Home Birth vs Hospital
When it came to giving birth, my plan was to deliver at the hospital but as naturally as possible. I considered doing a home birth but I was afraid that if complications arose, I would be lacking resources that were readily available at a hospital. Since I personally knew people that had a hemorrhage, needed a blood transfusion, and had emergency c-sections, I feared being in that situation at home.
Due Date
At my 39 week appointment, my doctor asked if I wanted to do a “stretch and sweep”. It was my first time hearing the name of this procedure that is used to start labour. It is when a doctor inserts his fingers into the opening of the cervix and uses a circular motion to try to separate the membranes of the amniotic sac. This results in the release of hormones called prostaglandins and may initiate birth.
Since it was a procedure that I was not familiar with, I declined it in hopes that my labor would initiate naturally, without any assistance. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case and at my 40 week appointment I was scheduled to be induced at 40 weeks and 6 days. I was really hopeful that the baby would come before then, but she didn’t.
On Monday, August 16th, I arrived at the hospital at 9:00 am and when the doctor checked me, he said I was already 3 cm dilated. He then proceeded to induce me with oxytocin and said he predicted I would give birth by midnight.
Epidural
Since I preferred to give a birth as naturally as possible, when the nurse inquired about the epidural, I declined it. Around 10 am, I started to get contractions that felt like mild cramps. By 11:00 am, the contractions were about 2 minutes apart and very painful. At this point, one of the nurses told me, “these contractions aren’t that bad, at 12:30pm you will be asking me for the epidural.” Even the doctor told me “not to be a hero” when I told him I preferred not to use the epidural.
Not bad? I was dumbfounded… these were painful and it was only 11:00 am. The thought of experiencing even worse pain until possibly midnight was difficult for me to swallow. I started googling induced labour and after reading that “oxytocin can make contractions stronger, more frequent and more painful than in natural labour”, I decided to call the nurse and requested the epidural. By the time the anaesthetist came to administer the needle, the contractions were extremely painful but within 20 minutes or so, I felt immense relief.
Delivery
Around 2pm, I told one of the nurses that I was starting to feel like I needed to pass a bowel movement. She went to look at how far I was dilated and then told me that the baby was coming and I needed to started pushing. I had two lovely nurses by my side telling me to push but when they realized that the baby had the umbilical cord wrapped around her wrist, they called my doctor for assistance. I tried my best to push, but because of the epidural, I didn’t really feel much as I was pushing. It got to a point where the doctor said, “If you she doesn’t come out on the next push, we are doing a c-section”, and I really didn’t want that. The baby didn’t come out on the next push but because she got really close, he let me do one me extra push and my baby girl was born weighing 6 lbs 7oz at 2:40 pm. As the nurses took her to get cleaned up, the doctor sewed me up because I ended up getting second degree tears.
Birthing Position
I had watched numerous videos on TikTok and Youtube about the best positions to deliver the baby and how laying on your back was not one them. In my mind, I had planned to give birth in one of the suggested positions, like on my side, on all fours or squatting, but that didn’t happen. When the time came for me to start pushing, and the nurses told me to lay on my back and positioned my legs spread apart in the typical pose you see in movies, I was not in the frame of mind to say anything different. My immediate response was simply to follow their guidance. In hindsight, maybe that’s a character flaw and I should have spoken up, but everything happened so quickly that I didn’t really feel like I had a moment to stop and think about anything.
Overall, my birth story was not what I had imagined but I feel incredibly lucky that my delivery was relatively short, that I was able to deliver vaginally and that my baby girl came out healthy. I am thankful that my mom was there by my side as my support person and my husband was allowed to visit after the delivery. I am also grateful to have had two wonderful nurses as well as a great doctor.
