The Birth Story (All the Gory Details)

Harrison is now four months old so I am writing this 17 weeks later from a slightly faded memory and with the help of notes from my doula. Many women say that they don't really remember the pain or the details and there is a part of me that would like to forget some of this, but in the interest of posterity... here we go.

Monday, February 2, 2009
I have decided this will be my last week of work; we have scheduled an induction for Friday the 13th (my mother is horrified at the inauspicious day). The single kidney I was born with is working overtime for the baby and me so an early arrival is in my best interest. For months we have been affectionately referring to the baby as "Barry" and so I have marked my calendar "Friday the 13th - Barry Day." The temp hired to work my job arrives and as I show her around, my peer jokes that the temp will get more training then the 3 hours he got... on his first day, his counterpart came in to work for 3 hours to get him set up and then left to begin her maternity bed rest. Trial by fire. We all laugh at his humor and then we sit down to train.

At 9:30am the doctor's office calls; the latest blood test shows that my kidney is working too hard and for my health we need to try to have this baby earlier. Can I be there in an hour for an amniocentesis? Ok. I hang up the phone, gather my stuff and run (waddle) out the door. My temp got less than 90 minutes of training.

Michael meets me at the Maternal Fetal Medicine office; I sent him a text message telling him to meet me there, that this baby might be born tomorrow. He is in slight shock at the suddenness but remains cool. Lying on the table, I concentrate on the tv monitor, avoiding direct sight of the gigantic needle being inserted into my tummy and through the placenta; like Perseus catching a glimpse of Medusa. It wasn't as bad as I had imagined, it felt like a blood draw (which I had become accustomed to nearly every other week of the pregnancy). Watching the needle on the screen was kind of surreal and I just hoped they didn't poke Barry, which she successfully avoided. They would call us later in the day; the vial of amniotic fluid will be rushed to the UW Medical Center to analyze the development of Barry's lungs. If the lungs are developed, we are having this baby.

To pass the time and pick up some last minute items, we go shopping at Target. Luckily, my baby showers were about 8 days prior and we had received most everything we needed but it was all sitting in piles in Barry's room. We sort through the piles, wash clothes and put things away in the dresser. It is weird to think that within a day or so a little dude will be wearing these onsies.

After learning that the test was positive, I go into Dr. Robertson's office to have a Foley Catheter inserted. It's basically a rubber tube inserted into my cervix which is then filled with saline to make it blow up like a balloon; this will force my cervix to dilate some so that I am not at zero cm when they start the pictocin in the morning. It's not really painful but kind of uncomfortable. Thankfully I am allowed to go home and come back in the morning rather than check in right away.

We go home and pop in "The Happiest Baby On the Block" DVD which we had not yet watched, a sort of baby cram session, if you will. The bags are packed and there isn't much else to do until our 7am check in at the hospital.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009
3am: I go to the bathroom and the Foley Catheter falls out (they said it may happen). I go back to bed feeling a little more comfortable without it.

7am: We drive 5 blocks to Evergreen Hospital with bags, pillow, camera and car sear in tow. We get situated in the room and I am immediately hooked up to an IV, which is needed to administer the Pitocin, the drug that will begin my labor. Eventually, I will also get bags of Antibiotics (I tested positive for Group B Strep) which burn like ice through my arm; the nurse was kind and was able to "cut" it with saline but it was still uncomfortable. Michael sets up the laptop and webcam and we call Jonathan in Boston and chat a little bit while we wait for the show to get started.

After three hours of waiting, the show has not started. Evidently a lot of women were going into labor that morning and there is a shortage of nursing staff so we have to wait. The doctor comes in and then leaves when she sees I don't have the pitocin. At 10:45 it is finally game time and the Pitocin begins to drip into my IV. Everyone says the stuff is evil - it gives you terribly painful contractions but I feel nothing. In fact, I am told to start walking the halls to try to "move things along." Up and down, back and forth we waddle, IV bags in tow on a pole. Totally boring. Michael's best friend Robert arrives and claims one of the large, comfy recliners in the waiting room which is at the end of the hall, a kind of sun room as the chairs are surrounded by big windows. We joke around a bit and I know that both Michael and I are glad that he is here. He has never held a baby in his life and he has promised to hold ours despite his fear of breaking it.


Shortly thereafter, Dreslaine and Steve arrive with Grandpa Hugh in tow. They knew the morning would be slow so they took Grandpa to the one-day-only-free-breakfast at Denny's. That makes grandpa happy and we chuckle about it.

