If you are pregnant and want to keep that birth mindset positive and encouraging . . . I totally get it, and also maybe skip to the end of this one (also skip to the end if you're short on time). Nothing too crazy in this story, just looong hours of pushing and an epidural that kept failing. It's a pain I'd rather not experience again, but with a happy ending and a healthy baby I can't be too mad about how things worked out. Here goes!
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On September 14, two nights before Alice was born, I had a night rough enough that I really couldn't sleep due to cramp pains and had to take a midnight bath and some tylenol. The next day, I had a few painful contractions throughout the day, but nothing unusual for my last month of pregnancy. Around dinner time the contractions started getting slightly more painful and frequent. By 10:00 p.m. they were regular enough (happening every 10-20 min) and painful enough to suspect I might be in early labor and call Jared's parents to let them know we might be dropping Jack off at some point during the night.
Jared and I stayed up a bit longer so I could get a pulse on the contractions and decide if I wanted to stay put or head down to Woodinville (where Jared's parents live). Around 11:00, we finished watching the movie King Richard (would recommend). Contractions were around 12 min at this point and quite painful. I was SO tired from not sleeping the night before, so I told Jared we should try to get a little sleep because I could not go to the hospital and have a baby being this exhausted.
Around midnight, my contractions were too painful and regular for me to sleep. They were still only 12 min apart, but I couldn't stop thinking about the hour drive to the hospital and being paranoid that if I fell asleep I'd wake up too late and have to drive in rush hour and/or in extreme pain. I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep at home because of the paranoia, and I figured it would definitely be tonight or tomorrow. We decided to head down to Woodinville so Jared and Jack could get a little chunk of sleep, and hopefully me too knowing that we'd be just 15 minutes from the hospital.
At 1:00 a.m. on September 16 we arrived in Woodinville. The drive wasn't too bad in terms of contractions, so I was very glad we chose to go when we did. Jack was very cute and talkative on the drive down. At age 4, he understood a lot about what was about to happen and he was excited. Jared and Jack went to bed immediately (took some negotiating to get Jack back down). I had a snack and a really painful contraction and settled in on the couch for a long night of labor.
Sleep did not happen. My contractions were getting longer, more regular, and more painful. I used an acupressure comb and breathing techniques I learned researching hypnobirthing in the event of a speedy car birth (lol). I genuinely think they helped me keep calmer and progress faster than I would have otherwise. Eventually I went up to bed because the exhaustion was so heavy that I would fall asleep for 6 minutes between each contraction, then wake up and breathe/try not to yell for another contraction, then go back to sleep for another 6 minutes, rinse and repeat. Eventually it was bad enough I could no longer stay still or quiet, so I got up to wander the house and get another snack. Almost immediately the contractions sped up to 4-5 minutes apart, so I woke Jared up a little after 4:00 a.m. and hobbled out to the car while he got me an apple and a bagel for the road. Many thanks to Mama L for the snack recommendations and for her pebble ice maker! A true lifesaver to have a water bottle full of pebble ice at the hospital.
Around 5:00 we arrived at Evergreen Hospital in Kirkland. The timing was very similar to when we got to the hospital for Jack's birth. Another couple arrived right ahead of us so we had to wait in the waiting room for a bit. Even though I was staying surprisingly quiet as I swayed/breathed through my contractions, I think everyone in the room could tell it was getting very intense for me so they sped me through the signatures they needed and got me checked in quickly. Much better than my check-in experience with Jack in Georgia.
At 6:00ish my nurse checked my cervix. OUCH. Hate me a cervix check at any time, but especially during unmedicated active labor. I was dilated to a 6 and already 100% effaced. I asked if it was too late for an epidural, and my sweet nurse assured me it was not, then quickly got my bloodwork going. At this point I was in agony but feeling pretty positive about a speedy delivery because when I got to the hospital with Jack I was only dilated to a 4 and he was out within a few hours.
Around 7 a.m. an anesthesiologist arrived to do the epidural. Thank the heavens. I was SO pleased with the pain management team throughout the day. Everyone I interacted with at the hospital was so kind and accommodating. I never once felt the effects of the staffing shortage. I'm beyond grateful Jared chose Evergreen as our delivery hospital, and that I didn't veto even though it's almost an hour away from our house. It was a rough delivery for me but every staff member helping me that day truly went above and beyond to try and make my experience better. My contractions were 3-4 min apart at this point, lasting longer than a minute, and agonizing. I was still able to be a little bit jokey between contractions, even before the epidural kicked in. I did my best to keep the mood light and positive instead of tense and fearful. Hypnobirthing 101.
