Gavin's birth story

I've been thinking about writing this post for awhile, because I think there's something quite incredible about birth stories. Every one is different and unique. And I find myself losing touch with some of the details as time goes by, and I'd like to be able to remember, so here it goes as far as documenting the story...

Gavin was originally due September 10, 2010. We had an appointment with my doctor on that date and was told there was really not much happening as far as progress goes, other than the fact that he was a bit lower in my belly. They hooked me up to a machine to see if there were any even mild contractions going on, and there was pretty much nothing happening. My doctor's office agrees to induce you once you're a week late (unless of course there are other riskier factors going on), so we made another office visit appointment for the following week on September 17th. I was officially done with work on the 16th too. At this appointment, my doctor said I was "barely" one inch dilated. At this point I was VERY ready to not be pregnant anymore. It had been a long HOT summer (3rd hottest August on record), so I was ready to meet my little guy. So my doctor agreed to have us come to the hospital the next day, Saturday the 18th, to be induced, as my doctor was already scheduled to be at the hospital this day this plan seemed perfect. She told us the birthing unit would call us that Saturday morning as early as 6am but no later than 8am to tell us to come on in for the induction. If they were full on the birthing unit, though, they may tell us to come in later in the day.

So that Friday, Tom and I went out to eat for the last time as a family of two. I didn't sleep the greatest that night because I was anxious with anticipation of what was to come. I also woke up at 5am on Saturday because I wanted to be able to shower and eat a good breakfast before all the excitement began. Then Tom and I waited for the phone call from the hospital. And waited, and waited some more. By 8:00am I was wondering why they hadn't called since they were supposed to by then. My nerves were also getting the best of me at that point, so I called the triage line at the birthing center and talked with a nurse there. She apologized for not having called yet, explaining they were currently full but would call me soon when she had an idea of when we could come in. So more waiting and waiting and waiting. By somewhere around 10:00 I still hadn't heard from them, so I called again. My anxiety and nerves were taking over by now. The nurse said they were still full but that in the next few hours they should have space for me. So Tom and I sat and watched some TV and ate lunch. At 1:00 we FINALLY got the call to come in!

It felt kind of funny walking into the hospital not even in labor yet but knowing the next time I'd be leaving, we'd have a baby! After we got there we still had to wait for them to register me and get me into my room. My doctor came in a little before 4:00 to talk about options for the induction. At this point, I still really wanted to try to go pain med free, so we decided to try one of the least intense inductions options, a cervix ripener. I know, quite the name, but this is a birthing story so it's not for the faint of heart! They gave this to me at 4:00 and it wasn't long before I started to have mild contractions. Tom and I did a lot of walking around the halls to try to get things going. At this point the contractions were becoming more moderate where i would have to stop walking to take deep breaths. And the contractions were coming really fast and lasting pretty long too. Early in labor contractions may be every 5-10 minutes around 30-60 seconds long. Mine were coming every 1-2 minutes and lasting a minute long. So it was basically one constant stream of contractions. Even with this, though, I was still only 1 centimeter dilated by mid-evening. Very frustrating to say the least.

Generally you can receive multiple doses of the particular cervix ripener they had given me, but my doctor said they wouldn't be able to do this because my contractions were already coming too fast. So she gave us the option of waiting thru the night to see if I made any progress or could start pitocin. I wasn't at a point yet where they could break my water either as they generally want you about 2-3 centimeters dilated in order to be able to do that. I really didn't want to have to use pitocin unless absolutely necessary, so Tom and I decided to try to get some sleep and see if anything had changed come morning. My doctor then stepped out of the room and the nurse (we had many during our stay since I was there so long, but this one was sadly the one nurse we really did not like--the others were fabulous) came up to me and said basically that I might as well accept the fact that I was going to need pitocin and that having to be induced pretty much guarantees the fact that you'll need pain meds, then left the room. Rude! At this point I pretty much burst into tears. I was already scared about labor and definitely didn't need a snarky nurse to be so blunt and completely disregard what I wanted for my labor. Even if she was right, this was no way to talk to me about it. So Tom, being the wonderful husband he is, went and got my doctor to come back to the room. We had a big conversation about what the nurse had said to me and I could tell my doctor was mad. I've said it before, but I have a TON of respect for my doctor and she got more brownie points at this point because she brought in the snarky nurse and basically told her that this was my labor and that it was perfectly fine for me to wait and see what happens overnight before being pushed into using pitocin before I felt ready. Luckily at this point it was the end of snarky nurse's shift and we got one of the many wonderful, kind nurses to replace her.

