Emma Rose Madison's Birth Story

Emma Rose Madison’s Birth Story

There are so many details that I cannot clearly remember, but I will do my best, inserting memories given to me by those who were present at her birth.

Saturday (March 5^th) I woke up with terrible pains. My back hurt and my lower abdomen was cramped up. Danny and I decided to kind of take it easy that day, and stayed home and watched way too many hours of television together on the couch. That night Danny wanted to go out to get an external hard drive to put photos on to make room for pictures of Emma on the computers. We went into town and ate dinner together, and after shopping decided to take a walk to try and see if anything started happening. It was raining and really cold out, so we walked around Wal-mart for a while, up and down every isle and around the store. I started to have some contractions and was really uncomfortable so we headed home, and went straight to bed. The contractions continued but were fairly mild so I was able to go to sleep.

At 4:30am Sunday morning, I woke up to a pretty intense contraction. I fell back asleep, and had another one, and another one, and at 5am I decided to start timing them. They were 10 minutes apart, lasting for 90 seconds each. They were slow to peak and quick to end after the peak. At 7:20am I decided I was in quite enough pain to get into the bath tub. The warmth made the pain feel much much less intense, though I still had to “moan” through the high part of a contraction. (moaning is a technique many women use to release pain with contractions.) Danny woke up to the sound and came looking for me, and asked what was wrong, and I said, “I’m pretty sure… I’m in labor.” I told him not to get excited, while this was much more intense and painful than any other time I had been “in labor” that I didn’t want to get excited if nothing were to happen.

After my bath I got into bed, trying to fall asleep between contractions, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t relax enough to let myself sleep. For the next 12-13 hours, contractions continued to last for 90 seconds and were 8-9 minutes apart. I got up to use the restroom at one point, and lost my mucus plug. Just after the plug passed, contractions shot down to 5 minutes apart and were much more intense. They still lasted about 90 seconds each, but peaked almost immediately and stayed strong and slowly faded. Danny suggested walking around, so I started to walk around downstairs, leaning on whatever I could grab on to during contractions. I could walk through only a few of them, but it was exhausting, and I ended up lying back down.

Around 11pm, I was sitting on the toilet laboring, not wanting to move or do anything, when Danny brought me some pants and shoes and put me in the car to go to the hospital. This process of moving me took nearly an hour. On the way to the hospital contractions got closer together and lasted much longer. I had very little time between contractions to breathe. We got to the hospital and Danny had to find a wheel chair for me, and I got scared being in the car on my own, and was having a very long contraction and I panicked, and felt like it was time to have the baby (in retrospect it was probably just stress)

Finally we made it up to the Labor and Delivery department. They kept asking me to pee and I kept telling them I couldn’t. Danny kept trying to get them to read my birth plan. I was so concentrated on getting through each contraction that I didn’t have enough will power to tell them what I wanted. They put me in the delivery room and took off my pants, and put a hospital gown on me, sat me on the bed and told me they were going to check my cervix and I told them “NO NO NO!!” but they did it anyway, and DURING A CONTRACTION none the less!! The stupid nurse couldn’t “find” my cervix, and they had to bring someone else in to do it again!!! Then, even after saying, “Don’t tell me” they said “well you’re only two centimeters dilated. You’ve been doing this for 19 hours?” then they asked me to sign a consent to use an epidural and pitocin, which thankfully I was paying enough attention to refuse, and then they had me sign all of these other forms while I was contracting. Since I didn’t want IV fluid, they only put a saline lock in place and the nurse putting the lock in kept telling me that I needed to calm down and breathe (I was still contracting, I’m telling you the stress made my contractions go nuts). I wanted to throw things at her for telling me that. She kept saying it over and over again, “you need to breathe!”

FINALLY SOMEONE READ OUR BIRTH PLAN, and everyone left the room. They only came in once an hour to take my blood pressure and monitor the baby during one contraction. That’s the only way that I knew time was passing, was because before I could get a grip on anything, they would be back checking on me.

I don’t know how far apart my contractions were for the most part, but after I got in the shower they increased in length. I was having two, three, four minute long contractions, many with double and triple peaks. I kept hearing Andrea say “wow was that a 3 minute contraction?” and “was that double peaking or was that more than one?” none of this I could answer, and I didn’t want to talk at all. After an hour in the shower I had to go back to the bed to monitor the baby again. I remember the nurse making it easy and letting me sit and lean forward while she simply held the monitor to my belly rather than strapping me down.

Now things start getting fuzzy. I can’t remember too much, but I do remember the pain. And the length of contractions. And since they were keeping track on my iphone I could go back and see transition: One 7 minute long contraction, with only a minute break, and then a 19 minute, 6 seconds long contraction with peaks and valleys but no breaks. I was at this point begging for help. I wanted something. I didn’t want an epidural I knew that, but I wanted something for pain. I was begging for it, I stared at my husband’s eyes and begged him for help, I wanted it to stop, it wasn’t fair this contraction was never ending. It had brought me to tears and threw me over the edge of sanity. Finally, the contraction stopped. And I had an amazing 5 minute break.

