If you haven't read part 1 yet, you may want to look
here.
Before I talk about the hospital, I just want to explain why I was at the hospital. Most of you are aware that I had my second son, Jack, at home with the exceptional help of the midwives
at
Rockbridge Midwifery Care. It was a fabulous experience, and I highly recommend them to anyone in the area. At the time I had Jack I was working full time, and my insurance was such that with the deductible I was going to end up paying the midwives what I would have paid the hospital, even if insurance didn't pay anything. Yay for high deductible plans, right? When Logan began working full time we switched to his much more awesome insurance, which came with this side note: if I called their prenatal hotline in the first trimester, got one dental cleaning, and went to the hospital, they (the insurance company) would waive the deductible. Completely. Is that insane or what?! Since the only thing I seem to use insurance for is delivering babies, it made more fiscal sense to go the hospital route this time.
About two years ago the closest hospital to us closed its birthing center, so I could pick either Augusta Health Center or the Roanoke hospital (both were 45 minutes away). Since I have the lovely VBAC label, I couldn't have a midwife attend me, only a doctor, and at first this was really...grating. To go from an amazingly supportive one-on-one situation with the midwife to a "wait here for 5 minutes (or 45, or 60) and the doctor will see you for 2 minutes" was really rough. My first few appointments took forever, mostly with me sitting alone in an exam room,
and I didn't seem to click with any of the doctors I'd seen. I cracked jokes with friends that I was planning to go to a hotel near the hospital for my early labor, and then at the last minute I'd check in to the hospital for the delivery.
At Christmas time I went in for an appointment, and found out that one of the doctors was moving out of state, so a new one would be brought in before my baby was born. Curious, I scheduled an appointment with her as soon as she began working, and was so relieved! We instantly clicked, and I knew she was someone I could work with. While she was firm on hospital policy, she was willing to work with me on delivery preferences to give me as much control as possible. This was a huge stress reliever to me, and to top it off, since she was new she didn't have many patients, so my wait time in the exam room was cut down drastically. Things were looking up...
Back to "labor day"...
I was so relieved that this happened to be the weekend my doctor was on call. Once I was checked in they paged the Dr. to let her know I was in labor, and she was happy for me that I had kicked in naturally and wouldn't require the surgery. They wheeled me in to birthing suite 360 (for some reason I liked that), and then I began to play 20,000 questions with the staff while trying to breath through my contractions (which were about 3 minutes apart). You could tell that the nursing staff at first wasn't really aware I was having contractons; Logan played interference as much as possible, and once the monitors were hooked up the staff began to realize that I was, in fact, having real contractions. One nurse said, "Boy, you're so quiiet over there we can't tell you're having any! Do you want me to not ask questions during a contraction?" Since I had just begun another contraction I didn't say anything, so Logan just answered for me, "Don't ask questions."
It was around 1 am when they got the IV line in me, and I began a dose of penicillin to treat Group B Strep, which I had recently tested positive for. Group B Strep is very common, and is harmless to the carrier, but sometimes babies passing through the birth canal can get infected and this can result in a nasty case of pneumonia. I was told that they needed to do two doses of penicillin 4 hours apart, and everything would be hunky dory. "So," I joked, "I need to wait to have the baby until 5:30 or 6, then?"
Things were settling down; the questions were receeding, and they dimmed the lights. The doctor approved the ordering of some nasal spray to help clear up my breathing issues (however, the spray never made it my room for some reason). Logan layed down on the couch to get some rest, mom settled in to a chair, and I put on some soothing music on my iPad and started to breathe deeply and relax...
29 minutes later my eyes shot open.
I need to change position! kept echoing through my head. I wasn't exactly sure what position, but I just felt that lying on my back was slowing things down. When I was in labor with Jack I had also had feelings/impressions like this, but for the most part I ignored them, thinking I was just being weird or overly hopeful that it would speed labor along. Luckily, my mom or the midwife usually noticed that I was getting restless or frustrated, and would eventually prod me to follow my instincts. Whenever I did, something would happen (like Jack finally dropping).
Since it was all up to me this time, I knew I needed to listen to my body and do what felt right. As all this was going through my mind, my mom saw my face and jumped up to see what I wanted to do. "I need to move, I think to my side." She called for the nurse to get more pillows for me, and then we worked on getting me turned. Luckily, my penicillin had run out by now, so they disconnected the bag from my IV. Turning took a while, because my contractions were close enough together that I had to pause frequently to work through them.