By 8:00 a.m. I started feeling a nice sense of relief thanks to the epidural. I didn't have constant pelvic floor pain seeping through like I'd had with Jack. My nurse asked about my last birth and I mentioned my PF pain and she was an absolute ANGEL the whole day doing anything and everything she possibly could to try and prevent the PF trauma I had last time, which took a full year to recover from. I labored for several more hours, and tried to take a nap without much luck. I was so tired and couldn't feel much pain, but I was SO numbed up that I actually felt claustrophobic. My nurse came in every 15-30 minutes to turn me from side to side like a roast chicken. She said this would help corkscrew the baby downward, and keep me from getting uncomfortable.
By 9:00 I noticed that even though my right side was still completely numb, I was having 6 out of 10 pain on my left side during contractions, getting worse and worse with each one. This also happened during my labor with Jack, where the left side didn't really take the epidural. I let the nurse know and she got the anesthesiologist back in the room to do some anesthesia magic and add . . . more coverage? More potency? I don't really know, but it worked. Within 10 minutes the left side was all good again.
Around 10:00 my legs were somehow getting more and more and more numb even though my pain was already gone. I started to feel increasingly claustrophobic and a bit panicky. I asked Jared to come squeeze my feet and toes. This helped a bit. Eventually the claustrophobic feeling eased up a bit, but at 11:00 I was only dilated to an 8. There began to be talk about breaking my water or doing a little Pitocin if I wasn't progressing further in the next hour or so.
At noon my nurse checked me again and said I was a "stretchy 8/9, maybe even 10." She had to continue to up my epidural as it kept wearing off on my left side. There was more talk of Pitocin/water-breaking, which I wasn't pumped about. My nurse told me to let her know if I felt the urge to push. She didn't want me to start pushing too soon, for the sake of my pelvic floor. Bless her. But the "urge" to push never came. It never came with Jack either, even on the side with no epidural coverage. Eventually we decided to just try a push and see what happened. The on-call doctor, Dr. Hyde, came in around this time to introduce himself. I was a little bummed that my OB couldn't be there because he was finishing up a C-section and then was going to head home sick. But the on-call doctor had an extremely calming presence and ended up being just what I needed that day. He asked how long I needed to push with my first birth. When I told him 3 hours, he assured me that this time would be much faster (lol again).
Pretty soon, probably by 12:30, I had begun pushing. I'm not very good at pushing. I did a bunch of research on the "correct" and "most efficient" ways to push a baby out in my last month of pregnancy, and I really did practice! But in the end I'm not sure any of it was actually any more helpful than "pretend you're pushing out the biggest poop of your life." The "urge" to push never really comes for me, and I never feel like I'm making any progress. It could be my first push or my 300th push and they'd feel equally unproductive to me. As my epidural would wear off I'd feel the contraction pain get worse and worse and know when it was time, even though I still wouldn't call the feeling an "urge." More just an agonizing, intense pain. Anyway, I pushed for an hour or so and my nurse told me she thought baby was in a bit of a sideways position (posterior, I think she called it). She said it felt like baby was a little stuck. Another nurse would pop in to help once in a while and she agreed. There started to be talk of forceps. They assured me that Dr. Hyde is the best doctor with forceps and at getting a stuck baby out. But still. "Forceps" is not a word you're pumped to hear after you've already been pushing for hours, and when you know that if the forceps don't work then the next word will probably be "C section."
I kept pushing, my nurse switching my positions every so often to try and see what would be the most productive and hopefully least harsh on my pelvic floor. I appreciated that so much. We tried pushing on back, on hands and knees, on both sides, and when I mentioned reading somewhere that "knees in calves out" might be a good position for opening the pelvis she brought out the peanut ball and we tried that too. Unfortunately, my epidural kept getting weaker and weaker, and I kept getting more and more exhausted and discouraged. I had Jared sneak me a fig bar when no one was in the room because at this point I'm still pregnant Laura, and I still get very nauseated if I go more than a couple hours without food. Homegirl AIN'T gonna be barfing on top of 3 days sleep deprived and screaming at my absolute lifetime peak of physical agony.
After I'd been pushing nearly 3 horrific hours, the epidural had completely worn off on my left side, and I was having the unrelenting pelvic floor pain I had with jack. My nurse was so sympathetic, but also hesitant to have them add to the epidural because I just wasn't progressing and epidurals tend to slow down birth progress. But at some point between my screams and sobs and "can't do it"s, she called the anesthesiologist back in. By this point it had been what felt like an hour of being run over by a train and I think my soul just had to leave my body for a few minutes. I got weirdly silent for a while and I don't even remember the anesthesia team coming in to fix me up. Truly felt like an out-of-body experience waiting for the epidural to kick in, and then I was back in my body and doing more-or-less ok, but still so exhausted and discouraged knowing that it was only a matter of time before the epidural would wear off yet again.
