gearhead mama

< Part 4 (Ready! Set! Wait Some More!) / Part 6 (I Think I Can, I Think I Can, I Think I Can)>

Recap:
Baby dropped Tuesday night, keeping me up until 1:30 AM
Contractions started Wednesday morning at 5:30 AM
(Four hours of sleep on Tuesday night)

Contractions started and stopped all day Thursday, starting with regularity in the evening
Diagnosed as prodromal labor, likely due to M’s posterior position
(Thursday night, sleep eludes me)

I vented online until after midnight, then decided it was time to get serious. I was going to get this baby to turn. I started an aggressive regime of knees-chest and downward dog for as long as I could stand it (which was not long, since throwing around that much pregnancy weight – 60 extra pounds in my case – is no easy task). I then leaned on the birth ball, and tried to lift and jiggle my belly, in the hopes that it would encourage her to turn. I repeated this so often I began to fear I would actually hurt her, and still I didn’t think it had done any good. Defeated, I gave up.

Around 2 AM, I finally decided to get in the hot tub, hoping it would relax me and provide some pain relief. Imagine my dismay when I found that “nature’s epidural” actually intensified the contractions. This was a horribly unexpected development, as I was really counting on using water to help get me through this. At least it allowed me to relax in between contractions – something I was having difficulty doing in any other position – so I reluctantly stayed in the tub. I leaned forward on the little raft R had picked up for me, still hoping that keeping my belly down would encourage M to flip anterior. The contractions seemed very regular, and although I knew this could happen with prodromal labor, I was desperately hoping Gloria’s diagnosis was wrong. Things were starting to hurt a lot, and the thought that I wasn’t even in “real” labor was too much to bear. So I decided to time them. They started at 8 minutes apart. After a while, they moved to 5 minutes apart. I decided if they stayed at 5 minutes for 30 minutes, I would wake R and have him call Gloria. That time limit came and went, and they were still at 5 minutes. And they hurt. It was now almost 4 AM. It was time to wake R, but the hot tub was in the basement, and I couldn’t bear the thought of hoisting my whale-like, contracting body out of the water and finding my way – dripping wet – up the steps, so I started screaming at the top of my lungs. After several minutes of loud and increasingly frantic screaming, R finally came stumbling down the stairs to find a very distraught and tearful wife. The contractions were now coming at 3 minutes apart, and were really painful. After a few barked instructions on where to find Gloria’s number and what to say, he made the call. He eventually put me on the phone with her. She was very calm, and told me she would come over, but first she was going to take a shower and have some coffee. WHAT??? I’m having contractions every 3 minutes, and you’re going to take a fucking SHOWER??? This is NOT what I paid almost a thousand dollars for! In my exhausted and incoherent state, I tried to explain that I was worried it would be time to go to the hospital before she even got to my house, but she reassured me that everything was fine, and to just wait for her. I was skeptical, but she obviously wasn’t going to budge and I was in no position to argue, so I hung up the phone.

I honestly don’t remember how I got through the next hour and a half. I was falling apart and not managing the pain well. My anxiety levels were through the roof, and poor R was at a loss as to how to help. I was immensely relieved when Gloria finally arrived at 5:30 AM (Friday). She and R got me out of the tub, and after a quick bathroom break (one of the nice things about being submerged in the tub was the buoyancy, but stepping out of the water – and the accompanying rude return of gravity – would bring the baby crashing down on my bladder and invariably resulted in a bathroom emergency), she checked me again. The news was good and bad. Although the effacement hadn’t really changed, I’d gone from marginally fingertip dilated to definitely fingertip dilated. Progress, however slight. Cervical change meant this was not prodromal labor – it was the real thing. But hello – I’d been having regular contractions for roughly 12 hours, and had gone from marginally fingertip to full fingertip, with no change in effacement. This was not what I wanted to hear, especially with the contractions coming fast and furious. I was clearly still in the very early stages of labor, and after two nights of little sleep, and one night of no sleep, there was still a very long way to go. But there was no turning back and no rest to be found, no matter how I felt about the situation.

Once out of the tub, I found I wanted to constantly move during contractions. Gloria directed my movements to ones that would help labor progress, reminded me to keep my body relaxed (shoulders, forehead, hands, toes), then gave me the best advice I’d gotten so far – she said, “get out of your head”. She didn’t explain this further, but I immediately sensed what she was getting at. With each contraction, I visualized a scene to go with my body’s motion. Sometimes I was gently rocking on a raft or in a boat; other times I was dipping and rolling in a small plane, or simply floating through the air; other times I was pedaling through twisting single-track on my mountain bike. As each contraction rolled to a peak, I would focus instead on the motion and visualization – leaving the contraction far behind. Suddenly, the contractions slowed down, spaced out and hurt a whole hell of a lot less. I looked at Gloria with amazement, and she told me this was how early labor was supposed to be; the contractions had been fast and painful because I was tense and anxious. She said not to worry about labor slowing down … I was simply taking it where it was supposed to be.