I was only on my side for a little bit, but the biggest thing it accomplished was clearing my nasal passages! It was nice to be able to breathe for a little bit.
A little while later I knew I needed to stand up, so Logan and my mom each grabbed an arm to help support me. I felt soooo cold--I was shivering, which wasn't helping the contractions any. Thankfully, the nurse brought one of those wonderful heated blankets the hospitals keep on hand...it felt so good!
We briefly tried the birthing ball (hated it), but I just kept feeling like I wanted to squat. Now, this is the part where my head started getting funny: One part, we'll call it the "logical side," was analyzing the situation and telling me to focus on my breathing, make low moaning sounds (it helps, really), and was noticing the different stages of labor. "You're getting closer to delivery," the Logical Side said.
"WHATEVER!!!" the Emotional Side said. "You're just being waaaaay too optimistic! This baby is NEVER COMING OUT!!!"
For the most part, the logical side was winning when it came to the actual labor. But the Emotional Side commentary was running loud and clear the whole time.
The only thing I found relieving was doing a "jungle hang" with Mom and Logan holding me by my arm pits and having me squat (I hope this isn't too much info for you all).
Logical Side: The contractions aren't really letting up. That's good. If they're on top of each other, labor must be pretty far along.
Emotional Side: Are you kidding? I was in labor with Jack for TWELVE HOURS. You think a measly four hours is gonna pop this kid out?
Logical Side: If squatting is what feels good, she must be far down the birth canal.
Emotional Side: Exactly what is your definition of "feels good?"
Back outside of my head, the nurses were beginning to notice that something was up. While they had been taking my laboring fairly casually, I think they began to realize that things were further along than they thought. After one particularly intense contraction, I muttered, "Something is down there! I can feel it." My mom reiterated this to the nurse, who said, "We can check you if you want."
Logical Side: Like that's gonna help. If there is something down there, I think it'll make its presence known soon enough.
Emotional Side: She wants me to climb back on the bed so she can "check me?" Can't she just take my word for it?
(one of the few times they were in agreement)
With a little help from Mom and Logan I did manage to crawl back on the bed, and when she checked me I was at 9cm. Boy did that light a fire with the nurses! Tables were suddenly coming out of no where, bright lights were brought out, and there was little ol' me, jungle hanging with my mom and Logan. I gave birth to Jack on a birthing stool, and I desperately wished I had one again! Mom says at one point I even said, "I want my stool!"
When my water broke, the urge to push came immediately on its heels.
"She's coming!" I yelled.
"Don't push!" Said the nurse.
"I'm NOT TRYING TO PUSH! She's coming out!"
"Don't push, Emilie. Get back on the bed."
"I can't get back on the bed!" (can you tell which side of my brain was speaking at this point?)
"Don't push!"
"I'm not!"
"Breath through it!"
"I'm trying!"
The poor nurses. They meant well. After I crawled back on to the bed they "suggested" that I turn over, but that wasn't happening. Just the movement onto the bed was hard enough. Luckily, the doctor walked in at this point, and told the nurses that I was fine where I was.
"I'm sorry, but I can't stop pushing!" I apologetically stammered.
"Go ahead and push!" My doctor said casually.
And within minutes, Anna Rae Davis was born at 4:38am. Per the doctor's instructions, the nursing staff let Anna lay on my chest for a full hour before they weighed and measured her or ran any tests. She was so beautiful! She just kept looking around the room, and when I went to nurse her she latched on like a pro (much better than my other two kids). I couldn't believe she was here! And I really couldn't believe that my labor had been so short--talk about a rush!
I never did get that second dose of penicillin, so we ended up staying in the hospital for 48 hours instead of 24 so that Anna could be observed. I was okay with it, though. I got to spend a lot of quality rest time with my little girl, and I was on cloud nine the whole time. I had actually given birth--naturally--in a hospital, despite the "VBAC" tattooed (figuratively) on my forehead. Go Me!
I'm not sure if this is a quote I heard somewhere, or if I just made it up, but all weekend this was the thought running through my head:
"I was expecting a baby, but God sent me an angel instead."
