Brianna Elizabeth was born on Feb 14th at 5:12am via c-section due to fetal distress after 31 hours of labour. This is the story of her arrival. It's long, detailed and as much for my own memory as anything else, so you've been warned! There may be too much information for some.
I will preface by saying that if I had a mental list of "don't wants" for my childbirth experience, I think we checked them all off. But it just doesn't matter. My daughter is perfect and that's all that matters in the long run. No, I didn't get the calm water birth at home that I wanted, and am stuck with a much longer and more painful recovery than I had hoped, but I just don't care once she smiles up at me. I would have gone through ten times as much to bring her safely to the world!!
It all started on Feb 12th (5 days overdue) as Chris and I sat watching the opening ceremonies to the Olympics. I guess Brianna is a sports fan, 'cause half an hour into the ceremonies I noticed that I was having contractions. They weren't overly painful, but they were definitely noticeable and coming rather regularly. So I popped open an online timing program and started hitting "S" when they started and stopped. And hour or so later I was able to confirm that I was having contractions lasting about 20-30 seconds every 8-10 minutes. At this point I called my mom who was to be one of my labour support people and she headed to our place. And then, according to the directions my midwife had given me for early labour, Chris and I immediately went up to bed, I took some gravol to help me sleep and tried to sleep as long as possible. Not that I slept well. The combination of excitement and semi-regular contractions does not lend itself well to sleep, for some crazy reason!
Once daylight showed up I gave up pretending to sleep and started timing contractions again. They were now a bit longer (30-45 seconds) and more frequent, every 7-8 minutes. Yay! So I called my midwife at 8am just to give her the heads up, but knew she wouldn't come over until we reached the 5-1-1 mark, contractions every 5 minutes, lasting 1 minute for 1 hour straight. I figured she'd likely be there some time that afternoon. Boy was I wrong.
The next 12 hours were a study in frustration. The contractions would get longer and closer together and then slow down again. By early morning they were quite intense and I was no longer able to talk through them, a classic sign of active labour, but the timing wasn't showing progress. At one point I had contractions lasting over a minute for almost an hour...and then they changed and were every 3 minutes apart but only lasting 30 seconds. Then 15 minutes would pass with nothing only to be followed by a 90 second whooper of a contraction. It was completely random! In the meantime Chris had set up our birthing pool and I was sooo wanting to get in it. But warm water can slow down early labour (although speeds up active labour, go figure!), so I didn't want to get in until labour was well established.
At 7pm my midwife called again and asked me to come down to the hospital for some fetal monitoring, as she was there for another patient. She told me it would likely take about half an hour and then we'd be back home. She just wanted to check on baby seeing as my contraction pattern was so odd. So we immediately headed out to the hospital even though mom had just returned with dinner. We figured it would keep and we weren't all that hungry. Big mistake!
Once we got to the hospital and into a room, my midwife did an internal check. I was only 2 cm dilated!! This is after over 20 hours of contractions, at least 8 of which had been rather intense. And I had been 1cm dilated on Thursday at my last appointment. So then they hooked me up to the fetal monitor. And it wasn't a good story. Nothing looked really terrible, but it didn't look right either. So my midwife brought in the OB to consult just to get another opinion. And he concurred that it was off enough that we shouldn't be going home. Man was I regretting not having had dinner!! Both OB and midwife were really surprised at my lack of dilation based on the strength of my contractions, so decided to break my water. This was probably the least in control I felt as the doctor decided to do it and proceeded without so much as a by your leave. Chris wasn't even in the room, having gone down to get me admitted.
The OB was also instantly skeptical of my ability to deliver vaginally. He had figured out that her head was badly positioned, pointing the biggest part at the exit rather than the smallest part (yep, there's a technical term for this, but I can't remember what it is!). Also, based on how low her head was and where he could feel her bum, he knew she was a big baby which was going to make it harder. He figured even if I did deliver vaginally he was going to have to use forceps or a vacuum and that I would likely tear badly. But he respected my desire for a vaginal birth, and to give him credit he did everything he could to give it to me.
Breaking my water had an immediate impact in making my contractions much stronger very quickly. The pain got so bad that at one point I puked for the entire duration of a contraction. It was the only time all night that I had been glad I hadn't had dinner!! Unfortunately the increased strength of the contractions didn't seem to make them more effective, and several hours later I had only dilated another cm or two. At that point, making no progress and with my energy levels dwindling fast from lack of food and sleep, I decided to get an epidural. Unfortunately they had to run an IV of saline before they could call the anesthesiologist and it took them 7 attempts before they were finally able to get the IV in. Luckily the anesthesiologist was available once I was ready and he managed to get the epidural in reasonably quickly (although it felt like an eternity at the time!)
