Zara Wheatley Hall...Birth Story

Labor

Day.... November 13th, 2011

Time...11:30 pm

Place...Home and on my way to bed

On this day, Sunday, November 13th, I was officially 40 weeks pregnant.  Darren and I had a nice day together getting our lives in order.  I had come to terms with the "fact" that I would probably be 2 weeks late so I was just trying to get comfortable however I could.  I started having regular contractions (fairly painless) on Thursday, November 10th (full moon) but they were easy to ignore.  Sunday night I went to bed around 11:30 and these contractions started hurting.  A menstrual type cramp that would last between 30 seconds and a minute.  I just laid in bed feeling these contractions come and go.  I was't sure that this was "Labor" but I knew it was different.  I told Darren I was having painful contractions but that I thought that could go on all night but I wanted to let him know.  After a couple of hours of these contractions between 5 and 7 minutes apart they started getting stronger and closer together.  I was timing them and they were between 2 and 3 minutes apart and were starting to really hurt, I could not talk through them anymore.  It was around 2:30 in the morning and we couldn't get a hold of any of the midwives.  We knew we were supposed to go to the hospital around when the contractions were 3 minutes apart, 1 minute long for 1 hour.  So we just decided to go to the hospital just to be safe.  So around 3 in the morning we packed up and went to the hospital and at this point I could not walk or talk through the contractions.  When at the hospital the contractions slowed down a bit but were still strong and close together.  The midwife was called and came in to check me, I was only 1 cm dilated and still only 50% effaced.  That is what I was on Friday at my midwife appointment.  All I could think was that she must be kidding me, I had been having strong contractions for what felt like a long time (3 hours) with zero progress.  So we stayed at the hospital and I labored through the night, the contractions got stronger, more painful and more and more difficult to just breath through.  I could no longer stand up straight through a contraction, I was feeling them in my back, and through all of this I had hope, I was visualizing opening.  Darren was the most amazing Doulo, he was so supportive, only left my side for a short nap around 5 in the morning, and he was so full of love and support for me through the entire process of labor.  There is not one moment in this entire process when I felt alone, I felt supported and loved and even though this story did not go as I had planned I can say that Darren's support made everything that happened easier for me.  Back to the story, after laboring all night I was checked at around 7 in the morning and I had only progressed to 4 cm dilated and was only 70% effaced.  I was feeling a little discouraged but I was making progress and it was getting more difficult, I could not just breath through them anymore, I was getting really vocal and the pain was up around 8 out of 10.  I did that for most of the day, everything begins to be a bit of a blur at this point.  I was checked again later in the afternoon, this was on Monday, November 14th, and I had not progressed much.  Angela, my midwife, massaged my cervix and in the process of that my water broke.  She mentioned a few times that my cervix was "fibrous" and was not really opening up very fast.  this was discouraging but I was still hopeful.  I started really going into my body, took a bath, visualized opening, put my meditation and mantras to work, I could not open my eyes, I could not recover in between contractions before the next one came on strong.  I was feeling baby push down on my cervix with every contraction, I thought I was feeling myself open, I was moaning and Darren was moaning with me, he was holding me, massaging me, talking me through each contraction back to back.  I was ready to have this baby.  At this point I had been going strong with labor for about 18 hours.  I did not slept the night before and I had nothing to eat.  I was doing my best to drink water, recharge, coconut water, etc between contractions but I was not able to keep up with getting enough fluids.  This went on for awhile, I had dilated to a six and was still not 100% effaced yet.  This was probably around 7 in the evening.  About an hour later is when what I call my second labor started.

