When I was pregnant with Carson, I was afraid of going into labor and not knowing it. You see, I’d heard the horror story of my own birth, told by my Mother, where the labor went so quickly that she didn’t even realize she was in labor and didn’t make it to the hospital in time for an epidural--- It was a vaginal birth o’natural. Her second child birth experience with my brother, Tyler, was planned, induced and medicated. She highly recommended the latter!
Because of my fears, I requested an induction 6 days before my due date with Carson, but ended up needing an emergency induction 9 days before he was due. (For information on Carson’s birth story, please visit blog archives, November 2008)
Upon learning the due date of our second child, April 10, 2010, we realized that it was the Saturday before Jeff’s Spring Semester finals, and he couldn’t afford to miss a lot of school. This was cause for another induction. Jeff consulted his Spring Semester syllabi and decided that Tuesday, April 6th was the best day for the birth of our child. (Jeff also liked its religious significance, but that wasn’t our top priority.)
We made all the arrangements for April 6th. We scheduled the hospital, lined up family members to take care of Carson, and Jeff was working hard to get his final assignments done early. It was the perfect plan. But as my pregnancy progressed, I started to feel cheated! I wanted the experience of my body going into labor on its own and to let my baby choose her birthday. I wanted to time contractions, feel the rush of racing to hospital and not know when my baby would arrive.
I shared my feelings with Jeff, and he wanted to experience it too! All the while, people kept saying things like, “You know, things never go according to plan. That baby is definitely coming early,” or “child birth isn’t meant to be convenient.” And we believed them. Carson’s birth was planned and he came early, so we started to hope for a spontaneous child birth and my body inducing labor.
At thirty-seven weeks, we began praying for our baby to come as soon as she was ready. We told the Lord we wanted her to be healthy, and we also wanted to ‘experience labor’ before the scheduled induction. We then did our part…. We tried EVERY natural induction method possible, with the exception of castor oil, to try to induce my labor. We walked and walked for miles, we had all the ‘marital relations’ we could handle, and even stripped my membranes twice- but to no avail. After many sleepless nights, spent reading up on the signs and stages of labor, we decided it was hopeless cause.
It was on Monday, April 5th, however, that we recognized the Lord’s sense of humor. I awoke that morning around 1am. I couldn’t sleep! I had a horrible, sharp pain in my back. “A contraction,” I thought, “That was a real contraction!” I got out of bed and started pacing the living room floor, in hopes of getting things moving. I waited and waited for another one… it was at least an hour before the next one came. However, I did have one positive sign, forgive me for sharing, diarrhea- a sign of early stage labor. Thirty or so minutes later… I had another sharp pain in my back. “Wow,” I thought, “They are getting closer together.” Please remember, as my internal dialoged makes me sound like an idiot in this story, that I was paranoid about not making it to the hospital in time for an epidural, and I wasn’t about to miss ANY sign that might be related to labor.
By 3:30am, I thought it was time to wake up Jeff. I was sure we’d need to go to the hospital before the sun came up. We watched a movie together and waited for more contractions. They came very slowly and were not even close to consistent. I felt silly about waking him up.
By 9:00am, Jeff prepared for school. I cried as he closed the door. I didn’t want him to go. My husband, sweet as can be, was a sleep deprived zombie… on his way to school, and I was a sobbing mess!
By 10:00am, he walked back through the door, “I couldn’t focus,” he said. “I had to come home.” I was SO excited to see him, BUT every time he asked, “Have you had any more contractions?” I wanted to punch him in the face! The back pains were still coming, but they weren’t close enough to count.
To ease the tension and distract ourselves, we decided to go to Walmart. Walking was a nice distraction, but what I really wanted was to know if these back pains were really contractions. I had heard of a thing called ‘back labor,’ but I knew it could last for days. So I made an appointment at my OB’s office to see if my cervix was actually changing.
At 11:30am, when the nurse, Denise, checked my cervix, I was a 2+, a slight improvement from the previous Friday. Denise, however, was concerned with the baby’s heart rate and made an appointment for an NST and sonogram at the hospital. “They might even induce you while you’re there. Here’s hoping,” she said as I walked away. I left the OB’s office in tears, tears of nervousness for my baby’s wellbeing and tears of hope that the waiting would be over.
The tests at the hospital showed that the baby was fine, but that she was posterior, with her nose facing my spine, and this was causing the back pains.
During the ultra sound the technician said, “You’re having a contraction, do you feel the pain in your back?”
“I do.”
She then felt my belly and had a puzzled look on her face. “That’s weird,” she said, “I don’t feel it on the outside. Your belly should be hard. It says you’re having a contraction.”
That was precisely my problem! I was having these horrible back pains, but I didn’t know if they were contractions. My belly never got ‘hard.’
The hospital sent me home, and the technician said that I probably wouldn’t see much progress before my induction the following day. That meant I could go home and ‘experience labor’ for at least 18 more hours.
By 2:00pm, my Mom wanted to ease my burden and took Carson to her house. I cried as I said goodbye to my ‘only child’ for the last time, because his sister would be here by morning. “Don’t wait too late to go to hospital,” were my mother’s parting words of wisdom.
The shooting back pains continued, and nothing eased the pain. But I’d convinced myself that I would have to wait ‘til morning.
Jeff and I went to dinner and the pain seemed to be getting worse. Out of curiosity, Jeff wanted to time the pains. They were consistently 14 minutes apart. “Maybe I am in labor,” I thought.
Jeff asked me to describe the pain. I used phrases like, “it’s like someone is jabbing a knife in my spine and twisting it,” and “I can only assume this is what it would be like to be shot in the back by a cannon at close range.”
