i was only 36 weeks 6 days pregnant when my water broke, saturday night. and when i say my water broke, i mean i got up off the floor after watching a movie with bud and all of a sudden, i was peeing myself, except i was not actually peeing, and it just kept going and going. i went to the bathroom, sat on the toilet and called my doula. i explained everything to her and she agreed it sounded as if my water had sprung a leak! she said get rest and drink lots of water. sadly, as soon as my water broke, contractions started, only they weren't close enough together to really get things moving. so i waited a little while and called my midwife to see what they wanted us to do. they had us come in, examined me and monitored the baby. everything sounded lovely and i was in fact in the early stages of labor. i kept apologizing to my midwife about leaking everywhere. i realize that they have seen it all and more, so it was silly to apologize for something like that. but to me... my water breaking and leaking was a terrible feeling and i couldn't help but apologize. haha... i think that was the last time i had any sort of modesty left in me.
i labored at home all night and in the morning my dear friend neva came over and started helping me around the house. and when i mean she helped me around the house, i mean she literally washed all of the baby clothes we have for buel. she also helped with some dishes, she rubbed my back, and kept us company. she even ran a few errands for us. then my amazing doula, bridgette, came over and put me to work. i drank LOTS of "labor tea" which is highly concentrated red raspberry leaf tea... and i also took lots of the homeopathic caulophyllum to help move things along. i sat on my yoga ball, i did some yoga, i walked around the apartment, we took a walk through the neighborhood, i practiced getting "on top" of my contractions, and basically just labored until things really got going more intense. so i was going on 24 hours of no sleep (i couldn't sleep once my water broke, my body just wouldn't let me. neither would my brain!). so around 11:30pm (25 hours after my water broke) sunday night we finally decided that it was time to go to the birth center to get checked out and set up for bringing our little boy into the world.
at this point, my contractions were manageable. most of my contractions were focused in my back and hips. i had some contractions in my lower abdomen, but really the main pain was in my back. the only relief i had was when bud, bridgette, my midwife linda, neva, my dad, or even my beautiful photographer lindsey squeezed my hips to counteract the pressure i was feeling. more on that later!
when a woman's water breaks, vaginal checks are done sparingly as to not invite any bacteria inside the body to cause an infection. however, about an hour or so after we arrived, my midwife checked me and realized i was 100% effaced and about 4 cm dilated. so to help me get some rest, we attempted a dose of stadol and another drug that helped me sleep. unfortunately, all that really did was make me drowsy and unable to really do anything. however, i felt all my contractions and remember asking people to rub my back or squeeze my hips. again with the hips. (back labor... no joke!!!!) so i finally came out of the stadol effects, tried several different positions to get through contractions that were coming more frequently, or at least to me it felt like they never really stopped. i'd have to ask my doula, she'd be better to tell you how far apart the contractions were and such at this point. a few times i asked for help or for intervention. thankfully, my amazing husband looked at me and pushed me to keep going. my friends and midwife all were amazing. but to be honest... my biggest supporter was my husband. bud was incredible. he was strong when i needed him to be strong. he was kind when i needed him to be kind. he was comforting yet firm, he was loving yet firm. he was an amazing coach. honestly.
eventually, i got into the hot tub! that was lovely and gave me some relief on my poor back. at least for a little while. and i started to get the urge to push. contractions would come and instead of just breathing through it, i couldn't help myself, all i could do was growl. i got a chance to push a few times and try pushing. but when i got to that point, my midwife wanted to check my progress to make sure i was dilated enough to push. if you push too soon, you can cause trauma to the cervix. so she checked. 6 cm. only 6. she said that i needed to stop myself from pushing because i was not far enough along to push yet and that if after a while i had the urge to push more but still did not progress, we would need to toy with the idea of transferring to the hospital for an epidural, just to help me relax some and give my body a chance to rest. so a few hours went by and i was really hurting. i cried for pain medication but in my heart i felt like a failure. i remember saying that to everyone. but i also remember a certain point where i knew that i needed help. i looked at my dearest friend neva and said, i know my body and i need help. i was begging. it was around 5am by this point and that means it had been 30+ hours since my water broke and labor began. i was absolutely knackered and just had no more steam. so they checked my dilation again. if i had made a lot of progress and was in a good place to push, i really think things would have been different. however, i forgot to mention, the boy was in a posterior position, which is a big reason why he wasn't coming down and why i was having such horrible back labor. so, once she checked me again, she said what i dreaded hearing. 6cm. i had not progressed at all. and when they monitored buel's heart rate, it had started to dip down and it was concerning. so we made the decision to move to the hospital to get that epidural. they gave me some oxygen and laid me on my right side where buel's heart rate improved. everyone, even my loving photographer lindsey, who through all of this was managing to take some pictures (even though the rooms were dark) and was jumping in to help me labor, to encourage me, to squeeze me, and basically help out wherever she could.
