Ruby's Birth Story Part 1

At long last, I am finally going to write and reflect on Ruby's birth. Be forewarned: this may be long!

I couldn't wholly tell you the story of Ruby's birth without telling you the story of Ira's birth. So here we go:

When I was 33 weeks pregnant with Ira, I started having contractions. They were close enough together and long enough that I called my doctor about them. He sent me to the hospital to have them checked. They gave me morphine to stop the contractions, but that made Ira's heartrate drop, so they had me stay in the hospital overnight for monitoring. After a night of monitoring, without anymore heart blips, they sent me home on bedrest. The contractions came and went, and we made several more trips to the hospital. Finally one night, they seemed to change, so we went to the hospital once again.

Now, this is where I will infuse new knowledge into the story. Andy and I were so young and naive about birth at that point, we wanted to do it all natural, but we weren't equipped with the knowledge to do so (despite the fact that we'd taken Lamaze - which I now see as a pointless venture.) When they checked me, I was at a 2, and they said if I dilated to a 3 in the next hour or so, they would admit me. The contractions essentially stopped, but when they checked me an hour later, I was at almost 3, so they admitted me... and immediately broke my water (big mistake #1.) and started me on pitocin (big mistake #2) Problem was, I don't really think Ira was READY to be born yet. So, all day, they kept increasing the pitocin, and I kept NOT progressing.

By 5 pm, our doctor (who by the way was NOT our doctor with Ruby's birth) was ALREADY pushing for a C-section (just 8 short hours after breaking my water!) Thank HEAVENS we had an incredible nurse who informed us that it was our right to refuse the doctor's recommendation. So we did.

By 8 pm, I had dilated to a measly 4 or 5, and stuff still wasn't moving. The doctor wanted a c-section scheduled. The nurse (I think?) suggested that we try stadol to help relax me so that maybe I could dilate more. I did that (which made me INCREDIBLY loopy!) I kid you not, the wallpaper border on the wall was MOVING! When it wore off, I had dilated a little more, and the contractions were picking up a little, but with our doctor's stringent time frame, someone suggested an epidural would continue to relax me so that I could dilate and avoid a c-section. We were willing to do just about anything at that point to avoid a c-section, so I had an epidural. I slept while the contractions continued. At 10 pm, the doctor said, enough waiting, you're 5th on the list for a c-section. We asked for ONE MORE HOUR... PLEASE! They said, okay, and checked me again at 11. I had progressed to 7 or so, so they let labor continue!

By around midnight, I felt the urge to push. The problem was, I couldn't feel WHERE to push, at all! They tried putting a mirror in front of me, so I could see, but apparently it made me light-headed, because the removed the mirror shortly after. They had to put me on oxygen, because I kept getting light-headed when I pushed. I also puked several times throughout the process. After nearly an hour and a half of pushing, Ira was finally born!! It was such an incredible experience to give birth vaginally, but I was left with regrets that I had to have an epidural. I wanted the birth of our next child to be different!

To be continued...