V's Birth Story // Natural v. Medicated Birth

Click here for Z's birth story.

She's here! April 7, at 5:38am. Kyle is convinced that we're fated to have babies in the middle of the night, and I guess since we're two for two he may be right.

Taken at the hospital, with my cell phone. We did snap a few actual pictures with our actual camera, but I fear she's already doomed to the "second child" fate because I think Z's entire first 24 hours was documented on film. 

I find it interesting the way things happened with V, because for most of her pregnancy I was planning on going the natural route again. About two months away from my due date, however, I began experiencing a lot of fear about the birth itself - mainly, that I didn't want to do it.

Which is a common thing for pregnant women to feel, I've been told. The fear of birth made sense to me, even in my most hormonal moments. I don't know any woman who has children because she enjoys labor and the recovery process. Talk to us six months after, when our baby is cute and chubby and *hopefully* sleeping through most of, if not all of, the night, and the incredibly insane *whatever* that our body just did has all but left our memory.

In addition to the normal fear, Z's birth wasn't entirely smooth - and the recovery process well, sucked. But everyone was saying, "Don't worry! Second births are way easier!" God and I had several conversations about it, and the whole time I felt like He was saying, "I'll be there with you, Christina. Don't worry. Trust me."

I went to a refresher class for the Bradley Method, which we used with Z, and I walked away encouraged. Reminded about all the tools that I had at my disposal to walk through this birth without the use of an epidural.

And in spite of all these good things, there I still stood, a few weeks out and feeling a bit hesitant about the whole thing, even though I had done it before.

Over the next few weeks I focused my energy on getting ready for her to be here. I was excited about her, you know. The little one kicking around inside of me. It was just the process of her arriving that was making me nervous.

Really, looking back, I simply lacked the same confidence I had going into the Z's birth. There was this weird assurance that I could do it. Not a big deal for some, but if you know me and my very low pain tolerance - the fact that I'd be so confident to give birth without pain medication was very likely a supernatural grace.

With V - it just felt so different.

On Sunday morning, I woke up having contractions that were 20ish minutes apart. This continued all day. They were not painful at all, very much what I remember from "early labor" with Z. So I went to church, went to lunch with Kyle's parents (who came in town hoping V might show up that weekend), and then took a nap. The rest of the day I walked, and walked, and walked. We went to the mall and walked until they closed, and then went and ate dinner at a restaurant within walking distance from our house. The whole time, my contractions wouldn't get closer together than twelve to fifteen minutes.

Then, after dinner they started picking up a bit. I was excited, and we got our overnight hospital bag ready with last minute items.  Then all of a sudden, they shifted back to 20 minutes apart. LAME. Though still not painful, the contractions had bumped up to, "If this keeps up all night - I will be a hot mess in the morning," status.

At some point after we went to bed, I began to get all panicky, like, "WHAT IF I LABOR FOR THE NEXT TWO DAYS LIKE THIS. WHAT IF MY LABOR IS HORRENDOUS. WHAT IF. WHAT IF. WHAT IF."

So, after I calmed down and my breathing returned to normal, that verse in Philippians where Paul straight up tells us to not be anxious in anything (I assume this includes birth) and rather to, you know, talk to God about it, ran through my head.

So I did, and for the first time during the whole pregnancy - when I finally calmed down enough to just let God talk to me, I felt Him ask:

"Christina, why aren't you considering an epidural?"

Me: "Ummm... because I did it this way last time? And because if I get an epidural that means I caved."

God: "Yeaaahh... those don't really seem like good enough reasons to me."

And you know, they weren't. Just like that, my heart was flooded with peace, and I turned to Kyle (who was asleep), poked him in the side and said, "Kyle, I'm choosing to get an epidural this time."

And he half mumbled something like, "Sounds great, Babe." And then fell back asleep.

Something I've mentioned on this blog before is how labor can slow down, or stop all together, when there's an unprocessed fear/source of anxiety. Well, as soon as I made the decision to go with an epidural, my contractions started coming super fast. They went from barely squeaking under ten minutes apart to to being 3 to 4 minutes apart in like, half an hour.