Dr. Hyde came back in to take a peek, and he told me that he was here to be my cheerleader, that baby was not posterior, and that I would deliver vaginally and would not need a C-section. Bless him. This is exactly what I needed to hear when I was at my lowest, and while it didn't give me a boost of adrenaline or anything, it kept me from spiraling to an even worse mental state.
I kept pushing, and I kept feeling like nothing was happening. Long, agonizing story made a bit shorter, right around 4:30 in the afternoon I did a push and everyone started to get excited and tell me her shoulder finally made it past my pelvic bone? (Not sure that's the right bone name haha.) Then all of a sudden everyone was yelling, "Don't push! We need to get the doctor in here to catch her." They kept apologizing like it would be some big hardship for me to "not push" at this point, but again, I never really feel the urge to push anyway, apparently not even when baby is RIGHT there. So I breathed through a few contractions, honestly pumped to be taking a break, and then the doctor came in and everyone was scrambling to get him suited up before baby could slide out, and he made it just in time. He had me reach down and feel her head, and then one final push did the trick.
Dr. Hyde had me reach down to grab my sweet baby girl and pull her up onto my chest. I instantly started sobbing from joy and relief and exhaustion. She was so perfect, and I was so happy to meet her and be done pushing. What a surreal experience. I did a good bit of laughing and crying and just staring at my perfect little baby while they delivered the placenta and stitched me up and ooh-ed and ahh-ed about me having the longest umbilical cord literally any of them had ever seen. The doctor joked, "the longer the cord the smarter the baby." But later on we looked up long umbilical cords and learned that (a) length of umbilical cord is usually determined by how active your baby is in the womb (baby A was active 100% of the time so makes sense; Jack also had an extra long umbilical cord), but more importantly (b) long umbilical cords put baby at a much higher risk for bad birth outcomes like knots in the cord, etc. So we feel VERY lucky nothing went wrong on that front. I might have truly excruciating deliveries, but I feel so grateful both my babies were born healthy and without complications/interventions. Dr. Hyde also apologized for promising me a quicker delivery this time around. It ended up being about 4 hours of pushing, which I truly did not see coming since it was my second birth.
Alice Lark Lambert was born 4:38 pm. on September 16, 20 inches long and 7 lbs 6 oz. (same weight as baby Jack). We love her so much! Considering it took 4 hours to push her out, I was shocked her head wasn't misshapen. Her nose was pretty smooshed for a few days but eventually unsmooshed. And she was very stuffed up and snorty during our hospital stay until the birth fluids kind of worked themselves out. So cute. After her birth my wonderful nurse told me that if we decide to have more kids in the future, I should let the delivery team know that my left side isn't as sensitive to epidurals and that I go through a LOT of epidural bags very quickly. Because my right side was handling it fine but they had to keep adding more fluid for my left side, my right side was EXTRA drugged and my right leg stayed completely numb for 8 HOURS after giving birth. I had to be wheeled in and out of the bathroom all night. By morning it had worn off and I could walk around a very little bit. I mostly tried not to though because, you know, 2nd degree tear and such.
We only stayed at the hospital one night. I was nervous for the drive home because with Jack, car rides/any sort of sitting was excruciating to the point of basically being impossible for months and months. but I did ok. I wasn't real comfy, but our hour-long drive home was definitely better than the 10-minute drive home with Jack, so not bad.
And that is the story of how Alice was born! Definitely the most physically agonizing experience of my life, but holy cow. Worth it. She's just the best. We love that little girl more and more each day. Here are some more pictures from our time at the hospital. A photographer took some newborn pictures while we were there, but the prices were scary. Like $300 for them to print 4 pictures. So we just screenshot our favorites with the watermark on and called it good haha. Now here's a bunch of pictures from our hospital stay in random order:
^^Barf bag because they tried to wheel me to the bathroom and just getting from the bed into the wheelchair was too much for me. I started seeing stars and feeling big-time pukey, then they brought me a good ol' emesis bag. My trusty old barfy companion. This pic must've been taken after I'd recovered a bit because I look WAY too healthy here considering how I felt throughout our hospital stay.
^^5 gold stars to my L&D nurse for grabbing Jared's phone camera and making sure someone snapped a few pictures of these first moments meeting baby Alice.
^^Showing Alice her first glimpse of the outside world with the song "Mr. Blue Sky" by ELO playing in the background. A tradition Jared started with baby Jack at the hospital in Georgia. My favorite Jared-bonding-with-baby memories from both births. I love being a fly on the wall and watching Jared be the main character, showing his babies his world, after months of me being the main character and doing all the baby carrying. This moment of Jared stepping onto the plate makes me so happy :')
