Theo's Birth Story

To begin my birth story I need to note that initially my pregnancy was quite normal and low risk. The only unusual aspect was that my weight gain was sporadic. Some prenatal visits I wouldn't have gained any weight, and then, the next visit I would have jumped ten pounds. But that wasn't much cause for concern. That "normal-ness" however, shifted when I reached my third trimester. Almost as soon as I reach 28 weeks the growth and weight gain began slowly but steadily slipping off the chart. Initially my doctor wasn't too concerned, after all I'd been a bit inconsistent the whole time. But as the growth kept falling further and further each successive week my doctor began referring to potential growth restriction issues and decided that a detailed 38 week ultrasound was in order. 

In Japan, five months pregnant

During the 38 week ultrasound, on Tuesday, July 15, (during which I nearly fainted from lying on my back for so long, since babies can cut off blood circulation in that position) they concluded that Theo was looking very small and recommended we go straight to the hospital for a second ultrasound and potential induction of labour. When we arrived at the hospital everything took ages. The second ultrasound lasted twice as long as the first one because they needed to ensure that Theo was practicing breathing before they would consider inducing, and he didn't feel like practicing for over thirty minutes. So we all sat in a dark room and stared at a scan of his lungs. Then after they wrapped up the ultrasound it turned out that the specialist they wanted had left for the day. Rather than send me home they wanted me to spend the night in the hospital until the specialist came back. 

My last bump picture, at 37 weeks pregnant.

A very sleepless night for me followed and the next day, July 16, we waited till past noon for the specialist. When she arrived it turned out she was somewhat undecided about whether or not an induction was necessary. On the one hand, it might simply be that Theo was small because Andrew and I are small. But given the growth pattern there was the risk that my placenta was no longer providing sufficient nutrition for growth. In the end, after some discussion with her, Andrew and I decided to induce because there was a potential risk of fetal distress if we waited and were wrong. Since I was at 38 weeks it would only be slightly premature, and the potential benefit outweighed the risk.

Hanging out in a hospital, hooked up to monitors, not sleeping and not having a baby.

At 4pm on July 16 they put me on pitocin. Since it was an induction they put Theo on constant heart monitoring, and warned that if his heart decelerated (indicating stress) they would need to do an emergency c-section.  For the next 10 hours nothing happened. I had extremely inconsistent mild contractions. Even after they had increased the pitocin to the highest dose my contractions continued to mild and Braxton hicks-isa. They were so underwhelming I only knew they were happening by looking at the monitor. At 2am (July 17th) my doctor came in and found that after I had dilated half a centimeter since the induction had started. Less than thrilling progress. 

He recommended breaking my water in the hopes that it would kick my body into gear. 

After breaking my water the contractions immediately seemed to jumped from zero to sixty. They got incredibly intense and rapid, with very little time in between for me to recover. I went from ignoring them to suddenly being in high gear pain management. I had researched natural birthing practices and ended up studying both the Bradley method and hypnobirthing. I preferred the technique in hypnobirthing, but once the contractions became so intense it didn't seem like hypnobirthing was cutting it, so I tried switching to Bradley (the techniques are complementary enough that I could). 

It did not work. 

Turned out hypnobreathing was actually helping a lot and I just hadn't appreciated how much my contractions could hurt. I switched back. 

Initially during this time Andrew had been asleep. Since we didn't know how long it would take and I wanted him rested later on. But eventually I got a bit whimper-y and he woke up. I didn't really want anyone to talk to me or distract me, but he very helpfully held a cup of ice. I couldn't get out of bed because of the constant heart monitoring and pitocin IV, since there were cords and tubes hooked in on both sides of the bed.

Even though my labour hadn't been active for very long I quickly began feeling exhausted. I hadn't slept in over thirty-six hours and I felt like I was pouring all my energy into managing the pain and intensity of the pitocin-fueled contractions. After an hour and a half I felt like I was already fading and was I sincerely worried that if I got too exhausted I wouldn't be able to push in the end and I'd get an emergency c-section. I called the nurse and asked if she could check my progress. But since my water was broken she was reluctant to check due to the increased risk of infection. She advised me that I probably had another eight to ten hours to go and warned me that the intensity of my contractions was only beginning. I was, after all, only at the very beginning of labour. 

Then, as icing on the cake, for reasons I do not understand, I threw up. While I had thought that nonstop contractions were the worst, it turns out that throwing up while having nonstop contractions is even more awful. Why? Because your body is involuntarily contracting in two opposite directions, which (for those who have never done it) feels rather like being ripped in half by your own abdomen. 

After another hour of contractions I was convinced that I couldn't handle eight more hours of labour by myself. I had always thought of myself as someone with a high pain tolerance. In fact, I'd been so unconcerned about labor I hadn't really devoted much thought to it. But now, being in labour, I discovered that I was actually a massive wimp and having a baby really really hurt. I'd told the nurses I wanted to try to labour naturally, but the thought of handling progressively stronger and stronger contractions for another ten hours? No. I knew when I was beat.

So Andrew and I discussed it and I ended up requesting an epidural. It took half an hour for them to bring in the anesthesiologist, since it turned out the entire labour and delivery wing was full. When he finally arrived he warned me, before I sat up, that once he started putting in the needle in he couldn't stop and I had to stay still even through a contraction. I acknowledged this, braced myself mentally, and they pulled me up into sitting position. A millisecond after the anesthesiologist began inserting the needle, I began pushing. 

I'm not sure who in the hospital room was the most shocked. I was astonished because I had expected to have hours of labour ahead of me. The anesthesiologist and the nurse both began shouting and the nurse ordered me to scream but not to push. After they finished the epidural they laid me back down and the nurse checked. Turned out I was fully dilated and Theo was crowning. That feeling that everything was impossible and I couldn't handle it anymore was me going through transition.

Then there was a lot of running around and shouting as they raced to prep the room for delivery before I gave birth. They weren't sure where my doctor was and he didn't immediately respond to paging, so they laid out two sets of delivery equipment, in the large sized for my doctor and then also medium in case they had to just grab someone else. The nurse even asked the anesthesiologist when he last delivered a baby. I think she was joking.

Then my doctor came bolting in and got into position. I started pushing and, in between, reminded my doctor that I wanted delayed cord clamping. (It was the only part of my birth plan that I cared about, and I was 99% sure no one had looked at it. Priorities, people.) The nurse kept darting between the bed and the computer trying to enter information during every time I wasn't actively pushing. 

About ten minutes after my epidural, and eight minutes after the doctor arrived, at 5:17am on July 17th, Theo was born.

They lifted him up into my arms and I barked "I want delayed clamping!" 

Of course, he looked exactly like Andrew right down to the skeptical eyebrow quirk. 

Note Theo's skeptical "Andrew-face."

It turned out I had a tiny bit of tearing. But by the time they got around to attending to it my epidural had kicked in and I was totally numb for my two stitches. 

The nurses were both rather sheepish after the fact. Apparently I'm rather verbose and didn't appear to be in any pain. And my ability to converse through my contractions and delivery caused some confusion. But I didn't care. I was must more focused on doing all those cliche mother things, like counting fingers and toes, and wondering over how much hair Theo had.

And it turned out that Theo was actually more than pound heavier than they'd estimated via ultrasound. Six pounds two ounces, 19 1/2 inches long. He didn't have to go to the NICU or get any extra monitoring. He was just perfect.