By this time our doula, Shawnette, arrives. She is ready to make this baby happen and we discuss what we will do to help it along. Throughout the day and night we will continue to walk the halls, sit on an exercise ball bouncing and rocking, rock in a Rocking Chair, lay belly down on a huge bean bag on the bed, and do lunges and squats to open the pelvic floor. While she referred to it as "a lot of hard work," I was kind of glad I had something to do and concentrate on that was helpful, rather than just lay around and wait for the Pitocin to eventually kick in.

Dr. Robertson comes in a few hours later and wants to break my water to "move things along." Shawnette had suggested we ask if she will just strip the membranes instead and see if things will progress more naturally so I ask if this is possible. Dr. R simply says "no" and literally 2 seconds later she is jamming that crochet hook up my cervix. Any other woman I have talked to says that this process is merely uncomfortable at worst and a non event at best. All I know is that I feel severe discomfort and pain but she keeps trying to hook the bag and I try not to squirm. I can hardly breath and am becoming seriously distressed, tears flooding down my cheeks. She finally relents, realizing how painful it is for me and I think she apologizes. She says she was digging around because she couldn't seem to hook the bag of waters, only snag it, so water is only leaking out instead of flowing out like it should. She will return later to check on me. I am seriously upset. I was happy-go-lucky 5 minutes ago and now I am really upset. In retrospect, the doula and I think the doctor was hooking some part of me, perhaps a random piece of cervix that shouldn't be there.

If all that wasn't bad enough, this happens two more times throughout the day; by that time I had the on call doctor who was kinder and a bit gentler - she at least asks me if I am ready for her to try again. Each time they would come in to check my dilation and effacement, I was progressing but it was like 2, then 2.5 then 3 and each time they tried to break the water to make it go faster. On the pain scale, breaking my water is right up there with pitocin-induced-active-labor-contractions... things I wish I could forget but the memory is burned onto the surface of my brain.

My mom caught a flight out of Vegas and arrives at the hospital around 11:00pm. By this time the pitocin has been cranked up to about 17 and it is hard to talk while having a contraction, let alone stand without leaning on something or someone. But mommy is here and I walk the hall with a pained smile on my face and tell her it doesn't hurt that bad. I manage three passes and then bid her good night and get into the room as fast as I can so I can allow my face to contort into pain.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Around 12:30am the contractions all of a sudden get very severe; within 5 minutes the contractions are so painful I cannot talk and can't help but cry. Where did this crazy pain come from? Michael is holding me and he and Shawnette are trying to make me comfortable and breath through the pain, focus on happy thoughts, etc. While I had always planned on an epidural, I had wanted to wait as long as possible. For the next hour, my sense of stupid pride pushes me to bear through the awful pain. To boot I have "labor shakes" - the sudden rise in pain causes the body to produce endorphins which results in my body shaking uncontrollably. I feel like I have no control over my body at all.

Shawnette leaves the room to get something and with just the two of us there, Michael whispers in my ear, "tell me what you are thinking." I know what he is asking and I force myself to tell the truth: "I want an epidural." Seconds later he is telling the nurse I want the drugs and to get the anesthesiologist. He told me later that he had heard the nurses saying that the anesthesiologist was on the floor and that he had a C-section at 6am so he knew we shouldn't wait too long to ask. Technically I had to be dilated to 4cm but I was not too keen to have them check again. Thankfully Nurse Becca called the doctor and I heard her explain that she was sure I was in active labor as I had the shakes and the pain was so severe. The doctor gave the go ahead to order the epidural sans exam.

Knowing the drugs were on the way was the only thing that got me through the pain while I waited the 15 minutes for him to arrive. When he did arrive, he told me to call him Dave and got to work right away. I was petrified, not of the giant needle but the fact that I was shaking so hard I didn't know how I would keep still long enough for Dave to insert the giant needle into my spine without paralyzing me. Somehow I manage to keep still just long enough and Dave worked quickly and calmly and got me hooked up. What I did not expect was how long the drugs take to numb the body. It was at least 20 minutes before I felt any numbness at all and about 30 minutes to get my right side completely numb... it became evident the drugs were not distributing evenly so they had to roll me onto my side so gravity would move them to the left side. In all it took about 45-50 minutes for the pain to subside. The pain of the contractions were so awful that I didn't know how I would survive each one while waiting for the epidural to take effect.

3:30am and I am nice and numb and ready for sleep. Becca does a pelvic exam and says I am 6.5 cm dilated. THANK GOD! I had been progressing so slowly before that I though I was at 4cm and crying for an epidural... I had made it to six and a half. Although I had been crying and nearly begging for drugs, my pride was satisfied I had made it so far as the pain is said to peak at 7cm. I bunker down for some much needed sleep; Michael is asleep on his window bed and Shawnette is drifting off in a chair as well.

