't enough and it felt like he was drilling a hole into my spine while I was also having very painful contractions. I kept having to ask him to stop during contractions and he would tell me that I hold still. Finally he realized that the numbing agent wasn't working and applied more. I was crying hard and he had to insert the needle several times because I was shaking and he couldn't get it placed right.

After the epidural was placed, the nurse told me that I should sleep. But she kept coming in the room every half hour or so and having me change position to keep Zachary on the monitors. Some of the positions were very uncomfortable and I couldn't sleep at all. Around 5pm, the doctors came in and checked me and found that I was fully dilated but had a little bit of cervix that wasn't fully effaced. Zachary was at -2 station. I was feeling a lot of pressure at this point, but they told me that I had to wait to push until I was fully effaced or I could damage my cervix. The nurse suggested that I get onto my hands and knees to try to get the baby to come down more and finish effacing the cervix. This was incredibly painful and I was having contractions right on top of each other. Everyone was reminding me to breathe through the contractions because I kept forgetting. At one point the nurse was bent over looking to see if the baby was crowning and reminding me to breathe and she was blowing on my behind. I freaked out and started yelling at her.

I started feeling a ton of pressure and knew that I needed to push so I asked the nurse to call the doctor. She said that she didn't think I was ready and we might have another hour before I would be. I yelled, “No way do we have an hour! I am not doing this for another hour! Get the doctor!” She wouldn't call the doctor though and kept moving the monitor around trying to get the baby's heart rate to register. I kept screaming for her to get the doctor and finally I think the doctor heard me and came in. He told me that he wanted me to wait 10 more minutes and then he would check to see if I could push. I calmed down and agreed. At the 10 minute mark, he came back and checked me and told me that it was time to push. The other doctor said that Zachary wasn't moving down and they may need to use vacuum extraction to get him out because he seemed stuck. I agreed to this, but wanted to try to push first. At 6:18pm, I started pushing. I didn't know it, but Zachary's heart rate was dropping very low with every contraction and the doctor had mentioned a C-section. I pushed a few times and the doctor checked and found that Z was crowning. He mentioned vacuum again, but I pushed really hard. Then I heard the nurse yell, “We need a pedi team for a bradycardia baby!” I heard more doctors rush into the room. I pushed as hard as I could and he was out! He didn't cry right away but Todd and Q went to be with him. He was purple and had the cord wrapped around his neck. They removed it and he pinked right up and started to cry. Q reassured me that he was okay and finally they brought him to me.

Zachary Colin born 6:25pm on July 19, 2012. Weight 6lbs 12oz and 19 in long.