The Birth of Joseph Robert

November 4, 2012

I woke at two in the morning with strong contractions that wouldn’t let me sleep.  They were ten minutes apart and very uncomfortable but I wasn’t convinced this was actually ‘it’ because I was still three days before my due date.  Though, emotionally, I was ‘done’ I fully expected to go at least until my due date or longer.


After a couple of contractions that were ten minutes apart, I got up and went to the bathroom and then realized that it was Daylight Savings and it was actually one in the morning rather than two.  


Now that I was up, the contractions quickened to about 6 minutes apart so I made myself a bowl of cereal and spent some time wandering through the house and trying to decide if I wanted to go back to bed or not.  Eventually I decided to lie down but was up again almost immediately; I was restless and had to keep moving.


My contractions stayed regular and I sent my mother a text to let her know that this was it and that she should probably head over.  She replied immediately and said that she and Mark, my stepfather, were on their way.


Around this time I woke Jocco and told him I was in labor and then told him to try and get some more sleep and that I would keep him posted.  Apparently he never went back to sleep after this.
He came out to find me kneeling over the back of the couch and playing Spider Solitaire on my cell phone.  I was also timing each contraction and they were a steady five minutes apart.
II put in a call to my doctor’s office and received a call back from the on-call doctor within minutes.  She suggested I head in soon since my contractions were strong and had been five minutes apart for so long.  


I was still waiting for my mother to get here so I made some peanut butter toast and drank a glass of water while Jocco got the bags into the car.  I kissed the girls and whispered goodbye to them and my mother showed up soon after.  


I’m pretty sure we got to the hospital around five AM but I’d stopped paying attention to the time because I’d stopped timing my contractions.  I do know that they’d slowed down on the ride but picked back up on the walk inside.  


We got up to Labor & Delivery and found a ghost town; apparently it had been a quiet night so far.  I was shown to my room by two super sweet nurses (one of whom was quite obviously new) and changed into a hospital gown and had my vitals taken.  They hooked me up to the monitor and the on-call doctor came in with one of the residents to do a cervical check - 5 centimeters and 70% effaced!  


Per usual, my contractions slowed while I was sitting in bed but the nurses were very respectful of my birth plan.  They set an IV (this was first attempted by the inexperienced nurse with rather horrific results) and hooked me up to the telemetry monitor so I could move around.  


I believe it was around this time that Dr. Magee came in and made sure that I was up and moving.  I was sent out to walk the halls, pausing with every contraction to lean against the wall and rock my hips.  


Jocco and my mother walked with me and between contractions we talked and laughed and I was silently impressed with how ‘together’ I was.  I knew what to expect and though I still had a lot of work to do, I was confident that I could do it because I had twice before.


After walking for quite awhile, I decided to be checked again and though i was still only five to six centimeters, I was now about 90% effaced.  I was making progress, just not as fast as I would have liked.  


I tried sitting on the birth ball but found I was more comfortable up and moving so we walked the halls some more but this time there was significantly less talking.  I was getting close and at about nine AM, I ended up back at my room, where I knelt on the bed with my head and arms draped over the head of the bed.  I decided then that this baby would be born within the ten o’clock hour, just like both of my girls (Lucy - 10:56 PM and Joy - 10:25 AM).


I had been having mostly back labor all along and this position helped immensely with that.  It also allowed Jocco and my mother to rub my lower back and offer their support by just being there, which is what I needed.


In this position my contractions really picked up and when I asked to be checked again, I wasn’t quite ten centimeters but I did have a bulging bag, which was making me feel pushy.  I was also leaking water.  


Dr. Magee asked if I wanted to wait for the bag to break on its own, since she figured it was only a matter of time before it broke with a contraction.  I agreed to wait a bit and see if it broke on its own but when a few more agonizing contractions passed and nothing happened, I told her to break it.  I was ready to push and wanted to get this show on the road.


With my water broken, the baby dropped about five inches into the birth canal and everything began happening very fast.  I gave a few pushes and everything - and I mean everything - began coming out.  
When he finally crowned, I felt such a mix of relief and frustration.  I just wanted his head to be out and when Dr. Magee informed me that he was ‘trying to protect my tissues’ I screamed that I didn’t ‘care about my tissues!’  And I didn’t.  On the next push, his head came out and Jocco got ready to catch his son - except that his shoulder was stuck.  


I was told to push push push as they turned him and dislodged his shoulder and then he was born and gave a strong cry and was put right onto my chest.  Joseph Robert was born at 11:04 on November 4 (11/4) - just barely missing the 10 o’clock hour.

My birth story should have ended here but some complications arose - not with Joseph but with me.
From here on out, events may be out of order; this is all very hazy.


My placenta was delivered almost immediately and before it stopped pulsing.  Because of this, my body was trying to clot the place where it had detached and my uterus was refusing to contract and cut off the blood flow because of the clots.  I was hemorrhaging and had no idea because I was nursing my newborn.


When I passed him off to Jocco, Dr. Magee told me that I was still bleeding and though she’d checked my placenta and found it intact, something inside was keeping my uterus from clamping down and stopping the bleeding.  She had to go in and manually remove the clots in order to allow it to contract.  I have never experienced something so painful - including childbirth.  


Some time during all of this, Joseph was weighed and we got the verdict: 9 lbs 14 oz!


Afterwards, when we thought everything was fine, Jocco went to get the kids so they could meet their little brother and while he was gone they took my vitals: my heart rate was 160 bpm. They were still having trouble keeping my uterus hard; I was gushing whenever they massaged my belly.   


I managed to sleep for a bit before Jocco came back (my mother was cuddling Joseph while I slept) and seeing the kids meet their new brother made every part of the delivery worth it.  They were all over-the-moon to see him and I felt so much better seeing them again.  


At this point, I still had no idea that I had hemorrhaged or that the situation had been as serious as it was and after Jocco left with the kids, they asked me if I was ready to use the bathroom and move into my recovery room.  I managed to walk into the bathroom with the help of my (amazingly awesome) nurse but when I sat down on the toilet I passed out.  From what my mother tells me, my nurse told her to push the call button but before she could, the room flooded with nurses.  I woke up within minutes and felt a bit better and with the help of a few of the nurses, I managed to make it into a wheelchair without fainting again.


Once in my permanent room, my new nurse inserted a catheter to drain my bladder and I was given strict instructions to not try and stand up without a nurse present.  I settled in with my new baby and spent the next few hours cuddling and nursing him.  


I was later told that I’d lost about a liter and a half of blood over the course of the hemorrhage and was given a choice between a blood transfusion or heavy duty iron pills and being on bedrest for the next few weeks.  I chose the latter, being rather uncomfortable with the idea of a transfusion.


Overall, the experience was both amazing and scary - the labor and delivery were amazing, but the aftermath was very scary - and I can now say without a doubt that we are done having kids.  Obviously this was the reason why I didn’t have a homebirth and though I would have loved to have that chance, I am thankful that everything worked out the way it did.  I now feel like my family is complete.