Peter's Birth Story

Peter (means "rock") Edwin (after my Dad, means "rich friend")

January 2, 2012

1:13pm

7lb 3oz, 19in

Yes, he's our smallest baby yet!

My due date was this past Sunday, January 8th. I was so sure that the baby wouldn't arrive until mid-January because my pattern has been to go a week or so past my due date. I was a bit surprised when my water began leaking right when I woke up exactly a week before my due date. We started our normal Sunday morning routine and went to church hoping that labor would begin on its own. We planned to head on into the hospital after church either way. If I was in active labor, I knew that I would be much more relaxed and comfortable having already made the 30-minute drive and gotten settled in. If I wasn't in active labor, then we knew that we needed to get things moving since my body takes a long time to respond to Pitocin and the hospital likes for the baby to arrive within 24 hours or so of the water breaking. When we got checked in, I was having some regular contractions, but they were weak and barely noticeable. I was 1cm, 40% effaced, and the baby was very high.

There were no midwives on call over the weekend, but I liked the doctor that was there and had seen him just a few weeks before. I was fairly certain that I wouldn't deliver until the next day though, since my Pitocin-induced labors have all been long, and it turned out that the midwife that I liked was there on Monday. They got the Pitocin cranked up slowly as usual, and not much happened. To make a long story short and skip many hours of waiting, I was checked at 3:30 in the morning and was 3-4 centimeters. I wasn't checked again until around noon (I think...it's all a bit of a blur with everything that happened!) and was 5cm. Thankfully the midwife believed me when I told her that I would go from 5 to 10cm quickly once the Pitocin really kicked in. I don't remember exactly when I got my epidural either, but I waited until I felt like I couldn't handle a whole lot more...as opposed to my previous inductions where I got it quickly since I knew that I didn't want to attempt Pitocin without an epidural. I did that once with Joshua's labor, and never, ever intend to do it again! Once I got the epidural I was able to rest and get a little bit of sleep.

So now back to noon on Monday. I was 5cm and, as I mentioned, and the midwife trusted me and was willing to let me have more time. After another hour or so I was feeling pressure and thought that I was probably fully dilated. The nurse checked me and I was! Peter was still very high, and I could tell that the midwife thought I would be pushing for a while. I told her that I've never pushed more than 3 or 4 times, and I thought that he'd be born pretty quickly. She told me to push once, said "stop pushing", and got her gown on for the delivery! I think I ended up pushing 5 times and Peter was born at 1:13pm! Thankfully I had no tearing and therefore no stitches.

That's where the drama begins. The placenta did not come on its own, and after a little while the midwife decided that it needed to come out since the uterus was starting to close up shop. She massaged my belly and applied some gentle traction on the cord, but the cord and membrane were all that came. After a little while longer she decided to go in after it. Not fun. My epidural had started to wear off before the birth, so I was about half-medicated at that point. Ouch! Anyway, she was unable to get the placenta to detach and had to get the doctor on call. In the meantime, they offered to give me a little more medication in my epidural, which I gladly accepted! The doctor got there and was able to retrieve the placenta (ouch, again!), which I was grateful for since the next step was a trip to the operating room. I was losing a lot of blood at that point. My blood pressure dropped suddenly, I started vomiting, and my pulse shot up. I'm not sure if it was from the extra medication that I got, or from losing a lot of blood, or from the pain, or a combination of everything. But it was an out-of-body experience and something I'd rather not ever go through again!

After all of that was over I felt pretty good and was on track to be discharged after 24 hours. I started to get a headache a few hours before we left the hospital, but didn't think a whole lot of it. We signed the discharge papers and literally as I was gathering up my things to leave I started to get dizzy. By the time we had made the 30-minute drive home I couldn't walk without putting most of my weight on Adam, and pretty much as soon as I got in the door I started vomiting. After a few hours of feeling awful and not being able to do anything but lay in a certain position on my right side, we called the midwife, got back in the car and made the 30-minute drive back to the hospital. We spent a ridiculous 5 hours in the ER, during which time I got an IV and two bags of fluids. They tried to give me morphine twice, but we refused it. We knew that I needed a blood patch for the spinal headache. What we didn't realize is that they don't do that in the middle of the night at this particular small hospital. The midwife very graciously "pitched a fit" and had us re-admitted to labor and delivery, for which I was very thankful. We were able to get some sleep and finally had the blood patch done around 1:00. I immediately started to feel better, and after about an hour we were able to go home.

Unfortunately, the blood patch didn't "take" and my headache and dizziness came back, though not nearly as bad as it had been. An anesthesiologist friend in our church recommended that I lay flat and stay very well hydrated for several days to try to give the spinal fluid leak a chance to heal on its own. I did that for 3 days and I'm very thankful that it seems to have worked! I have been up for a good part of today and have only had a minor headache and dizziness.

Having the spinal headache and the placenta issue was no fun, but looking back, I don't think that I would have done anything differently except pray harder that my membranes wouldn't rupture prematurely. :) I knew that spinal headaches can occur with an epidural, and statistically speaking, I was overdue for one! Peter's birth was not ideal in my opinion, but God is sovereign and His hand was on this birth just as much as any of my other births. Next time around I'm going to pray that I go into labor on my own, and if I do then my plan is to skip the epidural. If an induction is necessary next time, then I imagine I'll opt for the epidural again. In the mean time, I plan to do a little research to see if there's anything I can do or eat to help keep my water from breaking early!

I love the faces that they make when they're sleeping!

I've had a lot of time over the past week and a half to lay around and think about all I have to be thankful for. I thought I'd list a few of those things here.

1) A loving husband who works hard and takes such good care of me and our children.

2) Our home and the fact that God has blessed us with SEVEN children!!

3) A sweet, healthy newborn son to snuggle.

4) Good health, increasing strength, and the privilege and blessing of being a wife and mother.

5) Our wonderful friends and family that are taking care of us and graciously providing us with meals.