It had been 20 hours, I was not dilated any more than 6 cm, my labor had slowed down but the pain was still unbearable.  I could not do it anymore.  I needed to try a different approach.  I thought that if got a epidural that I could rest a bit, recover a bit, maybe my body would open up without all the pain and stress.  Darren did his best to keep my birth vision in mind, he tried reminding me of the natural birth I had envisioned, he did his best to tell me that I did not want this but there was nothing he could say to change my mind.  I could not do it anymore.  I got the epidural and I am not going to go into the complications that occurred but after about an hour they got the problems cleared up and I could rest.  I ended up with a very week epidural so I could still feel the contractions.  Of course since they gave me the epidural  my contractions slowed down so on to the next intervention, Pitocin.  They started the drip at a super low dose and my contractions got stronger and closer together.  Angela checked but still no change.  They upped the Pitocin for another hour, still no change.  I did get a break from the pain and that is what I needed.  i was able to rejoin my own mind because before it was somewhere else,  I was on a hospital bed, hooked up to tubes from every direction, I was numb (partially) and sad that what I didn't want to happen was happening.  So the nurse came in and said that my contractions were still not strong enough and too far apart so they were going to up the Pitocin again.  I said NO, do not up the Pitocin, I am not going to do this.  I have read so many stories about all the reason why you should not have an epidural and I became one of those stories.  I was not progressing, they wanted to pump more and more synthetic hormone into my body.  I could see it happening, up the Pit, contractions get stronger and stronger, then the baby is in distress and an emergency c-section is ordered.  Up to that point Zara was doing fine but as I lay there and watch her heartbeat dip lower with every contraction I just decided that this route was not going to work.  I was at 22 hours of Labor and they told me that it could take 5 - 10 more hours.  I just said that I was done, I was ready to meet my baby, I wanted a C-section. My mom and Aunt and Darren's parents had been in the waiting room "waiting" to meet baby for hours, I didn't want to put baby in distress, I could not labor anymore, especially with no progress.   I made the decision and now I break down in tears on a daily basis asking myself why, how come I couldn't do it, did I make the right decision, should I have kept trying, etc.  I do not know if I made the right decision or not, my midwife said that she thought that I had a 50/50 chance of being able to deliver baby vaginally and she said it would be hourS before that happened.  I weighed the risk to baby, the amount of synthetic hormones and pain killers that would continue to be pumped in my body and I knew what I needed to do.  Maybe it was my intuition telling me something, my mind was in such a fog from so many hours of unreal pain without food, sleep, and proper hydration.  

Birth
Date...November 14th, 2011
Time...11:10 pm
Weight...7 lb. 10 oz
Length...20 inches

They wheeled me down to the operating room, upped the pain meds considerably, cut me open and took out my baby.  Zara came out screaming and pooping.  She did not seem effected by the pain meds, she was alert and bright eyed.   I was looking for her but could not see her just after she was born, I was imagining her body on mine, her face, her hair, her spirit while I lay there alone getting sewed up.  I was so happy that she finally arrived but so sad that she did not arrive right to my chest.  I am so happy that Darren was able to be with Zara from the time she was pulled from the 6 inch incision on my lower abdomen.  I cannot change how Zara was brought into the world.  I can tell myself that she was in a bad position to come out, that my body was not able to open for her, that I made the right decision but I will never know.  All I do know is that Zara Wheatley Hall is amazing.  She is beautiful, alert, strong, and perfect.   I need to also know that being in the moment and making decisions is the way I need to be in life.  We can not live on preconceived notions of how perfect everything is going to be because Life is what is happening while you are making other plans.  

Emotionally I am having a hard time with my vision of birth and the reality of my birth.  I do have to say that I gave it my best, I gave labor 22 hours with no pain medication.  I tried my best and still ended up with the best gift I have ever received.  Now we are getting used to life outside of the womb.  She is a great suckler, my milk came in at 4 days, my incision is healing quickly and even though we are not getting a lot of sleep I feel pretty good.  I feel overwhelmed with the amount of love and support coming from so many different directions.  I feel emotional, I break down crying often, but at the same time I feel strong.  It is so wonderful having Darren here with me, he has continued to be so amazing.  He loves Zara so much and is working so hard to keep everything intact at home.  He is a truly amazing man and every time I look at him I feel so thankful that he is the father of this beautiful little girl.