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Jonah's Birth Story |
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My Bradley Births |
Jonah
Michael Aldridge Our first child was due on September 11, 1999. On the morning of September 15, I went to my prenatal appointment. I was 3 cm dilated. I left the midwife's office and began cramping and spotting shortly after. Michael dropped me off at home so I could rest while he went to work. I slept for 4 hours. When I woke up around 2 p.m. I was having pretty intense cramps. My dad came and picked me up because I didn't feel like being alone and I didn't feel comfortable driving. I went to my parent's house and got in the jacuzzi tub. Instant relief! At this point, I didn't think I was in labor. After about an hour in the tub, I decided to get out. I went and laid down on the living room floor. I began having regular contractions (about 4-5 minutes apart). I still wasn't convinced that I was in labor. (I had already experienced 8 weeks of regular contractions). At 3:30 p.m. I called my husband and asked him to come home. He met me at my parent's house. I got back in the tub for another hour or so. When Michael arrived, he convinced me that I really was in labor. We decided to go home and finish packing our bags for the hospital. The plan was to go back to my mom and dad's house to labor in the tub some more. By the time we got back there, my contractions were coming every 2 minutes and I was having trouble talking through them. We called the midwife and she suggested that we come to the hospital. We arrived at Clark around 6 p.m. The nurse checked me and I was 3 cm dilated. I was a little disappointed that I wasn't farther along, but overall in good spirits. I had to work through the contractions but in between I was totally fine. We walked the halls trying to get things moving. At 7:30 p.m. I was still 3 cm. We decided to go home (or rather back to my mom and dad's house). When we got there, I tried to eat but the contractions were so intense that I couldn't. I got back in the tub but didn't find the relief I had found before. It was very difficult to relax. I was having a lot of back pain and couldn't get comfortable. I think all the moving around we had done also made me lose my concentration. Michael kept trying to help me focus and relax. At that point, I really felt like I couldn't do it. My contractions were 1 1/2 to 2 minutes apart, lasting over a minute. They were very intense. At 11 p.m. we decided to head back to the hospital. I was exhausted and anxious. The car ride was excruciating. We were sure I was in transition due to the intensity of my contractions and my emotional state. I kept saying, "I can't" over and over. When we arrived at Clark, I crawled through the parking lot. The only "comfortable" position I could tolerate was on my hands and knees. When we finally made it to Labor and Deliver, the nurse wanted me to lie down and hook me up to the monitors. I was pretty uncooperative. I told her I wasn't doing anything until I spoke to my midwife. I needed to know my options. I didn't think I could go on much longer. Beth came back to the hospital after being there all day and delivering 3 other babies. She had only been gone 5 minutes when they paged her to come back. When she came in to see me, I was a wreck. I was emotionally drained after discovering I was still 3 cm dilated. Beth checked my cervix and assured me that I was moving in the right direction. By her estimation, I was at least 4 cm and 100% effaced. I was begging for drugs at this point! Beth was so patient. She explained how we had never discussed drugs and she didn't want me to be disappointed with my decision. Although deep down, I knew I would be disappointed, I truly felt I couldn't do it without them. Beth explained all my options. She told me I would have to have blood drawn and wait for the results. She also said I would have to have 2 bags of I.V. fluids. Over an hour and a half went by and still no epidural had shown up! I think she was stalling! By that point, I had gotten the pain somewhat under control. Knowing that drugs were "on the way" somehow relaxed me or made me reach deep down within myself and pull it together because I really didn't want the drugs. I needed sleep. I was too tired to concentrate on relaxing. Beth offered to give me a sedative to help me sleep. She explained that it would not take away the pain, but only help me sleep in between contractions for about an hour. It was almost 2 a.m. on September 16th. I was now 5 cm dilated. The Stadol kicked in pretty quickly and knocked me out. But boy was she right about it not taking away the pain. In fact, it almost made it worse because I was so loopy that I could not effectively cope with the pain. It slowed my contractions down to about 4 minutes apart so I was getting a good 2 or 3 minutes of sleep in between. Then I would wake up in the middle of a contraction, thrash around for a minute or so and fall back to sleep. This went on for an hour. When Beth came back in, I was 9.5 cm dilated! Beth told me I could start pushing whenever I felt the urge. I couldn't believe it. I told Michael, "This doesn't seem real." I was still a little groggy from the Stadol. I started out pushing on all fours. I had a hard time focusing in that position. I needed to turn over and find a better one. Beth suggested the squatting bar. She gave me a towel and when I had the urge to push, she took one end and I took the other and we played tug-of-war. I had my feet on the squat bar. That really gave me good leverage and things started moving really fast. I didn't feel pain anymore but just an uncontrollable urge to push. All of a sudden I felt a huge release of pressure. My baby's head was out. I remember thinking to myself, "How can the head be out. No one told me it was coming!" Later I found out that everyone kept saying, "Here comes the head." I was so focused on what I was doing that I had tuned everything else out. Another push and my baby was born at 3:37 a.m. I had only been pushing for 45 minutes. Beth held up my baby and everyone in the room could clearly see that it was a BOY! Beth and Michael both announced the obvious at the same time. I looked over at my husband and he was crying and that made me cry. My mom and dad were there too and they were also crying. We were all overjoyed! Beth handed me my son. I held him to my chest and looked into his eyes. He was perfect. I counted his fingers and toes. I was in total awe. I couldn't believe my baby had finally arrived! I felt so much love for my new son and for my family. I was a mom! It was so much harder than I had ever imagined. Even though it didn't go exactly as I had hoped, I felt really proud of what I had accomplished. I later found out that I had scar tissue on my cervix that was most likely the cause of my extremely intense contractions with little dilation. Also, my son was born with a compund presentation (he was born with his hand next to his head). |
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