Finn is Here!

JJ just took Finn out of my arms and told me to take a 15 minute mental break and that they would be in the other room. I figured this would be a great time to update the blog with our birth story while it is still fresh in my mind. Just to warn you, I'm going to share all the graphic details, so if you're queasy or uninterested, do not read on.

On Wednesday morning I was officially ten days overdue. I was so ready for Finn to come. It wasn't that I was feeling so terrible, I was just mentally ready to have that baby in my arms. I decided that I was going to take a serious power walk in hopes of getting labor going. So I did just that. For 45 minutes, I trotted around my neighborhood at a much faster pace than I had been strolling for the last six weeks or so. As I was walking I was having really great, strong contractions.

When I got home, I went downstairs to undress to shower and realized I had lost my mucus plug. I thought I had lost it a few days earlier, but now that I saw what it actually looked like, there was no doubt in my mind that what I had before was not it. I called my midwife and she said, "Congrats, he's coming soon! Come by later this afternoon for a blood pressure check."

I had acupuncture scheduled already, so I went ahead and did that and then headed out to Bella Vie. When I got there, my bp had creeped some more (this had been happening the last few appointments). My midwife said that we needed to work to start encouraging this baby to make his showing. I knew she was serious when she said, "Call JJ and have him come out here. Are your bags in the car?" We weren't messing around anymore.

At about four o'clock, JJ arrived and the journey began. We started with doing some rounds of Castor oil. I took three doses, which should cause diarrhea pretty quickly, but apparently I have bowels of steel, because they didn't do anything to me. I finally started having some stomach pains around midnight. Along with the stomach pains, contractions started right up. We called Maryanne, who was going to be a helper (I called her JJ's doula!) and she spent the night out at the birthing center helping me work through the contractions, which felt very real and strong by about three in the morning.

That morning about 5am, MA and I told JJ to go upstairs and get some real sleep and Maryanne and I would work though the pain and get him up in a few hours. We did this, but by about seven, the contractions had all but stopped and I was able to get a few hours of sleep (the longest stretch I've had since then, by the way). After I woke up, the midwife thought it might be wise to try nipple stimulation, so she gave me the breast pump and had me pump for 20 minutes. The contractions were relatively intense during this time, but again, stopped as soon as the pumping stopped.

At that point, my whole birthing team came into the room to talk with JJ, MA and I about what our best next step was. They gave me three options:

1. Go home and wait to go into labor naturally. They were not supportive of this option, however, because of my blood pressure and the fact that Finn would not be monitored at all when I was at home.
2. Stay at the birth center and have my bag of waters ruptured. They also were not very fond of this idea. They said that if this was a second or third labor, they'd do it, no problem, but being my first they felt like it wasn't the best environment for breaking the water and having an unknown result.
3. Head to the hospital for a medical induction, including having the water broken there and possibly moving to Pitocin if that didn't work.

They left JJ and I alone for a bit and we weighed our options and felt like our safest best option was #3, to continue the induction at Salem Hospital. My midwives went with us and as we got settled, we found out that my good friend Lauren is friends with one of the labor and delivery nurses and she asked to get switched to work with me during my labor, so that was really nice.

Here's how the first few hours went. I registered, got settled in my room and the hospital staff ran a few labs to make sure they had a full picture of my medical status. When those came back, Dr. Cely broke my water right away, with the hope that it would send me into contractions. It did not. He came back an hour later and said he'd like to start Pitocin and asked if I'd like an epidural. Since we knew this was what we were getting into when we left the birth center, we agreed on the Pitocin, but I told him I was planning on laboring without pain medication. He basically said, "Good luck" and had the nurse start me on Pitocin right away.

Well, I showed him and everyone else that was doubting me. I labored away for about ten hours through ridiculously difficult contractions (Pitocin is a monster!) without pain meds. In fact, I didn't even have one moment of consideration. I was totally able to handle the pain through the strategies I learned in our Bradley Birthing Class. It was very empowering.

All this time the doctor would come in periodically to do a cervical check. When I left Bella Vie and arrived at the hospital, I was 90% effaced and 4 cm dilated. Each time he would check, I made great progress. The first time, I hadn't dilated anymore, but I was 100% effaced. After that, every time he came in, I was at least 1 more cm dilated. It was so encouraging and I think a big reason I did so well without an epidural.

As they kept turning up the Pitocin, the contractions continued to get more and more intense. Very tough and I'm sure I was whining and not a great joy to be around at that point. Oh, I forgot to mention my favorite part about the labor. I went in thinking I would need a quiet, dark, intimate experience but it was actually the exact opposite. I had a party with some of my favorite women (and my lovely husband, of course). At one point I had Maryanne, my mom, Christi Kurtz, two midwives, two nurses and a doctor all crowded around me, encouraging me. I look back at those hours, even though I was in a lot of pain, as a really special time.

