In honor of Atticus's second birthday, wanna hear his birth story?

Of course you do.

Since I had gestational diabetes with Atticus and had to take insulin, my doctors kept a close eye on him and me to make sure we were both healthy and strong. This meant non-stress tests (NSTs) and ultrasounds every few weeks. Usually babies of moms with gestational diabetes are at risk for being unhealthily big, but Atticus was actually measuring on the smaller side toward the end of the pregnancy, around the 20th percentile. That along with a few non-stress tests that didn't show a ton of movement and low amniotic fluid levels meant prompted my doctor to schedule an induction.  

I knew that an induction was always a possibility with gestational diabetes, but I was a little bummed out. I really wanted to try to do a medication-free birth and I really hoped to go into labor on my own. I watched and read and heard horror stories about Pitocin (aka oxytocin), the drug used to begin and maintain contractions. Everyone said, "Oh, once the Pitocin starts, I had to get an epidural.  Pitocin is brutal."


Not my ideal birth, but more than anything, I wanted a healthy baby, and I really needed to be induced. 



Cut to the big day--September 7. Sean and I got to the hospital at about 7:30 am....and it took about 32 hours to get labor started.

Note, I wasn't in labor for thirty-two hours. I was waiting for my body to do something for that long.

I started off with a drug called misoprostol, then got a foley catheter, to get me to dilate and hopefully start contractions. We let each procedure go for hours because, really, you can only hurry a birth along so much. These things take time. 

So I went into the hospital on Friday, and Saturday afternoon I still didn't have a baby in my arms. The next step was to decide to send me home or give me the dreaded Pitocin.

Sean and I decided to try the Pitocin because, you know, go big or go home. It would have felt like a waste of time if we walked out at that point.

I felt conflicted about our decision, and I told our nurse that I was bummed because now I would have to get an epidural. And she told me the most awesome thing about Pitocin and natural contractions: 

They both hurt like a bitch.

Meaning, that if I didn't want to get an epidural, I didn't have to be afraid of Pitocin, because if she and the doctors were doing their jobs correctly, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between natural and Pitocin-induced contractions.  What was really important was that I got a period of rest between the contractions as I labored, and to focus on to those little periods while I labored.

Truly, the absolute best thing anyone could have told me at that moment. Here I was then, ready to try to not get an epidural. Never mind I didn't take any birth classes.  I was doing this.



So it was some time in the afternoon on September 8. My mom, sister, and mother-in-law were in the waiting room all day that day because they figured that I'd be having a baby soon. Eventually they came into my room with Sean and me because, frankly, it was boring in the waiting room. They hooked me up to the IV and Sean and I started walking around the hallways, hoping something would happen. 

I felt a few little contractions but nothing really strong. If I had been at home, I would have just sat down and rested through them. I was kind of annoyed that nothing was happening. What the heck else was there to do besides a C-section?

Then, somewhere around 6 p.m., at end of our tenth or hundredth trip down the hallways, my water broke. 

The time had come to kick the visitors out, because shortly after my water broke, I started to feel real contractions. After I bounced and swayed on a birth ball and had Sean massage my lower back for about an hour, I got into the hot shower.

Best decision of my life.  

The showers at my hospital had additional heads that I could focus on my back.  I kicked those bad boys up to full pressure and the hottest possible temperature and just focused on...nothing.  I yelled for Sean to bring me juice and water a few times, but other than that I just enjoyed--truly, enjoyed--the hot water.

I stayed in the shower for a few hours and it was amazing but, sadly, I couldn't give birth in there.  I labored on the toilet for a little while.

Does that sound gross, laboring on a toilet?  It wasn't.  It was great.  I could sit, supported, but not have pressure on the baby that was slowly but surely working his way down and out of my body.  

Oh, At this point, I was puking. If you thought contractions were bad, have a contraction while you barf. It's lovely. 

I also started to feel the urge to push with my contractions. Relaxing my body and breathing through them just wasn't an option anymore.  After a few minutes the nurse told me to come to the bed.

Go time.

I pushed for about half an hour, and at 10:02 p.m. my sweet little Atticus was born. 



All that waiting, about four hours of real labor, no pain meds, and I had my little monster.  

Later, maybe after baby 2.0 is born and I can compare, I'll write about my feelings about labor, etc.  But for tonight, I'm just going to think about how much I love my monster man.