Monday, January 7th was probably the day I realized that I am stronger than I think I am. It also happens to be the day I welcomed my last baby into this world.
Let’s start from the beginning…at 7:30 AM, we entered the hospital for Gracelyn’s scheduled induction. To say I was beyond ready would be the understatement of the year. I had been experiencing horrible pelvic pain for over a month and I was just ready to give birth and hold my sweet baby girl.
Everything went pretty routinely in the beginning. I was only 2 CM dilated and 50% effaced so I had to wait to get the okay from my midwife to start Pitocin. Once she checked me at 9:45, I was able to start Pitocin drip at 10:00 AM. The contractions came on quick once the drip started and by noon, I was ready for an epidural.
Now, I have severe scoliosis which causes my entire spine to curve and they always warn me that there is a possibility that I won’t be able to get an epidural. However, this was my third time giving birth and both times prior to that I had gotten an epidural with zero issues. In walks the anesthesiologist and she introduces herself as a student…fantastic…and that she will be performing my epidural with the supervision of a doctor. No big deal right? Wrong. I felt every single piece of pressure she applied to my back and even felt them threading in the line for the epidural. I screamed in pain from the threading. After 20 minutes of monitoring, they decided I was fully medicated and told the nurse she had permission to release more medicine if I felt the need for it.
They leave the room and I try to relax but something is telling me that this didn’t work right. I could feel every single contraction more intensely than the last. But, I pushed through and in walked my midwife at 2:00 PM to break my water. I felt every single thing including them putting in a catheter to empty my bladder since I was technically supposed to be numb. Once my water broke, I was screaming in pain. The nurse kept pushing more and more of the epidural but it never helped. I even ended up vomiting from the pain.
I was dilated to a 7 and almost completely thinned out by this time. The nurse asked if I wanted to re-do the epidural and all I could do was scream from the pain of the contractions. They were 30 seconds apart and growing stronger by the millisecond. The anesthesiologist came back in and re-did the epidural by then and I felt a smidge better within a couple contractions but then once he left the room, they were back with a vengeance. I looked to my husband and said, I need to push. The nurse said she had to check me first before she could confirm that I was able to push but once she went to check me she quickly called my midwife. Gracelyn’s head was crowning already.
My midwife flew in the room and within 5 minutes and a total of 3 pushes, Gracelyn Rae made her appearance into the world at 4:53 PM.
My midwife looked at me as they were finishing up and said “you did amazing and you wanna know why?” I just stared at her…shaking from the labor….”you did that with zero pain meds. Your epidural never took the second time because there wasn’t enough time between when he re-did it to when you started pushing.” I was shocked. I just delivered my baby girl pretty much all natural. The epidural never took to my body both times.
It was probably the most painful of my three births but, in the end I had a beautiful baby girl to show for it. Never think that you can’t do something because you always can. I didn’t think I could ever give birth naturally but in a twist of events, I had to and I did it. I survived!
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