With my second son, I started getting swollen around the ankles and hands during the seventh month. I was already a little overweight, and I was eating a lot of junk food. All the doctor had ever said to me about nutrition was, just keep doing what you are doing. Wow, great advice, doc. So three snack cakes a day and eat as much fast food as possible, then? Long story short, she began to worry that I was becoming preeclampsic. I had higher blood pressure than normal, and the swelling, but no protein in my urine. Still, she ordered me on bed rest. She wanted to get me closer to the due date, and then possibly induce me. I went along with it, because I was scared.
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At my eight month visit, not much had changed, but I had been on bed rest for a month and was HATING it. The doctor said that she wanted to induce me and told me that there were no major risks, and that I could still have a natural birth. She told me that she would use Pitocin, which was just synthetic form of the oxytocin made in my own body, to start contractions.
I arrived at the hospital at 5:00 A.M. on February 2, 2006. I got checked in, and got my blood work done and they started hooking me up to all of the junk. The contractions started just a few minutes after they started the Pitocin. The nurse told me three times that if I needed the drugs to just call. She also told me that she could not believe that I was going natural, and when I told her that we were using the Bradley Method, she looked at me blankly and shook her head saying, “I’ve never heard of it.” Well, good thing I am in the care of such informed and supportive people, I thought.
I labored for about two hours, and things were going okay. We had turned the lights down, and I was just laying on my side, relaxing. The contractions were definitely harder than with my first birth, but nothing I couldn’t bare. I was pretty excited to be getting the whole thing over with.
The doctor came in and checked me, and I was dilated to a five. She broke my water, cranked up the Pitocin, and reminded me one more time that I could get the epidural if I wanted it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just leave me alone, already!
She left, and things really got rolling. The labor got pretty hard from this point. The contractions became closer together and much longer. I had to concentrate more on my relaxing and started visualizing my cervix opening, each time a contraction came. I was still getting a little rest in between each one at this point, and things were progressing. An hour had passed, and I was dilated to 7. Woo Hoo!
Then, all of a sudden, I needed to go to the bathroom-BAD! They made me wait for someone to check me and be sure that it wasn’t pushing time. So, at this point I am laying there, contracting like crazy, while holding in a massive poo bomb, and being checked for the ump-teenth time. Geez, people, give a woman a break! The orderly came in with a bed pan, and I looked at her and laughed. I told her I needed the real toilet, or quite frankly, there was going to be a huge mess to clean up. She said that I was not supposed to get up. I begged and pleaded, and my hubby came to the rescue and helped me to the toilet. What a relief!
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That seemed to really get things moving, too. I got back in to position, and the contractions were one on top of the other now. I was laying perfectly still, and relaxed as possible, while my hubby rubbed my back constantly. I imagined myself on an inner tube in the ocean. Just floating and then rising with the waves as the contractions peaked and then floating back down. At one point, the waves were coming so fast, I blurted out “I can’t do it anymore!”
My husband said “Good, we are almost done!” We learned in the Bradley Method, that the transition signpost is a feeling that you can’t do it anymore. Most women give up just when it is almost over! I was shaking and sweating, but breathing normally and just laying there with my eyes closed.
Then, it changed. I sat up and said, “I think I need to push.” My hubby yelled down the hall, “It’s time to push!” The nurses ran in and, of course, had to check me again, just to be sure. It was definitely time to push. There was no stopping me. The doctor had not made it in yet, and the nurses were running around trying to figure out who would catch. My hubby started cranking the bed up, so I could prop myself up and push. The nurses were saying “No, no! The baby will come out! Don’t do that! Don’t push! There is no one to catch!” My hubby said, “I’ll catch, baby,” and we just kept doing our thing.
I could not have stopped myself if I had tried. The Pitocin made the contractions so strong that my body was just pushing the baby out on its own. Every time I think about it, a picture of a dog hunching down to poo comes to mind. It felt just like that. The doc made it in just as he was crowning, and the nurses calmed down a bit. I pushed him out in just five minutes, and they layed him on my chest. The moment I had worked for had finally arrived!