Andrea and Danny convinced me that Emma needed to drop, and that I should get up and sway. We went into the bathroom so I could pee I think. The nurse brought me apple juice. I loved it, the sugar in the apple juice was amazing, it tasted like heaven. I’ve never enjoyed apple juice so much in my entire life.

I stood in the bathroom, hovered over the sink, while Danny pushed my hips so they would rock back and forth. I remember that with each contraction, I could feel something… my waters were leaking, slowly but they were leaking. I had 5 or 6 minutes between contractions, it was so nice to have a small break between them, and they weren’t as intense as they had been prior, though still horrible. At one point I started throwing up with each contraction, I lost all that apple juice. I didn’t feel sick though, and it actually didn’t bother me to throw up, and I could feel it actually push the baby down.

Then, finally, I said “Uh oh… I HAVE TO POOP!” and sat on the toilet. Andrea told me that if I needed to poop, I probably needed to push. After a minute (or who knows how long) I made my way back to the bed. I was too exhausted to push standing or squatting, I just didn’t have enough energy. Thankfully I had a breakaway bed, though I don’t know how well I used it.

It was still just us, Andrea told me that I could push (even though the doctor wasn’t there) so I did. She coached me on how to push, to keep the air in and not let any power out by exhaling during a push. Still 5 and 6 minutes between contractions, I was able to rest between pushes. A nurse came in to monitor the baby, and I had a pushing contraction. I lifted the blanket and felt something with my hand, and I said “THE BABY IS COMING!!!!!!!!!!!” and the nurse checked, it wasn’t the baby’s head, but my bag of waters.

They told me to stop pushing (though I didn’t want to, that was really hard, my body tried to take over and do it for me). The doctor came in and some stuff happened and suddenly there were a million people staring at my crotch waiting for something to happen. He was anxious, and didn’t seem to like that I had such a long time between pushing contractions. I pushed and pushed, but I didn’t feel like anything was happening, and the bag of waters was still not bursting. He, during a push, PUSHED BACK on my bag of waters!! I think I almost bit his head off when I told him not to touch it, because after that he left and he didn’t come back. A midwife intern came in, and though I never felt my water break I guess it did eventually, it all felt the same, the head, the bag of waters, I thought I was still pushing on the bag of waters when they said her head was coming out and to look down! I looked, and could see black hair. At this point, I couldn’t push any longer, and started to fall asleep during my 5-6 minute break. I felt another contraction coming on, I kept telling myself “I’m not going to push with this one, I’m too tired, I can’t, I’m just going to rest and let this one pass” but my body said “heck no” and pushed for me. And kept pushing.

It burned, I felt like I was on fire and everyone was telling me to push through the pain, and I did just that. I wanted that burn to go away and I knew the only way to make it stop was to get the rest of her head out. I pushed so hard and I pushed with all my might and strength, and then kept pushing some more. Finally her head was out, and I could see the midwife intern pulling the umbilical cord, I could see Emma’s chest, and then her tummy, and then finally her legs, and they said “pull her out mom! Pull her up!” and I tried to reach for my baby but there was no strength left. There was nothing left in me. And all I could say was “I can’t!” with tears in my eyes. I wanted to hold her but I couldn’t reach down and lift her up. So they did it for me, and lay her on my belly.

Immediately after giving birth, thirst hit me like a freight train. Danny fed me ice chips, and it felt so good to have something to swallow. I was so thirsty!

I don’t remember much about the next few minutes, my first moments with my baby, I don’t remember. But we have it on video!! They soon took Emma from me and while they fixed her lungs (her breathing sounded like she was half way under water) I watched the midwife wait for my placenta. She tugged a little on the cord but I told her not to, that I could deliver it, and I did. Much easier than delivering the baby, that’s for sure!

I had two stitches put in, as I had a 2^nd degree tear. The stitches weren’t bad, the shots of local anesthesia weren’t really painful, but the rest of the exam was really painful. A different kind of pain than giving birth. They had to check everything, I had torn in many places, and had I had an epidural they informed me that I would have had several more stitches, but that it would be far too painful a procedure to do on someone without that kind of pain relief. I didn’t want to be holding Emma while they stitched me, because I didn’t want her to feel my stress, so I was ok with them taking her to weigh her and measure. She was 5lbs 9oz, 19 inches long. She was very alert and they told me you could see the difference in her compared to medicated babies. After everyone had left the room, Emma was able to calm down and nurse.  She’s been a feeding champ ever since. And she is my heart.

After 37+ hours of labor, and who knows how many hours of pushing, my miracle baby finally came to us. 3 years of trying, and waiting, she was worth the wait.

I still don’t feel like I ever want to give birth again. Thinking about labor makes me want to cry. Having had lasted so long was like torture. I thought it would never end. I know I would do it again in a heart beat if I had a shorter labor, but that 30 hours was the most difficult of my life. Delivery was cake compared to the labor and if it was just that part of it I’d do it a million times. I’m so glad that I was able to give that to my baby though: a natural, unmedicated arrival to this world. I love her.