5:00am and I am feeling some pressure on my pelvic floor so I push the magic epidural button. It persists and starts to get stronger and I begin to panic that maybe the epidural slipped out so I ask Becca if this is normal. She assures me it is, the baby is just descending lower. I am still a little panicked that this was not going to be as pain free as I had imagined. At 5:30am Shawnette and Michael wake up and try to gather their wits about them. I am still worried about the epidural so the nurse checks me. There is some stupid little flimsy piece of plastic on the tubing that Dave had said specifically not to pull on, as it is the weakest link in the hook up. Evidently it had caught on something and had slipped out or broke; the good news is we think it had just happened. Dave comes up to fix it, no harm done.

6:15'ish The nurse tells me I can go ahead and try to push, like a test push. I push and evidently the baby descends really fast, nearly beginning to crown. Becca grabs the phone and calls the on call doctor and whips out a tray covered with a cloth from nowhere. It is evident that she did not anticipate the baby to move so quickly. She and Shawnette coach me through the pushing; while I have some sense of feeling, they need to guide me so I use the right muscles and Shawnette reminds me to relax my face or I will pop blood vessels in my eyes (it actually felt like it might happen). I got the hang of it pretty quick and the baby keeps getting closer to his debut.

6:45am The on call doc, Dr. P, arrives and kind of makes a scene asking why the 7am on call Doc (Dr. G) couldn't get there instead because Dr. P needs to take her kids to school. She unfairly battles with Becca for a minute (as if it is her fault) and then turns to me and gets down to business concentrating on the task at hand. We push for 10 minutes when Dr. P begins a diatribe on how an episiotomy might be in my best interest despite the fact I had written NO episiotomy in my birth plan. She tells me a bunch of old school BS that is contradictory to everything I had read; it is clear that she is interested in delivering this baby so she can leave. She finishes her speech and turns around to do something and Nurse Becca leans over and whispers in my ear, "don't let them talk you into doing anything you don't want to do," and then she is gone, back to performing her duties. I take her advice and resist letting Dr. P cut me up to make her life easier.

At 7:00am the baby is begining to crown. I am pushing with Michael and Shawnette on either side when Dr. G walks in and within 20 seconds the two doctors switch places at the foot of my bed. It was like a hand off in a relay race. Un-freaking-believable. I am more shocked about it in retrospect then at the time since I was focused on getting the baby out.

I keep pushing and they give me oxygen between pushes. At some point in this process, I begin feeling sharp pain in my left thigh, near where my leg and my pelvis connect. Is the epidural working? Everyone is a bit stumped as this is not a common type of pain. They more or less tell me not to worry and to push through it and assure me the epidural is working. Michael is holding my left leg and giving me encouragement. People are talking around me and I get this feeling like I am in a movie... I am the unconscious person lying on the bed with people around her talking but I am thinking to myself, the only one able to understand what is going on with me. For several minutes, I feel like I am the only one paying attention to me (they were not inattentive, just discussing something).

It is seriously GO time and with every contraction I give 2-3 pushes and am so tired at the end of each set yet they ask me to squeeze in one more before the contraction ends. I do this several times and finally I give one last big push and there is a sudden, amazing release of pressure. I know the head is out and just as I expect Dr. G to ask me to push one more time to get the shoulders and body through it feels like she just pulls the baby out. I hear Shawnette say, "Oh, you little stinker!" and suddenly it is all over. There is a crying, gray, cone headed baby coming into view. He's here.

7:23am Harrison Jay Fein is officially born. Dr. G lays him on top of me; his head and face are so high up on my chest they are too close to my own eyes to focus on him clearly, which is compounded by the tears running uncontrollably down my face. Since I can't see him well, my eyes flicker to his tiny hands - my hands! He has my hands. Long, skinny fingers with long nail beds; his nails are already long and jagged and need to be cut. Michael is leaning over us and we are so unbelievably happy. That moment that just passed, that moment of birth when he entered the world... that moment is utterly indescribable. All I know is that I am happy and relieved. Happy Michael and I have this amazing baby to love and relieved that this labor ordeal is over and Harrison and I are healthy.

Harrison was born face up with the cord wrapped around his neck twice, hence Shawnette's comment, "you little stinker!" She also described him coming out at some sort of angle, like from off to one side, which she thinks caused me the pain on my left side. When a baby presents face up, the mother often experiences painful back labor which I managed not to have so it surprised everyone to see him "sunny side up."

That's my story. Amazing. If you read this far - wow, thanks for being so interested! I just had to detail it so I would not forget.