On August 22nd, 2010 and 10:11pm, we welcomed our new baby Ezra Paul into our family. He was 8lbs 15oz and measured 21.26 inches long! Now let's see how much of his birth story I can remember 3 weeks after the fact. :)
All throughout this pregnancy, one of the things that was most important to me was to go into labor on my own. I wanted to be sure that Ezra came when he was ready. My doctor was pretty supportive of this, but there were a lot of factors that could make a VBAC a less than desirable outcome for me. These included a prior C-section, fibroids, myomectomy, Ezra's abdomen being the largest part of his body (at 34 weeks, anyway), Ezra being projected to be a big baby (estimated weight was 9.3lb), and there may be a few others I am forgetting. Basically, this boiled down to concerns over potential uterine rupture or Ezra getting stuck during delivery.
I started showing signs of impending labor a few days before Ezra's birth. I had lost my plug and was having increased Braxton Hicks contractions, but neither of those things guaranteed when labor might start. I had a default C-section scheduled for Tuesday, August 24th just in case things stalled out. I was really beginning to believe that was going to have to happen at the rate it seemed things were going!
So, fast forwarding to the big day. :) Mom had just flown in the night before which made for perfect timing. She sent B and I out for some much appreciated time on our own. Early that morning, I noticed the contractions I'd been having seemed to have changed a bit, but I still didn't think it was anything to get excited about. B and I opted to have a late breakfast at a diner style cafe up in Snohomish. By the time we were eating (around 1ish), my contractions were starting to become more consistent at every 20 min. When we left the restaurant sometime after 2, we were going to go the mall for awhile, but then the contractions had started coming around every 15 min, so we decided to head home and call the hospital. Dr. Wells had suggested that if I started labor, I should go in sooner than later with the whole VBAC potential scenario. I told the nurse as much, and they told me to come on in.
By the time we got the bags packed with the last minute items and said our goodbyes to Mom and Caiden, we arrived at the hospital around 4pm (love living so close!). I was admitted to triage and they got me hooked up to the monitors for my contractions and Ezra's heartbeat. By now, the contractions were about 5-10 min apart tho what I felt would vary in duration from 5 seconds to 20 seconds, so I was definitely just feeling the peak of each contraction. However, with each contraction, Ezra's heartbeat would drop instead of accelerate which was causing some concern. It was possible I was just dehydrated, but it also could mean that Ezra was in distress. Lucky for me Dr. Wells was the on call doc (YAY! and WHEW!), so after the nurse consulted with her, they decided to officially admit me, and Dr. Wells was on her way in.
B, me and the IV were moved into a proper L&D room, and I got strapped back up to the monitor. Dr. Wells arrived about 20-30 min later and reviewed the situation with us. Her biggest concern was the dip in Ezra's heartbeat when I'd have my contractions. She stressed again that I was not a great candidate for a VBAC because they really want to see someone looking near perfect for them to be real comfortable with a VBAC. She told us she'd be back to check back in on us after another 30 min of monitoring. In the meantime, the contractions were getting stronger, and they were about 3-5 min apart. The anesthesiologist came in to introduce himself and review the processes for both an epidural and spinal block depending on the route we'd take. Meanwhile, the nurse had to stick on us like glue because the stupid monitors kept slipping off my belly. So she basically had to sit there and hold it in place, which was kind of annoying. I felt like I couldn't really practice any of the labor techniques aside from breathing because I was stuck in the bed and hooked up to monitors and the IV.
As promised, Dr. Wells came back in and let us know that the baby was doing a lot better. She wanted to know what we wanted to do and offered to break my water to see if that would get things moving. Good progression, she told us, would be for me to dilate at about 1cm per hour. When I came in at 4pm, I was at about 2 - 2.5 cm dilated and 60-70% effaced which was pretty much the same as where I was at for my office visit earlier that week. I wasn't sure what I wanted at that point (it was around 6 or 7pm), and asked for more time to decide. B and I were allowed to go for a walk and we spent the whole time deliberating over what to do. I was really on the fence about which way to go with my biggest concern being the 6 week recovery time required by the C-section. I also thought it would be a great experience to actually go thru the full childbirth process. We discussed a lot more of the pros and cons for both the VBAC and C-section, but in the end, all we really wanted was to have a safe and healthy birth for the baby. Ug - what to do?!?!?!
We headed back to the room, and the contractions continued to get stronger. We were still debating what to do, but in the meantime I had hoped I was at least making progress. After lots of hemming and hawing and some feedback from the nurse, we decided to ask Dr. Wells to come in and see if I was further dilated. If I hadn't gotten much further, we knew it would mean we had a real long night ahead of us and needed to figure out if that would impact our decision. I also wanted to try and hold off any decision until after 9pm which is when my stomach would pretty much be empty from our earlier lunch. Why was this important? I wasn't in any mood to yack up the contents of my stomach once they gave me the super strong acid neutralizer. :P
So when Dr. Wells came in to examine me, it was indeed after 9pm and she pronounced me at
maybe 4cm. That translated to 1.5cm progress after 5 hours. I was hoping for at least a solid 5cm. I think that was all I needed to hear to push me off the fence. I decided on the spot to do the C-section. After which Dr. Wells exclaimed, "That's it?! I just needed to give you a number?!" I got a bit of a laugh out of that. :) From this point on our room was a flurry of activity to prep me for surgery.
Within no time, B was suited up, and I was being wheeled down the hall into the OR (and I managed to not barf - yay!). Once again, I got a major case of the labor/pre-surgery shakes - SO annoying to have those! While I was trying to slow my shaking, they got me ready for my spinal. Once again, I was super nervous about having something injected into my spine, and there was actually a small mishap - something about a kink in the line which lead to me feeling a couple sharp jolts of pain where I thought the needle was going in. At least with a spinal, the needle is significantly smaller, so that provided a small amount of peace to my already racing mind. Within a minute or two, the numbing kicked in and they did all the little tests to ensure that the medicine was indeed working. I vaguely remembered this part from Caiden's delivery and calmed down quite a bit when it was clear to me that it was working. I am also glad I remembered the pre-admit nurse describing that I might feel like I can't breathe (because of how the spinal works and affects the diaphragm) but that as long as I could talk it meant I was breathing fine. Sure enough, I got a little panicky at this feeling, but once I started talking to B, I realized I was fine. Now we just had to wait the few minutes for them to deliver the baby!
Forty weeks and two days later, at 10:11pm, we were presented with A BOY! They held up Ezra to the little view window, and we were the first to see that he was indeed a boy! I felt all along that he was going to be a boy based on how I was carrying him, and I was pleased to see that I was right! Now here is where we learned something absolutely critical about this delivery - Ezra had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck not once, but twice! Had we persisted with the VBAC, he could have gone into serious distress. There is no telling what kind of complications could have occurred, plus I would have ended up with a C-section anyway. I am SO glad and SO relieved that we opted for the C-section when we did. It was the best possible decision we could have made. I have to wonder if something somewhere inside me knew that was the right thing to do.
Ezra was cleaned up, weighed and measured and then delivered into his Daddy's arms. Once I was all put back together and stitched up, we journeyed back to our room where I finally got to hold my little guy. In that first hour he was the most chilled out little baby. He just laid in my arms with his eyes open and took in all that he could. I couldn't believe how serene he was! At some point the nurse came back in, gave him his bath and then brought him to me to nurse. He latched on quickly (amazing how that instinct is just there!) and took his fill of colostrum which is the pre-milk that is like liquid gold for newborns. Not much longer after that, he zonked out for the first of his many naps to come. As for me, I marveled at his perfection; amazed, grateful and joyful that we created another healthy, happy little boy.
