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That said............ here is Noah's birth story.
My husband and I were married just 6 short months when we decided to start a family. Almost immediately we both knew I was pregnant and were overjoyed. Being a first time Mother I didn't know much about Midwives, homebirths or birthing centers, like most women I thought pregnancy= OB's and Hospital births. So I went ahead and scheduled an appointment with the Ob that my friend's Mother had used.
I joined an AOL pregnancy support board where I was exposed to all types of women. Some of them were planning homebirths others who had birthing center births planned, of course most had planned hospital births like me. I found myself thinking about how "awesome" those other births sounded. I brought up to my husband the idea of having one of those types of births and he of course thought I was nuts. And that was the end of that.
We attended childbirth education classes. We had a great teacher who was a nurse at the hospital. On the last day of class we had our hospital tour. They brought us into a regular birthing room and then over to the operating room, where the C-Sections were performed. As we stood there looking at the doors to the operating room, I had this feeling that this was going to be where my baby was born. Soon after the tour I began having these dreams of C-Sections. In my heart I knew that I was going to end up with one, but tried to keep those thoughts out of my head and focus on the natural birth we had planned.
The day before my due date I was given a "routine" check for dilation and effacement. The doctor had also taken it upon himself to strip my membranes. I was in pain the rest of the day and the entire night.
My water broke at 8:15 am on October 1, my due date. I wasn't even sure it was my water right away because I was expecting it to be clear, not multi colored, so I called my doctors office and they weren't open. I called L& D they told me to go there. I arrived at 9am and I was soaked by that time and knew for sure that my water had broken and the doctor didn't even do a test because it was obvious that my water had broken. I was admitted at 10 am and told to walk around to try and start contractions. We walked around the maternity floor for an hour then returned to the L&D room. At 2pm I was still not feeling contractions, so they started me on pitocin around 2:30. I started feeling contractions, but they didn't really hurt until around 5pm. At 5:30 the nurse suggested that I take something for the pain, I had told her I didn't want drugs, but I gave in and let her give me Demerol. I really just wanted her to leave me alone and stop asking. It took the little pain I was feeling away, but left me nauseous, dizzy and very tired. At about 8pm the contractions started to become painful. I was at 5cm and again was pressured by the nurse and gave into drugs and got an Epidural at 8:20. No sooner was the epidural started did the baby's heart start to decel with each contraction. I thought nothing of it and the nurse just watched the monitor. I sent Nick (my husband) to the car and get the camera. About 30 seconds after he left the baby's heartrate dropped under 100 with every contraction.
They had me put on an oxygen mask and called the doctor. Before I knew it there were about 7 nurses and doctors in my room. They told me Noah's Heart rate was dropping and they were taking me into the operating room to be monitored. As I was being rushed to the operating room Nick was on his way back to the room, he saw people running in and out of my room and was scared because when he left the room everything was fine. Meanwhile, I am in the operating room and all of a sudden it's not to be monitored, I was going to have an emergency C-section. So they sent Nick to get scrubs on while they started my surgery. He came in as the doctors were making their first incision and was able to see Noah being born at 8:46 pm beautiful and, more importantly, healthy.
After the birth I was given two different stories. I was told that Noah's cord was wrapped around his neck by one nurse and that his cord was prolapsed by another. Oddly enough there is no mention of either in my records.
They had me put on an oxygen mask and called the doctor. Before I knew it there were about 7 nurses and doctors in my room. They told me Noah's Heart rate was dropping and they were taking me into the operating room to be monitored. As I was being rushed to the operating room Nick was on his way back to the room, he saw people running in and out of my room and was scared because when he left the room everything was fine. Meanwhile, I am in the operating room and all of a sudden it's not to be monitored, I was going to have an emergency C-section. So they sent Nick to get scrubs on while they started my surgery. He came in as the doctors were making their first incision and was able to see Noah being born at 8:46 pm beautiful and, more importantly, healthy.
After the birth I was given two different stories. I was told that Noah's cord was wrapped around his neck by one nurse and that his cord was prolapsed by another. Oddly enough there is no mention of either in my records.
Later I learned two things: 1. That stripping membranes can cause your bag of water to break prematurely which can cause the cord to prolapse, and 2. That having an epidural can effect the baby's heart rate.
I will always be left wondering what exactly led us to the c-section. Either way, I am who I am today because of it and I was able to make peace with it. I have become very passionate about natural births and went on to have two other babies, whose birth stories are both posted in the VBAC/HBAC section.(Mali/Ethan)
This picture from what I am told was me holding Noah for the first time. Unfortunately I can't remember it. As you can see I am pretty out of it.
