Mikayla’s fast and un-medicated VBAC birth story
At 2:12 am on Tuesday the 13th of October, I felt a funny kick that woke me up. Soon after I started having some pressure waves. I wasn’t too worried about them, as I have been having practice waves for weeks, but these were very regular and consistent. I tried to go back to sleep, but I couldn’t. I decided to go downstairs to time my pressure waves on my phone at 2:58 am. I turned my computer on so I could listen to my Hypnobabies tracks on my computer instead of having my headphones on. I timed my waves until 3:29 am. I had had 8 waves during that time averaging from 3-4 minutes apart lasting a minute to a minute and a half.
At this time I was getting nervous as I was trying to go into hypnosis for the waves, and it wasn’t working. I was really doubting myself since my first labor lasted so long and ended in a c-section. Well I finally realized I was in actual labor, so I started making brownies for the nurses and midwives. Around 3:45-3:50 my 2 year old son woke up and he and my husband came downstairs. My son wanted to nurse. During the second pressure wave while he was nursing I had to stop him and told him to cuddle next to me.
At 4, my husband called my mom and said he was bringing Brayden over to her house so we could get to the hospital. He asked if I wanted to go and I said I couldn’t, I still had 10 minutes until I could take the brownies out of the oven. I said goodbye to my son and got back to concentrating during my waves. After the brownies were out of the oven, I moved upstairs so I could get in the tub to help myself relax. At this point I was having to moan through the waves to help remind myself not to tense up my muscles and just let my body work.
My husband returned home around 4:40 and found me in the tub. After a few pressure waves he said he wanted to go to the hospital (he said at this point they were about every two minutes and I was gripping the side of the tub pretty hard). I got out and had to rest on the bed during the waves while I was getting dressed.
My husband finally talked me into leaving for the hospital (I was worried about leaving too early for the hospital and stalling my labor). We must have left between 5 and 5:15 am, my husband was driving very fast and I was going to tell him to slow down, but decided I needed to concentrate on my hypnosis and trying to remain relaxed. We got to the hospital and I told my husband just to get my birth ball as I figured we had plenty of time to grab the other things we brought.
By the time we got to labor and delivery, I was having pressure waves that seemed right on top of each other, and I had a moment of doubt thinking if the said I was only 3 cm dilated I was going to ask for the epidural. We get back into triage around 5:50 am and and the nurse was taking her time getting everything set up and asking me questions (which I let my husband answer as I had turned up the volume on my ipod). She checked me and asked if I wanted an epidural at which time I said no, and she said good, you don’t have time, you are 8 cm dilated and have a bulging bag of water.
My midwife wasn’t there yet, so she got on her phone and called for a doctor to meet us in a labor and delivery room. Another nurse came in to help and she asked if I could walk to the room, and I said no. She nastily replied that I would have to get out of bed at some point anyway, and she thought I wanted to go all natural. That is when the first nurse chimed in and asked her if she would like to walk at 8 cm dilated.
I chose to ignore all of this as my waves had changed and I couldn’t relax through them anymore (I now realize that my body had started to push). They wheeled me into my room and I transfered myself off of the stretcher to my bed. At this point the baby started having some decels to about 90 and the nurses had me roll to my side and put oxygen on me. After a few more waves where my husband looked into my eyes and kept telling me to relax and focus, the doctor walked in (it was my midwives back up doctor).
He said he was going to try to let me birth like I wanted, but if I couldn’t get the baby out quickly they would have to do a c-section (I think this put the fear of God in me!). It was at this time I looked at my husband and said I can’t stop from pushing (it felt sort of like when your body starts to dry heave, so powerful and you couldn’t stop it if you tried), but I was so nervous because I thought there was no way it was time already. The nurses said if my body was already doing it to start pushing with the next wave.
Well the next wave my water exploded (my husband said it looked like movie special effects, it hit the back wall about 10 feet away). That helped relieve a lot of the pressure. The doctor said I was doing a really good job, but he wanted to use the vacuum to help get her out as he was still concerned about her decels. I agreed to this as I figured it was better than a c-section.
This was about the time my midwife showed up. I pushed three times and her head was out, the doctor then took off the vacuum, and a few seconds later, the rest of her slipped out. It was 6:33 am. She had to be seen by the NICU staff as I had meconium in my water, and I had to get some stitches where the vacuum caused a bit of friction (which hurt worse than pushing), so I didn’t get to hold her for about a half an hour.
Her apgars were 9 and 9, and she was so alert and beautiful. What I find the most amusing was I didn’t get to sign the consent forms until after she arrived (at which point I had to laugh about signing the C-section form).
Mikayla Reese was 6 pounds 9 ounces and 19.5 inches long. She is such a content baby. I think I am still on a birth high, and that I can’t believe I did it! I couldn’t imagine it being too much better than it turned out!
While it wasn’t entirely pain-free, it was completely manageable, and I think Hypnobabies kept me relaxed and able to go with what my body wanted to do on it’s own. My husband says the only thing he would like to do different for the next one would be get to the hospital a little sooner (I think 45 minutes was too close for comfort for him, but for me it was perfect!
Megan
Brayden 6/07 C-section
Mikayla 10/09 Unmedicated, Hypnobabies VBAC!!!