While at dinner, I called a friend, who is a labor and delivery nurse, and explained the situation- the shooting back pain without a contracting stomach, and she said, “That can last for days. You’re not in labor. You need to feel the contractions in your stomach. This could just be the start.”
“Okay, so I’m not in labor,” I decided.
Jeff and I then decided to walk around some local stores. The phone rang. Jeff answered and heard, “Hi, Jeff. It’s Mom. We’ve decided to spend the night at your house. There’s a big snow storm coming, and we don’t want to drive the point of the mountain in the morning. We’ll be there in an hour.”
Jeff and I quickly raced home to vacuum and pick up the house.
Who was coming? You ask. Well, after watching Carson’s birth, I was amazed by the miracle of child birth. Jeff’s mother had 8 c-sections and had never witnessed a vaginal delivery, so I invited her to mine. And If my mother-in-law was coming, then my sister-in-law, Jenny, wanted to come too, and if Jenny got to come… then Jeff’s other two sisters, Sarah and Rachel, wanted to see it as well.
The four of them were on their way to our house, and they were going to spend the night. That was an interesting surprise. Their arrival was greatly appreciated though. Having more people to talk to and entertain helped me forget the pain. I told them the events of the day, and my mother-in-law said, “You’re in labor! You don’t have to feel it in your stomach to have contractions. My mother had 5 babies and they were all back labor. We should really start timing these things.” So we did.
By 9:30pm, they were seven minutes apart. We started discussing the trip to the hospital, “I’m not going to the hospital. I’m not in labor. I’m going to get sent home,” I said.
My mother-in-law’s response was, “If you get sent away… you get sent away. It’s no big deal. I’m sure they see it all the time.”
By 10:30pm, my contractions were 5 minutes apart. Jeff said it was time to go to the hospital. I didn’t know what to think. We all packed up and walked out to our cars. It was snowing outside and Jeff was scraping the windshield. I quickly discovered that my cell phone wasn’t in my purse. “I can’t forget my cell phone,” I thought, “I’ve got to call everyone after I have the baby.”
“Jeff,” I yelled. “I forgot the phone!”
“I’ll go get it when I’m done scraping the windshield,” he said.
“No. It’s okay. I’ll go get it.” As I jogged towards our apartment, with a contraction and in the snow, I didn’t see the pothole. My foot hit the side of the hole, my ankle rolled right under me and I lost my footing . BAM! I was lying on the asphalt, in the middle of our parking lot. I starred at the dark night sky and snow fell on my face.
“Did that really just happen?” I thought. “Did I really just fall down?” The moment was very surreal. I wasn’t thinking about the baby. I wasn’t thinking about my back pain. I was simply laying in the roa-not thinking. Finally, I thought to yell. “Jeff!”
Jeff looked over and quickly rushed to help me up. “Are you okay?” He asked.
“I think so,” was all that I could say. “I need to go change my clothes.” My pants were wet and black, from the rocks and snow on the asphalt. As I walked inside, my ankle throbbed. The fear of the hospital was gone. The fall made me stop and breath. I didn’t cry. I wasn’t upset. I just focused on changing my clothes. It wasn’t until I went to take off my pants that I felt it…my cell phone. It had been in my pocket the entire time. The irony made me laugh out loud. I fell down on my way to the house to grab the phone that was in my pocket.
On the way to the hospital, my foot hurt as bad as the contractions. I made it to labor and delivery and said, “I think that I’m in labor.” I then told then I was scheduled to be induced in 6 or 7 hours.
“We probably won’ sent you home then,” was basically all they said.
I was pleasantly surprised when my nurse was Denise, the same nurse who checked my cervix that morning. When she checked me at mid-night, I had progressed to a 4. “When do I get my epidural?” I asked.
She looked at me blankly and said, “First, I have to check with your doctor and make sure that you can stay. I’m sure he won’t object. You were going to have the baby today anyway. Then we’ll talk about that epidural.” She also checked my ankle and said, “I don’t examine a lot of ankles as a labor and delivery nurse,” and everyone got a good laugh.
By 1:30am, We had the ‘okay’ to get an epidural and start pitocin. After 24 hours of pain--- it was a welcome relief.
I had fun cracking jokes with Denise, Jeff and my audience of 4, and I truly enjoyed the experience. I was glad Jeff’s family decided to come down early or they might have missed the experience.
By 2:30am, my water broke, and I was ready to push. “Don’t bare down,” I remember Denise saying. “Try not to push yet. Your doctor is on his way.”
I felt the baby coming and it was hard to deny my desire to push. I didn’t experience this feeling with Carson, because my epidural was too strong, but I was happy to feel the pressure.
The doctor arrived… just in time! In less than 5 pushes, the baby was out. I didn’t hear a cry, but I wasn’t really worried. I watched the stone-cold faces of my mother-in-law and husband as Dr. Jacobs arms seemed to fly through the air. My baby was quickly rushed to the warming table and let out a cat-like cry. It was a few minutes later that my mother-in-law explained what happened. The umbilical cord was not only wrapped around the baby’s neck, but it was wrapped around both of her arms as well. The Doctor was anxiously pulling and tugging the cord to unravel her as she seemed to gasp for air.
I’m just glad I didn’t have to see that part. I might have freaked out.
Born at 3:03am on April 6th, the day I was scheduled to be induced, our baby was 6lbs 2oz and 18 inches long. As they cleaned her off, my mother-in-law informed me that she had 3 stork marks in the same exact places as her brother, Carson, which I could hardly believe.
We named her Maylee Elizabeth Wall. Maylee (Mei Li) means ‘beautiful’ in Mandarin, and we think the name is fitting of our beautiful baby girl.
Her birth was a wonderful experience and Jeff’s mother & sisters still thank me for letting them witness it.
I’m happy to have my family of four, and Maylee is just perfect!
Thanks,