When I got to 7 cm, things started to really get intense. I was still doing fine, not asking for anything to help with the pain, but I needed it to be a lot more quiet and still as I worked through the pain. After about three more hours of labor, Dr. Cely came in again to check on my progress. He checked me and I was still at 7 cm.

I literally lost it at that moment. I went from what in my memory was a strong, laboring woman who was holding it together, to a blubbering wimp begging for an epidural. The thought that I had just spent the three longest hours of my life and hadn't made any progress (at least from my perspective) just put me over the edge. JJ tried really hard to get back into my brain and remind me that I could do it, but it didn't work. It also didn't help that even one of my "out of hospital" midwives thought it was probably the right decision for me at that point- although she was looking at my blood pressure that was continuing to creep and telling us that an epidural usually does lower the blood pressure. That was all the excuse I needed. I literally begged and cried and whined until the doctor came in and gave me one.

Then I just curled into a ball and was gone. I remember feeling like I wasn't even a part of the scenario anymore. Everything felt different, voices more quiet, the music muted. It was kind of surreal. At one point, my midwife came over and told me that my blood pressure had dipped really low (78/35 JJ later told me) and that they were working to get it back up, but I really wasn't conscious of anything that was going on. All of this convinced me that I won't be getting one next time around.

The next thing I remember is there were a lot of people in my room crowded around the monitors. JJ walked over and asked if I knew what was happening. He had to explain to me that it had been awhile since I had the epidural and that I was now dilated to 8 cm and that Finn had moved down one station lower. He also said that with each contraction, Finn's heart rate was dipping pretty low and everyone was concerned about it.

At that point, Dr. Cely walked over and we had a really great conversation. Again, he gave me some options.
1. Have a c-section right then. This was his recommendation. He felt like the information he had was leading us that way anyway and that he'd rather get going before it turned into an emergency.
2. Turn off the Pitocin to see if my body would continue to labor on it's own, but less harshly and possible put the baby in less stress.

We chose #2, so the Pitocin was turned off. After about a half an hour, my contractions had spaced about 8-10 minutes apart and were barely noticeable on the monitor. So, at this point, labor had basically stalled and we had some decisions to make. Dr. Cely came over again and told us to discuss our options. JJ and I both cried our eyes out as we made the decision that it was probably best to have the cesarean. During that time, even though contractions had basically stopped, Finn's heartbeat dropped drastically low twice. Dr. Cely came over and said, "I think Finn might be trying to tell us something."

As we were about to voice the decision that we should probably have the surgery, my midwife came over and had a wonderful conversation with us. I am so thankful for this and think that it has had so much to do with the fact that I am not upset about the course this labor took. She told us first, that some women really grieve this turn of events and that is was perfectly okay for me to be upset and frustrated with some of the decisions that we made. She also said to remind myself of our number one goal: healthy mom, healthy baby. At that point, a c-section was the best step to get us to that goal. The best thing she said, though, was this: sometimes a c-section is very eye opening. She said that often once you get in, you see why the body was not progressing. She was completely right.

They wheeled me in for the surgery, which was not an emergency, and after prepping everything, cut me open. It was easily the scariest moment of my life. Once they started getting Finn out, they found out likely why I had stopped progressing much at 7 cm and why Finn's heart rate kept dipping.

First, Finn has a huge noggin. I've never been a big believer that a baby can't fit through his mother's birth canal, but it looked like he probably wouldn't have made it through mine. His head was so misshapen and at completely the wrong angle. He was pulled out with the most amazingly, crazy cone head I have ever seen. He put that old SNL skit to shame.

The second thing we found out during the surgery is that Finn had the cord wrapped around the neck. Now babies are delivered all the time with a wrapped cord, this was likely what was causing the drop in heart rate, not the epidural. This was huge for me to find out, because for the last hour I had been mentally whipping myself for my decision to get the thing. I don't remember this, but I guess I kept saying "Damn epidural!" and "I shouldn't have gotten that stupid epidural!" over and over. I think it was important for my sanity that I know that one decision made during a time of weakness did not likely cause the whole mess.

Besides ending up at the wrong terminal, I ultimately reached the destination of mommy-hood and couldn't be happier. We've had some breastfeeding issues (which can wait for another post) but other than that, he is just the most perfect child ever. About every half an hour JJ just randomly says, "Honey, he is so cute!" And, well, he is...

Finn was born at 2:50am on Friday, March 19th. He weighed 7 pounds, 13 ounces and was 20 1/2 inches long.