We scrambled to throw all of our stuff in the car, woke up Kyle's parents so they could take Zeke, and took off to the hospital. At this point my contractions still weren't that intense. I wasn't able to talk to anyone during the contractions, but in between I was pretty chipper. (To be honest the only reason we left was because of how close my contractions were - if I had gone based on pain, we may have been pulling into the hospital around the same time V decided to make her appearance.)

Oddly enough - I had zero contractions on the car ride over - which didn't bother me because nothing is quite as obnoxious as laboring when you're sitting up with a seat belt on. My first contraction that may or may not have made me curse (in my head - my father-in-law was in the car with us) happened right when we pulled into the ER.

Now, if you've ever had a baby at the hospital, you know that they encourage you to "pre-register" so that you don't have to fill out a million forms when you show up and a baby is trying to shove their way out of you. We have done this both times, and I have yet to understand that in spite of this, there are still about 500 million questions you must answer about yourself and your family's health history before they check you in. To be fair, this is one of the very few issues I have with hospitals. But still, when your uterus feels like it's being turned inside out at the same time that someone is taking a sledgehammer to your pelvis, you don't really want to have to think about if your siblings have ever had asthma.

The contractions kept coming, and as I said they had now hit the, "not responsible for my words/actions," level on the pain scale. When the labor & delivery nurse showed up to escort me to my room, I was literally on my knees leaning over the check-in counter, and asked her if I could, "please... please... not use the wheelchair." She let me walk up to the room. Bless her. (Contractions, believe it or not, are actually way less painful when you can be up and moving.)

I labored for about an hour and a half before the anesthesiologist showed up.

Another thing: I hate needles. To be honest, it's one of the reasons that I even began to consider a natural birth with Zeke. Who wants a GIANT NEEDLE being plunged into their spine? I was incredibly nervous. Especially because they make you watch this video (I kid you not, again, while the sledgehammer is going) about all the things that can go wrong with an epidural.

Here's the thing though, they shoot you with a local anesthetic so I didn't even feel the epidural. I mean, I felt a weird little poke but that's it. Getting my IV hurt worse than the epidural did. And after that weird little poke?

I felt nothing. And it was glorious indeed.

I giggled and talked with my sister-in-law for the next two hours while Kyle slept on the floor. (I was too full of adrenaline to sleep.) And then I began feeling the urge to push a little bit, and with each contraction it became harder not to push. The nurse told me that she'd come and check me at 6.00, and around 5.15 I buzzed her because I really didn't think I'd make it that long. Sure enough she came in and after checking me, quickly called my doctor to come.

My OB walked in around 5:30, I woke up Kyle, and after a few pushes, V came into this world eight minutes later.

My recovery, compared to Z, has been light years easier.

So now you may be thinking, "Um.... are you trying to convince me that natural birth is crazy?"

No. I believe that natural birth was exactly how I was supposed to have Z, and I'm not ruling it out for future children, either. In fact, my OB told me when Z was born that not getting an epidural likely played a huge role in the fact that I wound up not needing a C-Section. Since I didn't get one, I was able to feel everything that was happening, which made my pushing way more effective.

However, with V, my OB told me that getting an epidural is probably what made the recovery so much easier. I was able to wait and not rush through the last few pushes, which gave my body plenty of time to relax.

I believe birth, like everything in life, is a spiritual thing. There were times during this process that part of me kept feeling like I might be "over-spiritualizing" it, or something. But that just wasn't the case.

So now, where I stand on natural v. medicated is to be Spirit-led each time. I will tell you that I am so grateful that I live in a time that I have a choice. And I'm overwhelmed with gratefulness that our V is here, safe, and so am I.

God has this crazy way of giving us exactly what we need, even when we try and fight it.

                                                             

Of Books & Birth

You know those desires or goals you have that you're too scared to speak out loud, because then you might actually have to do something about it?

Yeah? Me too. 

I have wanted to write a book for awhile, and only lately have I gotten serious about it. Which, probably had something to do with having a baby and losing a big chunk of my "downtime" and then realizing it was actually just wasted time. 

ANYWAY. 

So, as I was saying, I've been approaching this desire to write a book a lot more seriously, and, not to use an overused analogy, (but I am) ....  

I have wondered if it's going to be a lot like giving birth. 

Wait don't go! I promise I won't talk about how it's really hard work, but all worth it in the end. Though I'm sure that's true.

Something I found very interesting about the whole process of labor and delivery was how a woman's labor could "stall out." By that I mean, come to a grinding halt. 