Gloria stayed until about 10 AM when it was obvious I had things well in hand. She said to call her when things “changed” – that I would know when that time came. She also encouraged me to eat and drink to keep up my strength. Ever the dutiful husband, R made some scrambled eggs, which he fork-fed to me throughout the rest of the day.

I continued working with the contractions and staying out of my head. I even took a shower – in part to see how it worked for pain relief, but also because I felt the need to get clean. It seemed to dull the pain of the contractions, while at the same time making them more frequent. I stood in the streaming water, and dreamily rocked and swayed. I emerged after a while, feeling clean and refreshed, and continued to deal with each contraction as it came.

I cannot remember exactly how or why we decided it was time to bring Gloria back, but I think it happened when “getting out of my head” started being less effective. She arrived back at our house around 1:30 PM. She checked me again and I was dilated to 2 cm, and 70% effaced. Disappointing news, but at least I was getting there, slowly but surely. She was concerned about one thing, however – my effacement wasn’t “even”. The anterior portion of my cervix was much thicker than the rest (Gloria referred to it as “swollen”). As a first time mom, Gloria said I wouldn’t be able to dilate fully until effacement was complete. Somehow we had to get the effacement back on track. She started using arnica oil during checks to try to bring down the swelling.

The contractions were strong enough now that I was starting to use sound to get through them. Gloria would rub my back, tell me to lower the pitch of my sound, and remind me to relax and breathe. I knew all of these things, of course, but stubbornly refused to use them, preferring to fight the contractions. Gloria would remind me – contraction after contraction – and I would make a petulant face, but I followed her instructions.

At 3:45 PM, I was 2-3 cm and 80% effaced (at the thinnest spot), but the effacement was still uneven. After a prolonged exam, Gloria finally determined that M’s head was acynclitic (tipped slightly) due to her posterior positioning. This meant her head was not applying even pressure to the cervix, and we finally understood the source of the uneven effacement. Until then, we believed the posterior positioning was no more than an inconvenience, and since I wasn’t experiencing back labor it wasn’t that big a deal. But now we realized the effect it was having on my cervix, and just how badly it was slowing labor. And thus began our quest to get M to turn. Until she turned and straightened out her head, I would not efface fully, and until I effaced fully I would not dilate, and until I dilated … well, you know the rest.

In hindsight, I now recognize how incredibly valuable Gloria’s monitrice skills were. If I had hired a “normal” doula, we would not have known my dilation or effacement. We would not have known how slowly things were progressing, or been able to determine the cause. It’s likely I would have gone to the hospital much sooner than needed, and once on their timetable, the interventions would have been inevitable.

So now Gloria truly started to earn her money, and the real torture began. She had me lay on my left side on the bed, and piled pillows around me in an attempt to get me as comfortable as possible (uh, right). My right leg was bent and pulled up so it rested on my belly (supported by pillows). The idea was that the weight of my leg would encourage M to rotate. Although lying in bed brought the pain in my hips and pelvis to an excruciating level (as if the contractions weren’t bad enough), Gloria encouraged me to stay for as long as I could stand it, and also try to rest. She massaged my back and hips, which helped somewhat, and I was able to stay like this for close to an hour. I even dozed lightly between some of the contractions.

After that, she had me doing lunges during contractions. With my right foot on the footboard of the bed, I would lean forward and pull my knee against my belly. Again, hoping the pressure would make M turn.

And she administered copious doses of pulsatilla (for turning the baby) and arnica (for pain). I’m not sure if they had any effect.

And so things went – for hours. I tried various positions, I got in and out of the hot tub, I leaned on the birth ball, I stood, and I even went for a short walk, after much encouragement from Gloria. In fact, she ordered me to do so, insisting that I needed a change of scenery. The weather was lovely, as it had been for the last three days – finally a break from the blistering heat we’d been having. Even though we had air conditioning (thank god thank god thank god), I was grateful the weather had been so nice during my little labor adventure. So R and I took a walk, me leaning on him and insisting on walking through the contractions, even though they hurt like hell. We ran into a neighbor who exclaimed she didn’t even know I was pregnant, and when was I going to have the baby? Through gritted teeth I managed to grunt “Today!!” (I was so optimistic) and staggered off. She wished us luck.

