Third Time Is A Charm?

Posted on: June 29, 2015 | Postpartum

My third birth proved to be another completely new experience.

During this pregnancy, I tested positive for gestational diabetes, which I spent the rest of my pregnancy testing my blood several times a day and bringing my doctor the results.  I was managing everything fine with a change in diet and exercise, becoming more active.  I no longer believe in that diagnosis for any woman, but I did learn that milk has a lot of sugar in it and that I hate having my finger pricked even more than I thought.

I was still standing firm in the fact I did not want to be induced.  I was going to let his baby come whenever they wanted.  We had also decided to let the sex of the baby be a surprise.

I went in for my 40 week check-up and I was sick with something respiratory.  The doctor told me that if I had not been sick she was planning on just having me admitted to be induced, but she didn’t think I would have the energy.  She was going to postpone it 3 days in the hopes I would be over it.  I expressly told her I was not interested in being induced, not to mention that because I cannot take any medication I did not foresee this getting better in a few days.

It was then she informed me, it is “office policy” that she induce on my due date because I had been diagnosed with gestational diabetes.  I once again felt defeated.  My baby’s birth day was taken away from me.

The day of the induction, we agreed my mom would bring me to the hospital and my husband would go to work, after all it would likely be awhile before anything exciting happened anyway.  I showed up for the induction with a full case of bronchitis.  I was so much worse than I had been just a few days earlier and the only thing that had been getting me through was throat lozenges and the throat spray.  I had to have my doctor give written consent that I could continue using them throughout labor.

This time the induction started the same…fasting, enema, water breaking…but instead of being allowed to walk, the nursing staff decided to put me on the EFM (electronic fetal monitor).  I was the last patient in the old rooms and any patients who came later that evening and into the next day were in the new unit.  The nurses wanted to keep me on the EFM continuously so they wouldn’t have to worry about me.  They had more important things to deal with, like setting up their new desk area.  Because they wanted the read to be continuous, I was not allowed out of bed for more than a bathroom break again.  By this time in my life I had developed some lower back issues and laying in one position for too long of a period resulted in excruciating back pain.

At some point I was told that the baby kept moving and the only way they could make sure he was okay was to insert an internal monitor.

Literally screwed a wire into my baby’s scalp. 

I agreed because I was scared into it.  Again, labor became a blur.  I was given Pitocin to augment labor, but that made contractions come one after another with no break in between, which then make them ineffective.  Pitocin was turned off.  I got the epidural, because it was all I knew.  I was afraid of labor and thought I cannot do this without the medication to protect me.

My anesthesiologist was a complete jerk!

Again, I have lower back trauma.  I was twitching with him just rubbing iodine on and he yelled at me.  I tried to explain, but he wouldn’t listen.  I found myself apologizing and crying on a random nurse’s shoulder because once again everyone I know was told to wait behind a curtain.  I waited for the pain relief to kick in, I waited and waited with no change.  The nurse tried multiple times to call the anesthesiologist back, but he ignored her calls.  She decided to open the box the medication monitor was located in and kept bumping it up for me.  I finally felt the effects.

I was numb from my knees to my toes.

So yeah, that is completely useful for birthing a child!!!

At one point I threw up on my nurse, not sure if it was transition or just the fact I was sick to begin with.  I could feel everything and finally got to experience the feeling of needing to push.  We called that poor nurse to my room so many times to check me.  Every time was the same.  I was a 10, but with a cervical lip and they cannot call the doctor in as long as that lip is there, she will walk right back out.  The nurse took pity on me and offered to help.  She allowed me to push while she manually moved the lip back.  That was all it took and baby was ready to come out and doctor came in.

She told me to stop pushing and got her scissors ready to cut me, because clearly that baby needed more room.  Right then I coughed.  One of those huge, body rattling coughs.

Out popped my healthy 8lb 4oz baby boy!

I learned on my own I could do this, I could birth without medication.  I felt it all and it was not nearly as bad as I feared it would be.  I felt terrible guilt after the internal monitor was removed that left my son with a sore on his head and a scab days later still.

After my son’s birth I was introduced to a whole new world.  A world where women supported one another emotionally and physically.  A world where women chose how they labored and how they birthed.

 I discovered I had choices!

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