Hazel's Birth Story Part 1

Back History

Due to large babies in the past and extremely long (over 60 hours) labors, we decided to induce. I was induced with Liam and it was a wonderful experience. 12 hours, two pushes and my pain level never got above a 4.  I was partially induced with Dane. They put cervadil in to soften my cervix and accidentally broke my water in the process. This led to 24 hours of fast paced labor. 7 of which I did before the epidural, in addition to the 3 hours at the end that I did without the epidural since in fell out (or rather disconnected from the machine and was dripping the medicine onto the floor). With my last baby, Finn, I went into labor naturally a few weeks early. I labored at home for a day and a half with contractions between 5 to 10 minutes apart. The contractions were not spaced super close so I knew I wasn’t in full blown labor, but it was really exhausting. I then started really keeping track once the contractions got to 4 minutes apart. From that point on it was 36 more hours of labor. So between the 3 boys I feel like I have experienced every kind of labor and delivery, or so I thought.

3 Options

We got to the hospital at 8:30 am. We checked in, were given a room, a gown and an IV to get the pitocin going. This really got my labor going and things were progressing well. Rory and I killed time by reading, texting friends and family and talking about this little girl’s arrival. This time was interrupted by my doctors periodic check, to see how dilated I was. As time went by I was dilated to a 3,4,5,….a few more hours dilated to a 6 now, things were going smoothly. Except for one thing, the baby’s heart rate would really drop with each contraction. Then Karen (my doctor) checked me and said I was a 7, during this exam her eyes got big and she looked worried. She said something to the nurse and several people quickly came into the room. We were told that the cord was across the babies head and blocking the birth canal. The reason this is so dangerous is because as soon as your water breaks, the weight of the baby will be resting on the cord and cut off blood flow and oxygen to the baby. It is also dangerous because each contraction’s compression has a similar effect on the cord and to the baby. This explained why the baby’s heart rate would drop with every contraction. Karen wanted to get a second opinion and left the room for a few minutes. When she returned she told us that things were complicated and at a high risk point. The good news was that because I was doing well and the baby’s heart rate was recovering after the contractions, we had a few options. 1. Just go ahead and have a c-section now. 2. Keep laboring and once I was more dilated try to manually move the cord out of the way and deliver normally. 3. If my water stayed in tact it would help keep pressure off the cord and if I could push her out with the water unbroken in under 3 minutes she would be ok even with the cord in the way. With both regular deliveries though we would need to be on call for a c-section at any moment in case the “variables changed”. So Rory and I had a decision to make.