side note: the words i remember hearing most throughout labor was "you can do this." and "get on top of your contractions." and "you can do this just like you've already been doing it. you're doing it and you can keep doing it." and last but not least, "you'll do it just like you've done all the other ones. you've got this." i still feel sometimes like i failed... but i think that's a lie from the pits of hell... because once you hear about what is to come... you'll understand that i did everything i could.
everyone but the midwives went to the hospital. bud, neva, and i drove to the hospital and there was a bit of communication difficulties between the birth center and hospital or something. basically, bud was fighting for me for what we had discussed and he wanted to make sure i was taken care of just as the birth center said we would be. it was kind of an intense moment that does not need to be talked about at length. they got me a room and almost immediately got me hooked up to all the machines, got me an I.V. and after a few papers signed and lots of contractions later, they got me hooked up to the shnazzy epidural medicine. first REAL relief. which was nice. but i will say, i hated it all at the same time. my lady bits were out and exposed quite frequently and i couldn't feel my legs enough to move them or do anything! it was irritating and i felt like i was falling off the bed all the time. i kind of was though. another midwife from my birth center, michelle came in and checked my progress. i was 9 cm dilated, fully effaced and almost 0 station... however, the baby's heart rate was still dropping after each contraction. they tried rolling me on different sides to see if that helped and it really didn't do much. so dr. argeles, who bud and i had met 2 days prior when we went to the doctors to attempt a flip on the baby (he was breach until 3 days or so before my water broke) came in, and explained that the baby's heart rate dropping was alarming enough to suggest that we were at the point in labor where a c-section was necessary. the culprit was that buel could not move down because he was in a posterior position. but again, if you know me, my life is NEVER simple. it was not just because he was posterior. but we'll get to that!
bud and i were in tears. bud was taking it even harder than me, but i think part of that was because he has the extra burden of a) we didn't want a c-section, it was our most feared thing. b) he could lose his wife. c) he could lose his kid. d) finances are tight enough as is. so all that coupled up just really hit him. bridgette had to talk him down. i think i was a bit more calm about it because i was drugged up, exhausted, and i felt defeated enough already, what was one more thing to add to the pile. but we pulled ourselves together, i drank the medication that was given to me, i got hooked up to antibiotics and other fluids, and they wheeled me down for my section. bud came right in with me. i was afraid i was going to fall asleep because the medication was having such an effect on me. i really think it was God's grace that kept me awake enough to see my son for the first time when he first came into the world.
they transferred me from the maternity bed to the ridiculously skinny operating table, strapped me in, but again with the, my life is not simple part... my epidural got ripped out before my section and my hand touched the cord so it was no longer sterile. the anesthesiologist screamed "oh shit fuck!" bud and i were unsure what was happening. dr. argeles came in and the anesthesiologist explained what happened and the options were: either do this surgery right away while my epidural was strong, put in a new epidural, or we do local (which would be me asleep and i'd miss EVERYTHING). so the lady with the drugs, the anesthesiologist, took a needle and stabbed me all the way up my side and i didn't even feel it. so they just did the section quickly. the entire time, the sweet anesthesiologist kept telling me i'm right here with you, if you need anything i have drugs to cover me if something was necessary. i remember joking that she was a very dangerous woman with all those drugs. i'm glad i was able to joke a bit, even when things were tense and scary.
