December 30th two nurses arrived in my hospital room bright and early at 7:30am to introduce themselves and ask me "So are you ready to do this; are you ready to be induced?" I told them not at 7:30 in the morning but considering I hadn't been able to sleep since 5am, sure! Dr. Graham came in broke my water and we committed ourselves to meeting Sophia. The nurses moved me from my temporary Recovery room home and back into a Delivery room and funny enough it seemed every single nurse that had waited on me over the past two weeks was at the nurses station wide eyed and wanting to confirm that today was really the day?! They were all so sweet and I gave them a beauty queen wave as I walked past the long desk to my new room.Walter and I were really excited that we were going to meet Sophia soon and opted to walk the hospital floor in an attempt to get the contractions moving and bypass any need for Pitocin which I had requested, in my birth plan, not to have this time. Over the past week I had decided I didn't want anything more to go wrong with this pregnancy, if I could help it, and that I thought I wanted to have Sophia natural. In an attempt to prepare myself I watched every natural birthing video I could get my hands on, on YouTube.com and made note to myself the similarities between the women's experiences. Thinking, humm...when did they all seem to experience the most pain, how did they and were they instructed to power through it, how soon did the baby come, and what position seemed to be favored the most. Walter was nervous for me but with a worked out thumbs up, thumbs down system supported me in what ever I wanted to do.
We started walking the donut loop around the birthing center and were stopped three times in our 1hr 1/2 excursion to check the baby's heart rate and check my blood pressure. It surprised us all, even though we all knew I was already at 4 cm and fully effaced, how fast I transitioned through the contractions and how quickly they were one on top of another. One of the nurses kept asking me what my level of pain was and later told me that she thought I had a very high pain threshold. But when she would ask me what my pain level was I would think, well, if my leg were being sawed off I'm sure it would hurt a lot more and this is still doable, and so I kept answering somewhere between 5 and 7 (10 of course being the worst). I did get a mental clarification why all the websites emphasised it wasn't natural to have a baby flat on your back as the nurses asked me to lie on my side so they could monitor the baby, again, and the pain level shot way up. It truly was night and day in comparison. I totally understand why some women squat or stand while having a baby and had my doctor been there and I weren't in a U.S. hospital I would have totally pushed for leaning over the bed and having Sophia standing up. It truely was a lot more comfortable standing.
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Another reason I didn't push harder for what I wanted was because things were just moving really fast and there really wasn't enough time to ponder how much I really cared about the immediate personal question at hand. Until of course I needed to push and they told me to wait. The nonstop, holy cow, ouch, contraction I was having was numbing my senses into why they were asking me not to push and like a good type A personality I was trying to perform at my best. I was also trying to grapple mentally with why they kept inclining the bed in gradual and not predictable increments as I was tightly clutched onto the handrail of my bed puffing through the contraction. I was trying not to push as I could feel Sophia move farther through my cervix, muscles pushing anyway, frustrated that they were asking me to do something that physically wasn't possible, and realized that they weren't inclining the bed, I was, with my forehead. With the contractions and forced self control I was pushing my head into the side of my bed which was pushing the buttons, uh! With a third request not to push, the nurses sounding a little more frantic, I said "It's not me! It's my body, I can't help it!" feeling a little panicked now and overwhelmed. The more veteran'ed of the two nurses said "okay, let's see what we have..." with a kind note of "I know you can't not push, but darn..." and she rolled me onto my back. And as she moved my knee out popped Sophia's head and in one more push her body.
Born in 13 minutes from when we stopped walking the hospital floor it was the doctor who had missed the show and the reason they didn't want me to push. We were waiting for Dr. Graham who was quickly, but not quick enough, coming from his Dr.'s office up the street. I'm still a little irritated about this. Not at Dr. Graham who I have a lot of respect for but for the insurance bureaucracy and sue happy degenerates in the United States who make it so that the doctor needs to be present in the event something goes wrong with the birth; as if there were no other capable people in the hospital to help. I am so grateful that my doctor was so down to earth, practical, and didn't push unnecessary medications and avenues of prevention on us as we waited in the hospital over the two weeks.
In the end we had a beautiful and completely healthy little girl. Born at 12:30pm, 6lbs even, and 18 inches long, Sophia was taken to the NICU to check her blood sugar, oxygen levels, and body temperature. I was totally impressed with Overlake Hospital a new because while they had wowed us with their service with Padon, this time round they brought me a wheel chair and gave me the option to go and see Sophia before her 6 hours was up in the NICU. I wasn't offered the ability to see Padon when he spent his 5 hours in the NICU, didn't even think to ask, and was sad that everyone got to see him before I did. There was no time limit on how long I could stay and everyone was so hospitable.
Replaying the whole experience in my head again and again I am still glad I did it natural. But I feel it important to note, as some women really advocate natural birth, that birth stories vary from pregnancy to pregnancy and person to person. Some people can't manage pain and others can manage it well. Some births have complications and others are just roaring to go. Sometimes you need pain medication and other times you don't. Having had an epidural with Padon I couldn't tell you if I would have been able to have him natural as well, but with Sophia it was very manageable. I kind of also need to note, having read all kinds of romatical things on the web from women who had natural births, the natural birth experience did not make my heart fonder of Sophia. I don't feel more bonded to her and I don't feel any less about Padon. I love them both equally. I got a stronger bond powering through colic with Padon. Maybe because he was hurting too and we both had to lean on each other to make it through a rough time. I think maybe too because he truly needed me emotionally where as birth feels to me to be a necessary and standard process and one that an infant doesn't rely on Mom's smell, voice, and warmth from beginning to end again and again night after night.
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