This was interesting to me, because I always thought it was kind of like a roller coaster. In that once the ride starts going, there's no getting off till the end, if you know what I mean. 

However, in one of our birthing classes, our instructor told us that one of the reasons a woman's labor can stall out is unprocessed fear about the birth. 

She told a few stories of women whose labors almost ceased all together or were significantly slowed by an unspoken or undealt with fear that was attached to the baby coming. 

Her point was: get it all out now! (The fears, that is.) The result was having to do tremendously awkward communication exercises with our spouses in front of the whole group. (Believe it or not, I get pretty shy in front of people I don't know. (That's why I blog all my feelings onto the internet!)) 

And it helped. A lot of the things we spoke about in the birthing classes, my husband and I would continue speaking about at home. We spoke about my fears, his fears, and were able to encourage each other and take our fears before God. I'm convinced doing this made Z's birth sweeter. 

And this is where I connect the circle. 

There are quite a few fears I have attached to writing a book, and I'm going to list them all here: 

1. That no one will like it. 

2. That it will be one of 10,574,295 books written on the same subject. 

3. That I won't ever, actually, really, truly finish it. 

4. That I'm doing it to make myself feel smart and cool and so I can say things like, "Oh, I know, in my book I discuss that aspect of blah blah blah....." 

5. That it would not be a good use of my time. (This one may seem kind of silly, but I know for sure moms, and anyone who has a person/job that is high-demand in their life, will understand that sometimes, you get to a point where the thought of putting a huge amount of effort into something that really won't amount to much kind of makes your head explode.) 

I think part of doing anything that demands more than we have inside us is wrestling through fear. Certainly that was true of having Z, and I imagine this won't be much different. 

And I certainly have seen God's faithfulness, and the one thing He has shown me so far is that, if I were to write a book, it may never get published or even read by anyone else except me ... and probably my husband. 

But that really wouldn't be the point of writing it, would it? If I felt like it was something the Lord was asking me to do. 

Are there any goals or dreams or desires that you've had for awhile, but something's holding you back? 

Z's Birth Story

I know writing out the details of your labor and delivery isn't something everyone does, but there were a few reasons I wanted to on our blog. 

1. I was not super familiar with what a natural (unmedicated) birth really would look like before having Z, so I thought I'd share my experience with others who may be considering it (or just curious). 

2. I hold in high regard writing down memories, even (and maybe especially) tough ones. Z's birth was definitely an experience that I will want to remember as many details as possible. It's crazy how fast I've already forgotten a ton of little things. Granted I was in a haze of adrenalin for a good part of the labor, either way I had to double-check my story with my husband and my mom. They were both there as well and reminded me of a thousand little things I forgot. 

So, if you're interested, read on. No worries, I did edit it down quite a bit and I value privacy too much to give the nitty gritty. :) 

Wednesday (6/13) morning I woke up around 5.30, to my surprise I was having contractions about 15-20 minutes apart. This would be considered very early labor, especially for a first time mom, and at this point you're encouraged to rest or try and go back to sleep. It sounds crazy but these early contractions aren't that bad at all. I was totally able to fall asleep in between them. They lasted about two hours and Kyle and I were getting excited, but then they faded. I thought, "All right - first round of false labor is out of the way, maybe he'll come by this weekend." (Note: If you've heard of "Braxton Hicks" contractions - there's a bit of difference between those and false labor. Braxton Hicks contractions usually don't hurt and they don't happen consistently.) 

Wednesday night rolled around and at 6pm I started having contractions again. Same deal, about 15-20 minutes a part. I didn't get too hyped up because I thought it was probably another round of false labor. 

We had some friends come over around 8pm to watch a movie. By this point my contractions actually started spacing out even more and were very inconsistent. Like 25 minutes a part, then11 minutes a part, then 20, etc. I laid on my side and drank tons of water and just tried to see what would happen. (The doctor usually tells you that if you start having contractions to lay down and drink water with the thought that they'll go away if this isn't the real deal.) 

At first the contractions were pretty easy to talk through and honestly I was feeling pretty chipper. I was totally laughing and thinking, "Man! This labor thing is pretty easy." (NOTE: What I should have been doing was trying to sleep! And using the bathroom every time I got the chance, as a full bladder makes contractions only hurt worse.) Well, from 9 to 10pm the contractions began to pick up the pace. That's when we decided to call immediate family and tell them, "Yes - if you want to be here then you should start driving in." 