I tried getting some rest but couldn't fall asleep because I was contracting so often, so they gave me some meds to help sleep and was able to get about 5 hours of sleep. I woke up about 5 am and they checked me and I was just barely 2 centimeters dilated. Boo. Tom and I talked again and decided that we had tried what we could at this point so it was time to start pitocin. Luckily I was able to eat breakfast before they started the pitocin so I'd have some energy. At this point my doctor's shift was over so she introduced us to her partner who would be taking over. It was pretty hilarious because this partner could have been her twin sister! I wasn't thrilled about having a different doctor, but my doctor said they had worked together for years so this gave me more faith.

So the piton started. It didn't take much and my contractions quite quickly became more intense and my water broke. They were still coming with the same frequency but this time very intense. It's funny that this is where my memory starts to get foggy, but it makes sense because the pain was so intense at this point. I tried to do more walking around but was in too much pain. So we tried a few pain management techniques by sitting in a rocking chair, sitting and rocking on a bouncy ball, heat to my back, pressure to my back, and a technique where they inject fluid into your lower back. It became quickly apparent that I was having what they call "back labor" because I had so much pain in my back. This is where the baby instead of coming out face down is coming out face up, so hits your pelvis and presses against your back more than normal, thus the back labor. The pain was so bad at this point that all I could do was whisper as far as communication goes. I MAY have gotten a bit annoyed with Tom too at times when he would ask me to repeat myself when he couldn't understand things I was saying. But I know he was doing all he could for me.

After hours of this, sometime in the afternoon, they checked me again and I was a whopping 3 centimeters. Feeling defeated was an understatement. I had now been in labor for over 24 hours and both mentally and physically couldn't take the pain any longer. So the anesthesiologist was paged and gave me an epidural. I had heard that the needle that gives the epidural can be even more painful than the contractions, but I barely even noticed it. I felt sad and a bit guilty that my labor plan was basically out the window at this point, but was continually reminded that there's so failure with giving birth, that you just have to do what you can to get thru it. There was also a bit of a disappointing realization that the epidural definitely numbed my legs but I was still feeling the contractions. They had me roll from one side to the other in hopes that this would help the medicine disperse. It was news to me that the epidural can settle to one side of your body if you lay on one side too long. Then I basically passed out asleep for about an hour. When I woke up the pain was very intense again, so the anesthesiologist was paged again to check to see if my epidural was in the right position. It was correctly positioned, but was seeming to wear out so they gave me another dose or what they called "bollis" (not really sure how you spell that). They also had me try laying in this wacky contortionist position on my side with my arm behind me in hopes that Gavin would flip around before birth. Inexplicably I fell asleep again in this wonky position. Upon waking awhile later the pain was all back again. The nurse was concerned, saying it's not normal to have the epidural wear out like this and they paged the anesthesiologist again. He redosed me again. The good news is that each time I woke up they checked me and I was making significant progress at this point. I credit the progress to the pitocin helping things progress, but probably even more so to the epidural for helping take away at least a bit of the pain so I could relax enough to let my body do the work to dilate further.

Also at this point it was mid-evening and I hadn't eat anything since 6am. I thought I would be hungry but I wasn't in the least bit. The only thing was that I was so thirsty. Once they started the pitocin they wouldn't let me drink anymore fluids in case of a need for a c-section, so instead was given IV fluids. Anyone who knows me knows that I almost always have a water bottle pratically attached to my hip. They did let me try a grape Popsicle and ice chips to quench my thirst, but this made me nauseous and ended up throwing up 3 times. Great husband moment #827363 was when Tom held the barf bag for me. That's love folks.

