Marianna's Birth Story

On Saturday April 4^th I woke up at 7AM feeling slightly off. I was having pains that came over me every 4 minutes. I timed them for about an hour . Sure enough they were contractions. I woke up Todd at told him that I think we were going to have a baby that day, but to go back to sleep and I would call the midwife and see what she thought. I then waited till about 8:30AM until I called. She told me to take a bath then maybe walk around for an hour to see if it really “was” contractions. I called my Doula to see what she thought. She told me to take a shower yes but to maybe call the midwife after that b/c I couldn't talk through my contractions and I had previous high blood pressure. (The midwife on call that weekend was of course the ONE midwife I had never met!). I woke up Todd and told him to get Gavin ready to go to his aunts & uncles house. I then took a nice warm WONDERFUL shower! When I got out and got dressed my contractions I realized were coming even closer. 2 -3 minutes apart and for about 30 – 40 seconds. I called my midwife and Gail (doula) and we headed to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital at 10:30AM. As we started up the elevator to the maternity ward I realized I was having a contraction. I told Todd that when the doors open he needed to stand in the elevator doorway b/c there was NO way I was going to be able to get out. I started to have the contraction and the doors opened. Todd then proceeded to walk out. Leaving me in the elevator...alone. The doors shut and the elevator started down. I pushed the button for the maternity floor and tried to stay calm. The doors opened and a male nurse from the floor below came on the elevator. The contraction ended and I started to laugh. The nurse looked up at me and I said “I was having a contraction and my husband left me on the elevator.” The nurse's eyes got real big and he started to stammer and ask if I was OK and if I needed help and if I knew where I was going. The elevator went up to the birthing center and the doors opened. Todd was right there freaking out and pouring out apologies. I couldn't stop laughing. To me if that was the worst thing that happened to me that day, the rest would be a breeze! We got into triage and the nurse checked me. I was 4 -5 cm dilated and 80% thinned out.

At about 11:30 I got into a room and started my labor process. I was on the birth ball for about a ½ hour then decided to walk. Which in my opinion was the worst idea! I knew it would help a lot but it hurt the worst. Thank god Todd was there for me to hold on to. At about 12:20 my midwife checked me again and I was 5-6 cm dilated and 90% effaced. I went back on the birth ball for another 20 minutes. To me I was just concentrated. I was super hot and felt like puking! But I decided that water would help. So I went into the shower about 12:45. I started to feel a lot of pressure and the midwife thought I might be ready to get in the tub. Around 1pm I sat on the bed and one of the nurses checked me while another one started the tub. I was 8cm dilated and 90% thinned. But something was different. The nurse wanted to make sure the baby's heart rate was strong enough for me to go into the tub since it was warm water. She couldn't find Marianna's heart beat. The midwife took over and smashed that fetal monitor all across my belly. She finally found it and it was very very low. I felt like I needed to start to push and sure enough every time I did her heart rate went dangerously down. At 1:10 the midwife decided to put a internal fetal scalp monitor on Marianna's head. But her heart rate was still low.

Everything suddenly started happening so fast. I heard nurses paging surgeons and calling for iv's. I kept pushing when I needed to and realized I wasn't breathing when I did push. Todd and everyone was yelling at me to breath because every time I would take a breath, Marianna's heart rate would go up. My water had broken as soon as she put the monitor on her head and I had started pushing even harder. Somehow my body knew that she needed to come out right then! Suddenly as fast as ever at 1:18 Marianna was born. As she came out she was holding onto her cord. Silly girl!! They rushed her over to the oxygen cart and she received great Apgar scores. 8 the first minute then 9 at the 5 minute.

As I went over the labor with my doula I realized that I was only in labor for 3 hours and 15min. Wow. So that was my labor story. I have much more to come. We stayed in the hospital until Wednesday. So much more happened.