Back in the tub, it dawned on both R and I that it was dinnertime, and we were unprepared to feed ourselves, let alone a guest. Thankfully, we had a big pile of leftovers (R’s famous grilled pork chops), so he scrambled upstairs and put a few plates together. Gloria thoroughly enjoyed her meal, and I grudgingly accepted a few bites here and there.

As darkness fell, Gloria checked me again. I was 4 cm and 80% effaced, but it was still uneven. I was crestfallen, and began to come apart at the seams. I had been having contractions steadily for 24 hours. How much longer would this go on? I was beginning to believe there would be no end, that I would never efface, that I couldn’t do it. Exhaustion was setting in, and I felt desperate. We talked things over, and Gloria suggested going to the birth center. They would admit me at 4 cm, and I could get an IM shot of Stadol, and perhaps this would allow me to rest and sleep. We all believed I would be better equipped to deal with the situation at hand if I was more rested, although I was dubious that I could keep going for much longer. So Gloria made a call, only to find that all 3 rooms were full. I couldn’t believe it. A thin strand of hope, and now it was gone. They said to call back later, as a room might be opening up, but I was terrified. What if they stayed full, and I had to go to labor and delivery to have my baby? This wasn’t at all what I had imagined, and it felt like everything was falling apart.

Gloria did her best to keep me together, and said we would devise our own method for getting me some rest. She ordered Rich to open the one bottle of wine we had, and handed me a glass. After all these many months of abstaining, I finally had the chance to enjoy a glass of wine. After a few sips, however, I realized there was no pleasure to be had, and gulped the rest of it down. We then set about devising a way to get me semi-comfortable. Due to my hip and pelvic pain, the bed was out. Leaning back made the contractions unbearable, so no recliner. I ended up sitting on the birth ball, leaning forward on pillows piled into a chair. She sat on a footstool behind me, rubbing my back during contractions. Rich was ordered to lie down and get some rest.

As the wine coursed through my veins, I felt the full brunt of my exhaustion. I leaned forward on the pillows and thought maybe, just maybe, I’d be able to sleep. But the contractions were relentless, painful, and a few minutes apart at best. I would feel the beginning of each one and cry “Nooooooo”. But they were inexorable and inescapable. The pain would come crashing in, and I would start my low-pitched, open-mouthed moaning because there was simply nothing else to do. The sound would jolt Gloria from her sleep, and she would rub my back, but it was a small comfort.

As time crawled by, and I realized there would be no true rest for me, I became increasingly agitated. The contractions were unyielding, yet I was not progressing. It was never going to end. There were walls in every direction, and no way out. But I wanted out. I needed out. The hopelessness was intense. I wanted the pain to end, I wanted an epidural. “NO!” I screamed to myself. I would have to go to L&D, and they would insert a catheter in my back – a thought that made my skin crawl. And there was no guarantee it would even work, due to the complications brought about by my surgery. But it was a possible escape, and I longed for it, yearned for it, fantasized about it. And again my brain screamed “NO!”. I knew if I had an epidural I would be confined to bed. If I was confined to bed, M would never turn. If she stayed posterior, my cervix would never efface. The nightmare scenario of epidural, followed by pitocin, followed by a c-section for lack of progress rolled out before my eyes. I couldn’t do it. An epidural simply wasn’t an option. I felt like a caged animal, clawing at the walls, desperately looking for a way out, even though I knew there was none. My thoughts swirled, frantically searching for an overlooked option, thrumming to a fever pitch. But there was nothing. I sat in the darkness, contractions rolling over me, and silently cried out in despair.

I knew Gloria and R were exhausted, and tried to leave them alone so they could rest. But my desperation quickly spiraled out of control, and my whimpers grew until I was insisting I couldn’t do this anymore. I knew I had no choice but to continue, yet I was also convinced I couldn’t go on. I was exhausted and couldn’t think straight. I needed my team to help me. Surely they could figure out a way to extract me from this mess. I insisted that everyone get up.

It was now 11 PM, and Gloria and R decided to call the birth center again. Perhaps a room had opened up, and I could get the Stadol. I was still doubtful about this, but I was desperate, and my team didn’t have any other ideas.

Amazingly a room was available, and suddenly it felt like a door had opened, a ray of light illuminating my cage. We were doing something, going somewhere, changing something. Anything was better than this.

Part 1 (Preparation)
Part 2 (Warming Up)
Part 3 (Ready! Set! Wait!)
Part 4 (Ready! Set! Wait Some More!)
Part 5 (Are We There Yet?)
Part 6 (I Think I Can, I Think I Can, I Think I can)
Part 7 (A New Life Begins)
Part 8 (Epilogue, For Me)
Part 9 (Epilogue, for my daughter)