when dr. argeles got in there, they realized that my uterus had formed a "charlie horse" band around my entire uterus that was as hard as bone, and there was NO way he was going to be able to get through it. that was the REAL culprit of why i could not have a vaginal delivery. the doctor said he had only seen this happen 3 other times in his career. leave it to me for something rare to occur... that's just my life. i make it interesting, that's for sure. so dr. argeles had to make a decision due to the position of the "charlie horse" band to either cut above or below the typical spot of a section. he chose above to avoid cutting into my bladder and into the vaginal walls and stuff. (thank you for avoiding those areas!) but once again... because my life is NEVER simple... when he cut, i guess your arteries are supposed to fall downward and the uterus is supposed to open and you'll be good to get the baby out. but mine stretched and tore to the side, so i ended up with my arteries open on the table, and i lost a LOT of blood. it was serious enough for the doctor to tell the rest of the O.R. that "there are still open arteries on the table. this is not time to talk and you all need to be quiet." he was very professional and very serious, but we appreciated how he got buel out, i got to see him and bud went with him to cut the cord and everything. i remember saying "should i be concerned." but in my brain i was thinking... "can i hold something for ya?" i should have said it... but oh well.
when buel entered the world, he came out hand first as if to say "i've arrived. your wait is over." and then when they brought the rest of him out, he came out screaming. those were the screams that brought me to instant tears. bud and i were both beside ourselves with joy, elation, amazement, confusion, and excitement to hear the voice of our son. our baby. our little one. they held him over the blue divider between my face and the doctors and i got to see him for just a second. his misshaped head and all! he had his head in my birth canal long enough to where he had some molding on his poor head, thankfully that disappeared in a couple days. bud went with him, cut the cord and got to see him measured and checked. he scored 9 on all of his APGAR tests and was perfect on arrival. they brought him out clean, swaggled (mine and bud's word for swaddled), and i was able to touch him and give him a kiss before they took him to recovery as i was getting patched up and ready for recovery myself.
while i was apart from bud and the baby, bud did the most amazing thing. yes, we talked about it, but he did it with pride and loved every minute of it. he gave our son his first skin-to-skin affection and experience. what an amazing daddy he is. he held him on his skin the whole time and all of the nurses were going gah gah over how sweet it was and how he did it for such a long time. that's because bud knows how important it is for that bonding time and i really believe it set the tone for their relationship. bud is a tender and amazing daddy. he loves his son so much and is a beautiful soul. i am so blessed to have a husband who is hands on from day one, who has taken care of me during my healing, who has done more loads of laundry in one week then i think i've ever seen him do since we've been together. (okay, not really... hehehe, but its been a LOT of laundry!!!) i am grateful and so amazed by my husband. i love him so much. he helps me at night and even though he is annoyed sometimes, (let's face it... it sucks being woken up in the middle of the night to do diapers and such) he helps and we get the job done. we are a great team!
well... i've written an ENTIRE novel and i am sure there are details that i am leaving out. like this one: when we were still at the birth center and i was crying with pain due to my back and hips hurting, bud and neva went in together to help push and alleviate some of my pain. bud was pushing one side of my hips and neva was on the other. my contractions hurt so bad that it really felt like they were barely squeezing! oh and also - i remember telling my photographer that she is basically family now: she's seen my downstairs mix-up, she stayed by my side throughout everything and spent time with my mom. i told her "you didn't sign up for all of this..." but she said she loved the experience. i hope i didn't scare her off from doing more birth photo shoots. oh and also - i cannot leave out my parents. while they were in the background for a lot of it, they were there and i knew it. and there were times where holding my mom's hand was the best thing that i could ever do. that was when i was in the tub mostly. there's something about holding your mom's hand... you know what it feels like, you know its comfort and you know the love... it was just enough to keep me going when i didn't know how much more i could give.
so all this to say: i love you everyone who has been a part of ushering in my sweet and amazing little boy. i am so amazed. i did everything BUT push him out. so i feel content with what happened. what happened was what was going to happen and no what ifs will fix that. and above all else - i am grateful that God showed himself true and evident throughout all of this. he kept me safe. he gave me my experience. he made my husband strong and bold. he gave my doula, midwife, my neva, my parents, my photographer and friend lindsey, and the doctors and nurses stamina to get through all this and we were blessed with an amazing outcome. the birth of buel burton newman v. he has captured the hearts of so many, he is loved beyond measure, and he is the best thing to have ever been given to bud and i. we are so excited for this journey of parenthood. i love you. if you read through this, you are amazing. i know it is super long.
(if you were with me at my birth and i left out anything, please let me know or comment here or on facebook to tell me what else i may have missed. :) because i want to remember it all!) here is a link to our pictures...
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