The rest of the evening was a blur really but sometime around 10ish I was feeling like I had to push so they checked and indeed I was 10 centimeters! Since I was only 90% effaced it took a bit longer to get to the 100% effaced status they wanted, and at this point it was a bit after 11. My nurse at this point was Gidget, that's right Gidget was her name! And she gave me the go ahead to try a few pushes while the doctor and what felt like loads of other people got the room ready for delivery. They had a little earlier turned off my epidural, explaining that they do this so I can feel the contractions during delivery and be able to have more productive pushes. And oh did I feel every bit of those contractions. Gidget told me that for a lot of women this portion of labor is more manageable because with the contractions you can push against them and at least feel like you have some control. For me this was true. It felt good to know that the end was in sight. They also had a big mirror in the room so I could see the progress for myself. Also very helpful. It was also helpful to have both Tom and Gidget to coach me on how much longer my contractions were going to be for each push. After 2 hours of pushing, at 1:29 am on Monday, September 20, 2010, Gavin Denison Getchius made a quick final entry into the world! The wonky contortionist position they had me lay in worked in getting Gavin to flip around because he came out face side down. They immediately set him on my chest and the first thought and words out of my mouth were, "he's so beautiful!". Even with the cone head and big dent on his forehead where his head hit my pelvis he was the most gorgeous baby I'd ever seen. He weighed in at 7 pounds, 13 ounces and was 20 inches long. And have I mentioned he was beautiful?! My favorite quote from Tom shortly after the birth with an astonished look on his face was, "that was a lot of blood.". This coming from the guy who likes watching shows like "200 pound tumor" on Discovery Health.

Gavin didn't cry right away after birth, so they had to suction his lungs but he did get a 7 and 9 on his Apgar scores and they deemed him healthy as a horse. It was amazing how much physically better I felt the second he was delivered too! Minus me getting some uncontrollable shakes (which they told me was normal), I felt so much better with this rush of adrenaline. Once they finished taking care of me, Gavin and I got some wonderful bonding time. I couldn't believe how alert he was. Tom and I were just in awe of this precious little boy that was all ours. We are so lucky and happy to have him and now can't imagine life without him. Tom was also able to steal away a couple minutes to go out and greet both of our parents/the new grandparents and my brother/the new uncle who had patiently been waiting in the waiting room since late Sunday evening for the news. Over the next two days we also had a bunch of friends and Pastor Paul from our church visit to give Gavin blessing. We are blessed to have so many people who love us and Gavin.

The next 2 days in the hospital were a whirlwind with barely any sleep because as soon as Gavin would be asleep and I would dose off a nurse or doctor would come in to take my vitals or one of a million other things. We got many comments that Gavin was a very calm baby. He would only let out a little cry when he was hungry and then was quite easily soothed. For the most part, this is a trend that has continued. He did have some jaundice but luckily not bad enough o require any further treatment.

Despite the total of 33 1/2 hours of labor, I would do it all again in a heart beat to be able to have Gavin. And going thru labor now makes me believe that any woman who has been thru labor is a hero! And here are the main lessons I learned that I will keep stored away for the future in case Gavin ever gets a sibling:
-eat a good, yet not large, wholesome meal before you go into the intense portion of labor (if you can)
-in the last days of pregnancy get as much sleep as you can. Once Gavin was born I didn't sleep for more than 1-3 hours at a time for a couple months.
-do a lot of thinking about your ideal birth plan but remember the most important thing is to be flexible. You never know how things will progress. And in the end you just need to find a way to get through the labor.
-if you need pain meds you are not a failure. While I don't think they should be overused or used if the pain can be alternatively managed, if you can't cope with the pain that's what that are there for. I had always said, I've run a marathon, I can get thru labor pain med free. Wrong, the pain was in no way comparable in my case to the marathon.
-don't be afraid to advocate for yourself. Of course you need to take medical advice seriously but you also have to feel right about your decisions on your birth process.

Well it felt good to write this down, if for nothing else as a way to keep the memories of Gavin's birth ever present for Tom and I. I know his birth was definitely the most special day of both Tom and my lives.