Husband had been timing my contractions and was super encouraging. He was so excited and kept my water glass full.  10pm rolls around and they're about 9 minutes a part and quickly picking up in intensity. Our friends left and this is where I lost all sense of time. I'm afraid after this the only thing I know for sure is what time it was when Z finally appeared. 

I also noticed that the pain was flaring up my back. I immediately thought, "I'm totally having back labor." And was really discouraged. I also was getting very sleepy but my contractions were starting to come too close to really get any sleep between them. "Back labor" happens when the baby is facing the wrong way. Usually they're head down, bottom up, with their face pointing at your back. Z, we think, had his face pointing toward my stomach. This can make labor more painful. I would try and explain why but it would take too much space - needless to say it makes labor more difficult than it needs to be. 

For parents wanting an unmedicated birth, they encourage you to labor at home as long as possible. When we asked our doctor when we should come in, she actually told us to come in when the drive to the hospital sounded like the LAST thing I wanted to do. So that's what we did. There's a ton of different methods to relieve the pain of contractions that don't involve medication that we employed. We took the Bradley Class so we chose relaxation (focusing on relaxing all the other muscles in your body so that contractions are less painful and more efficient) and pressure point massage (this is where Husband came in, he would press and hold on my lower back whenever a contraction hit and it did a lot to relieve the pain). 

At this point Husband had packed our car and gotten things ready. I noticed he looked pretty tired and vaguely thought, "We haven't been at this that long and he looks kind of sleepy." We heard our family was almost in town (my first clue that labor was passing by way quicker than I thought, because our closest family lives two and a half hours away.) 

This must have been around 1.00-1.30am and my contractions were around 5-7 minutes apart. The pain was getting pretty gnarly and at first I wasn't doing a great job of relaxing. I noticed that every third contraction would be particularly brutal and then the two in between wouldn't be so bad. 

I told Husband I wanted to go to the hospital at this point. The thought of having to get in a car and drive to the hospital  made me want to bawl, the thought crossed my mind that we could just stay still and have the baby at our house that way I wouldn't have to drive anywhere. I took this as a good cue that it was time to leave. 

I rode to the hospital with my knees on the front seat and my hands around Husband's shoulders. We got there and after a parking hiccup had to walk around to the emergency entrance. I had just told him that walking was the last thing I wanted to do but it helped a ton! My contractions were way less intense up and walking then when I was still. 

We started the initial checks and I was shocked to see that it was already 2am. They checked Z's heart rate and he was doing great! They checked to see how far I had progressed and we were bummed to find out that I was a little less than halfway there. I thought surely I was farther a long, but I also knew first time moms tend to have longer labors. The nurse actually told me I could go home at this point, especially because Husband and I did not want any interventions. 

The thought of driving BACK home and needing to return was out of the question. We also felt that even though I wasn't technically in active labor, my contractions were too close and too strong to leave. Not going to lie, I was already thinking, "An epidural would be SO NICE." I just wanted to go to sleep between the contractions but couldn't. Kyle was really sweet and encouraging, and convinced me to hold out until they checked me again. 

I think it may have been around 3.30 that they checked me and I had progressed quite a bit! I was now over the halfway mark. This was what I needed to decide to wait a little longer. 

Then I hit transition. Transition is often described as the worst part of labor. Some women have horror stories of being in transition for several hours, some only 10 minutes, and some don't have it at all. It's basically when the baby is making his "final descent," if you will. The contractions are at their peak and you don't get much of a break in between them. They can literally feel like they're rolling right on top of the other. 

I didn't think I was in transition because I felt it was too soon, but Husband kept insisting that I was (and he was right.) He pointed out that I yelled at him, I was feeling nauseous, and I was BEGGING him for an epidural. He was there with me the whole time though, encouraging me that I could do it. I will say his best tactic was telling me to just wait until they checked me one more time.They came in and checked me maybe an hour and fifteen minutes later and I had progressed even more quickly and we were almost there! However, my water still hadn't broke at this point and I needed to progress a liiiitttle bit more before they felt comfortable with me pushing. 

