Baby Piggles: The business of giving birth

Last Friday, I had an ultrasound and was informed that my baby was in the 94th percentile for size. I was glad the baby was healthy, but I was extremely terrified of giving birth to a large baby and had visions of wearing diapers forever more on account of my pelvic floor being destroyed.

I became anxious (to say the least) to give birth as soon as possible. When my doctor refused to assist in my scheming, I knew I’d have to take matters into my own hands and spent some time researching natural labor induction with the help of the world wide webs.

Tuesday I ate pineapple and mango.

Wednesday I went jogging with Squiggles. I knew I wasn’t exactly as nimble as a cheetah, but I felt good going at what I thought was a nice clip, with the wind in my hair. Squiggles kept saying, “Mommy jogging so fast.” Then I passed a group of 5- or 6-year-old boys pointing at me and overheard one of them say, “I think it’s a zombie.” Deflated.

Thursday I asked Tim to take me to Indian Delight. We ordered our favorites, but instead of medium, I ordered them extra hot. The waiter laughed and said, “I don’t think so.” I said, “I’m serious… I need to go into labor,” so he agreed to honor my request.

That night, I barely slept. The spicy food definitely was having some sort of effect, though it was hard to pinpoint what it was (other than indigestion). The baby was in a strange position, and I was agonizingly uncomfortable so I sat in a recliner most of the night and worked on my ASV poster.

Friday I stumbled into work and had minor contractions all day. I told my friend Claire Marie I thought I might be in labor, but we just laughed it off and decided it was a probably a false alarm. I drank a mango smoothie on the way home, just for good measure.

Last evening (still Friday) around 10:00 I got into bed fully expecting to spend another uncomfortable night not sleeping. Tim and I were trying to think of something fun to do with Squiggles the next day. I lay down to try to sleep, and suddenly I felt something kind of pop in my abdomen. But nothing came out.

Me: My water just broke.
Tim (after assessing situation): There isn’t any water near you.
Me: I know, but my water just broke.
Tim: Ummm… there’s no water.
Me: I can’t explain it, but …

And then there was a little water. At which point, I got out of bed and felt a full-blown Hollywood-worthy gush. We hadn’t actually packed a hospital bag, so Tim scrambled around for toiletries and clothes while I had a lovely experience with some diarrhea. I became terrified of giving birth and decided that what really sounded good was a nice, warm, shower, so I got in and leisurely washed my hair. Tim came in the bathroom and said, “Ummm… did you remember that you’re in labor?”

I gave Squiggles a kiss goodbye (I may or may not have been crying and convinced that I would die in childbirth) and we sped off to the hospital. By the time we got there, I was having some fairly severe contractions… back labor… but I tried to have a good attitude. Tim took this photo (titled I don’t want all these nice people to think I’m a total wimp).

I met the labor and delivery nurse (Meesha) and Doctor Bhindya, and they confirmed that I was indeed in labor. They asked me what my plans were as far as pain management, and I said, “I would like me one of those newfangled epidurals.” They laughed and said, “Smart girl.” (I’m pretty sure that if I had said, “I’m going totally natural,” they would have said the same thing and been just as supportive.)

I had to wait for said pain relief while they took care of my penicillin IV (I’m group-B-Strep positive) and some paperwork. In the meantime, my contractions were getting extremely painful and I took this photo of myself (titled Where the hell is that epidural?):

Just when my contractions were becoming unbearable, the blessed anesthesiologist arrived to save the day. I felt a ton of relief almost immediately and told the nurse I intended to sleep through the night and asked her to wake me up when it was time to have a baby.

My epidural definitely worked better on my left side than my right, so at about 5:30 in the morning, I rang the nurse and asked for some more epidural. She asked me to explain my complaint and I told her it just wasn’t working on my right side because I could still feel the contractions in the right side of my back and bum. She correctly guessed that what I was really feeling was the baby’s head pressing on my pelvic floor. When she checked me, I was pretty much fully dilated, but given the large size of the fetus, she wanted me to wait as long as I could to allow the baby’s head to come down as far as possible in order to minimize the pushing I would have to do. She said there would be a lot less tearing that way, but that I could start pushing as soon as I felt ready and it was a matter of how much pressure I could manage.

I tried to go back to sleep, but I could feel a ton of “pressure” (read: pain) in my pelvis with every contraction. Finally I buzzed her and said, “I think I’m ready to push.” We woke up Tim and they helped me do a couple warm-up pushes before the doctor arrived. I started the warm-ups at 6:43. When Doctor Bhindya came back, she assessed the situation and said, “Good job – this baby is pretty much going to slide out.” That was music to my ears because there had been much made of the fact that my baby had a very large head and was large for her gestational age. I was so terrified of ripping my lady parts to shreds.

They helped me push and were so, extremely supportive and encouraging. At 7:01, the doctor said, “Eh, give me one more little push even though you’re not having a contraction.” I did as she said, and WHOOSH – out came the baby! They slapped her on my chest (as I had requested), and I felt an incredible endorphin euphoria – maybe the kind that my natural-childbirth friends experience. Somehow I got the best of both worlds. Best of all was the gorgeous baby screaming in my arms.

Tim and I looked each other in the eye, and I could tell we had experienced the same thing: love at first sight. She was perfect!

I can’t emphasize enough how much I loved my nurse and doctor. They were like midwives – so caring and nurturing and supportive and encouraging, and my childbirth experience was so fantastic because of them.

Tim was also a rock star. He was loving and compassionate and didn’t leave my side for a second, even though he is on a demanding medical sub-internship and has barely slept the past two weeks. As soon as the baby was born, it was clear that he was smitten. He couldn’t stop smiling.