Shortly thereafter proceeded the scariest few minutes of my entire life. After they epidural went in, they lost Brianna's heart rate on the monitor. This in and of itself wasn't that unusual as they'd been losing it rather regularly. But this time they couldn't find it again. All of a sudden there were tons of people in the room, I'm being put on oxygen and flipped from side to side trying to find this heartbeat. And nothing. Chris was pushed out of the way so all I could do was look between him and the monitor and pray for all I was worth. I seriously thought my decision to have the epidural had had terrible consequences.
Thankfully they did eventually find her heart rate. Mom left the room and cried, I think I was so stunned all I could do was lie there thanking God. At that point they decided it was time for an internal monitor (whereby they screw a probe into baby's scalp to monitor the heartbeat). During my pre-natal classes this was definitely one of the procedures that I wanted to avoid, but at the time it was totally reassuring to have a steady monitor of her heartbeat.
Unfortunately during all of this time, Brianna was still not having reassuring heart rate patterns. And I just wasn't making any progress. Due to my lack of progress they decided to put me on pitocin to help speed up and strengthen the contractions. Didn't bother me one bit as the epidural was in and I was able to drift off to sleep.
Only to be awoken about 30 min later because Brianna's heart rate had dropped suddenly and they needed to turn me over trying to get it up again. Thus did the next few hours proceed. Her heart rate would drop; they would turn me over or tickle the top of her head to get it up again. She was not reacting at all well to the stronger contractions. The OB now added this to the list of reasons he didn't think I'd be able to deliver vaginally. However he agreed to take it hour by hour and see how it went.
Finally, at about 4am, I was fully dilated. And the OB got me to bear down a few times and I was actually able to make baby move down a bit, despite the epidural. He was willing to leave the choice to me, whether to try for the vaginal delivery, knowing intervention (forceps, vacuum) and tearing were almost certainties and that if baby's heart rate got worse we'd have to do an emergency c-section anyway. Or just to go straight to the c-section. At which point another contraction hit and Brianna's heart rate dropped to 47 (it's supposed to be 120+). So he decided we just couldn't take the risk and we'd have to do the c-section. And I have to say, although I desperately wanted to avoid a c-section, I was not willing to risk Brianna. When he made his decision I was, and continue to be, fine with it. Her best interests come first!
So off I was wheeled to the OR, strapped down like a sacrificial lamb (arms out to both sides). The anesthesiologist came in and increased the drugs in my epidural. Chris was brought in to hold my hand and they cut Brianna out. At 5:12 she entered the world screaming. And while I had asked that Chris tell me the sex, he was feeling so shaky from lack of food that he couldn't bring himself to look over the sheet for fear he'd pass out at seeing me cut open. So they told us she was a girl and we just beamed at each other. I must admit to being surprised, as for some reason I really thought she was a boy!
Then they started sewing me up. Chris got to go meet Brianna first, after they cleaned her up and sucked out her lungs. Then he trimmed the cord, she was weighed and finally they brought her over to meet me. She had been crying lustily all this time, but when they put her cheek to mine and I started talking to her, she actually calmed down for the first time. Just melted my heart to pieces. And she is just perfect. So beautiful. Although I admit I may be biased. :)
Then they took her to do some other things (don't ask me what, I couldn't see!). And that's when the reaction to the epidural drugs started. My teeth started chattering. Then my whole upper body started shaking (thank goodness no my lower body). Then I threw up what little there was in my stomach (sadly enough after hours of no food or liquid while on oxygen, I actually enjoyed vomiting as it wet my throat and mouth!). All in all, the reaction was not pleasant.
Finally they were done sewing me up and we all traipsed back to my room. My midwives got her to feed while I looked on in a daze. A couple hours latter the midwives left for home, and Chris, Brianna and I went to sleep! All three of us were completely beat.
Thus my daughter was born. As I said, it wasn't the birth I had hoped for. But she's here and she's perfect and that's all that matters.
First meeting with Mommy 
Getting to know Daddy 
Chilling with Grandma
Proud Daddy
Cousin Hannah 
Cousin Claudia
So tiny!
Instant love
Sleeping with Grandma
Getting ready to go home
Snowsuit
Welcome home!
Hi Grandma 
Great-Grandma 