I guess this was around 5am. After this my progression slowed a ton because my body stalled out a little bit. It's common in many labors for there to be a time that things kind of slow down (or stop for awhile) but I'm not positive if it happens a ton that late in the game. 

The next two hours were hard because my doctor couldn't come see how I was doing (she was tied up with another birth) and my contractions were about 2-3 minutes a part. Now, I don't know if they'd have even given me an epidural at this point (there is a "point of no return," I believe it's when they think you're within two hours of having the baby that they won't give you an epidural) but I was BEGGING for an epidural. A family member who was part of the birth (and has had a few of her own) told me that if I asked for one it would probably be close to an hour before they were even giving it to me. I double-checked with the nurse and sure enough, she said it would take half an hour for the anesthesiologist to get there and another half hour to process everything. Though not what I wanted to hear, it kept me from getting one. Especially because I was so far along that I could literally have this kid at any second. 

My doctor came in to see how I was doing. It was around 6am and I was DONE with this labor business. My body still wasn't progressing. Which was unbelievably frustrating because it had gotten to the point where we were almost there and then stalled out.

The other thing that kept me from asking for an intervention was the day nurse. They switched over at some point during this craziness and this women was a saint. She use to be a doula and was extremely familiar with the Bradley methods. One of the first things she asked me when she walked in was, "When was the last time you used the bathroom?" and of course it had been hours. 

I went to the bathroom and, wouldn't you know it I felt way better. Shortly after I was able to begin pushing. This phase of labor can be over with pretty quickly, or in my case can take awhile. My sister-in-law's description of the pushing stage is probably my favorite that I've heard, "I'm not going to lie to you and tell you it doesn't hurt. It hits you like a train, but then it's over." TRUTH.

Our theory is that Z was flipped the wrong way (as I explained before) and tried to shift into the correct position on his way out, only to get his poor head stuck. It's not his fault as both his parents have uniquely large heads. It's true. So my pushing stage, I believe, lasted waaaay longer than the average.

I wound up pushing for the next two hours and progressed very slowly. Such a crazy feeling! It was a huge relief though because now I finally didn't want an epidural anymore. I had a way to channel all of the discomfort and relieve it for just a few minutes, at least. Finally at 9am, after trying every labor position in the book, I was exhausted and getting dehydrated. (About the different labor positions, a nice thing about not getting an epidural is that you're allowed to move around and can try different positions to push in besides the most common one you see - back elevated, legs up). 

I asked if there was anything we could do to help the baby along and the doctor suggested using the vacuum. Up until this point Z's heart rate was doing marvelously but it began to drop just a bit in the last half hour. We asked her what the risks and benefits would be - something they coach you to do in the Bradley Class so that you can make informed decisions during labor. I asked (in between these crazy contractions and the pushing) if my husband and I could discuss it and our doctor stepped out for a bit. It took us like two seconds to decide to go for it as the risks didn't cause any misgivings and both of us were exhausted. 

They brought in the vacuum and at 9:34am he came out in one push! It was such a crazy experience and it went by so quickly. You'd never think 15 1/2 hours could seem so short a time. 

If my husband wouldn't have been there I really don't know what I would have done. There were so many moments that I thought I was going to be laboring forever. That this was now my life, lol. But he was so sweet and encouraging and held my hand the whole time. And I only yelled at him once! :D (And then I apparently apologized right afterwards.) It was an amazing experience for us to go through together. I think one of my favorite moments was when I was in transition and he looked at me and said, "We don't need to have anymore children after this, okay? You're doing amazing and we never have to do this again." Ha!

As I said in my last post, many people have asked me if I'd do the unmedicated thing again, I'm still undecided. I'm not going to lie about how painful it was. It was easily the most painful thing I've ever endured; however, even though we seriously doubted if Z would have any siblings, I don't know if I would trade the experience for anything. I really loved being able to know what it felt like to bring my son into the world, both the pain and the joy of it. 

What I do know is that our son is beautiful and he's here and healthy. For that I am extremely grateful and realizing more and more each day that I have far less control over his precious life than one would think. This is a very humbling realization and it has already caused me to fall before Jesus many times. All that is for another post, though, I'm hoping to write about the postpartum experience, because let me tell you the lack of sleep combined with the hormone fall out is no joke. 

If you have any questions about natural birth I'd love to answer them as much as I can! :)