I set out on my pregnancy journey determined beyond all deterrmination to have a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean). My little princess had other plans…
During week 40 of my pregnancy, we found out that Alex was going to be deploying for Iraq any day. We really wanted to have the baby here in time for him to spend as much time with her as possible but we could only try natural induction methods. As soon as he stepped off the plane from California, operation evict the baby began in full force. For a whole week we walked, ate spicy food, ate italian food, walked, got massages, ate labor salad, walked, ate some more spicy food, ate some more italian food… EVERYTHING we could think of. None of it worked.
On my due date, I had a doctor’s appointment where I requested that my doctor strip my membrane. We had also heard of a natural induction method called black and blue cohosh that we wanted to try. Thankfully, our doctor was on call for the whole weekend so he agreed to let us come up to the hospital on Friday afternoon and self induce using the herbals while on the monitors. We left from the appoinment and went walking (AGAIN) at the Galleria and ate lunch. At about 3 we headed back to the hospital. When we got to the room and hooked up to monitors we realized that I was aleady contracting every 3-5 minutes and 2.5 cm dilated. YES! We got settled in and started the cohosh which intensified the contractions a little bit. By about 9 we were starving and stir crazy and the doctor had told us we could leave if we wanted to so we went to eat and walking (AGAIN) at Walmart to get some things we left out of the labor bag. Contractions held a steady pattern the whole time so we checked back into the hospital at about midnight.
The next morning, contractions had slowed to every 10 minutes or so and I was no more dilated so we decided to leave at about lunch time. We planned to come back the following day around supper time to try a foley bulb over night to increase dilation then break my water the next morning. We went to Alex’s parents house to spend the afternoon and night. Contractions continued varying from 2-10 minutes apart though the night. They got really intense around 2 am so I got into the shower to relax. This slowed them down for a while but soon they picked right back up in full force. When the sun started peaking over the trees I decided to try to get in Donna’s awesome garden tub. One word – Amazing. Things continued to pick up through the morning so we decided to head back to the hospital a little early. We called our doula, Fredia, to meet us there.
When we got back to the hospital on Sunday afternoon, contractions were intense enough to make me stop walking and breathe through them. We got checked into our room and hooked up to monitors. Fredia got there shortly after us and we used a rebozo leaning over the bed for a while to get the baby into a good position in case my water broke before morning. Another client was farther into labor so Fredia had to leave and go help her after about an hour or so. She showed Alex some coping techniques and told me to let her know when I needed her back up to come in.
At around 6 my doctor said I was still at 2.5 cm (very disappointing) and inserted the foley bulb to hopefully get me to 4 or 5 cm over night. After only an hour the foley came out on its own and I only got to 3.5 cm. The hospital didnt have a larger bulb to use so we decided to see how things progressed and break my water in the morning. Labor kept getting harder and harder over night until I decided it was time to call in our back up doula, Bobbie, at about 4 AM. She arrived around 5 and helped me with some labor positions on the birth ball and squat bar that really helped me relax and breathe through the contractions. When my doctor came in at 7 he said I was 4 cm and broke my bag of waters which was clear. I continued to use squat positions to try to move the baby into my pelvis to help me dilate. Contractions started to slow down so I got into the shower to try nipple stimulation. This REALLY kicked things into gear with contractions coming every 90 seconds or so.
After the shower I was just completely exhausted so we decided to get an epidural for a while to try to get some sleep. We also wanted to try a low dose of pitocin while on the epidural to see if things would progress any faster. The epidural was terrible. It hurt going in and the site hurt after it was placed. We think it might have been sitting on a nerve. I finally fell asleep about 1 and slept for 3 hours. When I woke up I started feeling the contractions through the epidural. My doctor checked me one more time before he left and said I was 7 cm. SUCCESS! The pain kept getting more and more intense until I had the nurse come and check it. Turns out they didnt set it up properly and the stupid thing had worn completely off! I decided since the line would have to stay and it was causing me so much back pain that I wanted them to get it fixed and stay on the epi for the rest of the labor. It took 3 hours for them to get it effective again.
The on call doctor came in for the first time at about 8 and when she checked me she said I was only 5 cm! She was very discouraging and told me that no matter what I tried I was going to end up with a c section and that I might as well go ahead and do it before the baby got into distress. We asked for some time to think it through and as soon as she left the room I broke down. I felt so defeated that after all my hard work this woman was telling me that I had already failed. We decided together to try to hold out a few more hours and try to get more upright to encourage dilation and if I had not progressed any more by midnight and the doctor REALLY thought I needed surgery, she would get her butt out of bed at midnight and do it! She didnt. My final doula, Dalia, came in at 11 and really helped me get through the last few hours. We exhausted every single option we had to get the baby to decend and engage to help me dilate. At 3 AM the nurse came and checked and agreed that I felt 5 cm. The baby had been having decelerations with every contraction and even with the pitocin turned off they were not going away.
So at 3:30 we decided to go ahead and prep for surgery. The epidural was dosed up and made me start to shake. I hate those shakes. They finally wheeled me to the OR around 4. Alex told me later that when they began my surgery the burning tool they were using broke and they had to hold towels on my half open incision until they could find somebody to come fix it. I thought they were still setting up their equipment the whole time. When they got started again they said “OH BIG BABY!” as soon as her head was out. Her shoulders got stuck even with the bigger incision and they had a very difficult time getting her out. I could feel them yanking on her head and pulling my body from side to side on the table. Finally, she was born at 425 AM weighing 8 lb 9 oz and 21.5 inches long.
The nurse held her next to my face for a few minutes so that she could smell me before they took her to the NICU for an hour to be observed. She was beautiful! I slept while they stitched me up then we were ready to head back to our room. On the way out, the surgeon assistant stopped me and said that I had made a great decision to have the cesarean. She said she understood that it wasnt what I wanted, but that had I tried to deliver her naturally it would have been very dangerous since her shoulders were so big.
Back in the room, Dalia helped me recover from surgery by just being the amazing person she is. The shakes stopped eventually and they brought little Lyra to me after only 45 minutes. We cuddled up together skin to skin. It was perfect.
Am I glad I got a c section? No. Would I fight through the labor again? Absolutely. But I am at peace with my decision. I know it was God’s plan for her birth. It really served to heal me from Dustin’s delivery. She is here. She is safe. And she is beautiful. What more could a girl want?