He was born just four hours after the Pitocin was started and everything was fine. His APGAR was 10, and all kinds of nurses were coming in and ogling him and me. They get VERY few natural birthers there, and probably none idiotic enough to labor naturally with Pitocin. That was definately the hardest thing I have ever experienced, physically and mentally, but I made it, and it was totally worth it. I was on a natural high beyond compare. No words can describe it. I won’t even try.
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I’m not trolling, but if you had to use Pitocin, how was that really a natural birth? And, while your doctor could have told you to eat better, you could have told yourself to eat better too. Wasn’t there a way to do this without using Pitocin? Still, it IS very impressive that you didn’t let the Pitocin lead to even more drugs.
Hey Heather! Thanks for the great comment. Yeah, Pitocin is a drug. It is one of the worst, and most commonly used drugs in pregnancy today. That is part of my point. That it is very hard to have a natural birth in the hospital in the care of a doctor. My other point is that I was uneducated. When you see a doctor for care, you expect for them to actually care for you. All they REALLY do is take care of the problems that are caused by your lack of knowledge, with drugs and other interventions. This is just my story of what happened, and why I am trying to help other women to not fall into the same trap. Pitocin is a trap. This doctor knew that I wanted a natural birth and told me that I could have one in the hospital. I don’t believe that she actually wanted to do it, though. She, like many other doctors want to “schedule” all of their births so they don’t have to work around the clock or risk losing money. She did not want to work around my birth plan. She wanted to do things her way, and she used fear to do it. She told me that I was sick, with preeclampsia, which I probably was not. And, she told me that there was no danger to the baby when inducing with Pitocin. “It is the exact chemical composition of the oxytocin your body produces,” she said. She told me that if I did not induce, there were risks of harming my liver permanently, having emergency cesarean, or harming my child. What would you do? I still chose to do it without pain medication, which would have only benefited me while harming my child, and would have caused more problems with breastfeeding and possibly damaged his brain permanently. This was NOT an ideal birth. This was not an ideal pregnancy. My point is that Natural Childbirth is doable, even when it is 10x more painful due to induction. However, I was still in control. I could feel my body, work with the contractions and push the baby out on my own. I still got that rush when he came out. I was present in the moment. I could nurse him immediately afterward, stand and walk on my own.
This site is not just about how great my births were (most of them were not ideal), it is about how they could have been better. With more knowledge, more confidence, and more support from my caregiver, they could have been better, and that is what I am trying to tell women. I want THEM to know what is going on, and not fall into the same traps that I did. Thanks again for the comment.
I was induced at 36 weeks because of preeclampsia with my first pregnancy. My health had been good, I was not overweight, and I had planned to have my midwife deliver naturally at the hospital. My symptoms were worsening and it became apparent that an induction would be necessary. I arrived at the hospital at noon, had my water broken and started pitocin at 1pm. By 4 labor was steady, by 6pm it was very intense. A wonderful nurse wrapped my (IV Needle) hand in plastic and let me leave the bed to labor in the shower over a birthing ball. It felt good to move, walk, squat (I had to pee alot because I had been on fluids). Transition was yowza-trippy-ghost-body pain, then it changed. It became a satisfying really need to take a crap sensation and the urge to bear down took over. In the shower I went from 4 cm to 10 cm in about 45 minutes. I had to push. At 9:50pm I delivered prayer style with my hands on the propped up bed and my knees supporting. I was loud, wet and naked. My 5lb 14oz baby girl was healthy and purely magickal. She nursed for a moment immediately, and I held her in awe. Then I put her in her fathers arms and took a shower.
I’m curious and looking forward to a purely natural childbirth this go around. . . no preeclampsia! But, if you have to be induced, it is still do-able, intense, but bearable.