Us Normers have had a very busy life lately!! First, Badge was born on the 22nd, and then on the 23rd, we moved! Yes, you read that correctly! We had to move out by May 1st, so we only had a week to pack before Badge was born. It was actually the perfect distraction for me to pack since I was doing nothing but waiting for Badge to come out. So the day after I gave birth, Normer and some of our amazing friends finished packing and moved all of our furniture into storage. Then they brought our personal stuff over to out temporary place. Normer’s parents generously offered to let us stay in their condo downtown. We live on the 13th floor and have views of Centennial Park. The plan is to live here until we can find a house of our own! We have looked at several houses in the Atlanta/Peachtree City area but everything was already gone by the time we saw it! Until yesterday! We just put an offer on an adorable house right by the airport. It’s a short sale, so it could take a really long time for the offer to go through if they accept it! I’m trying to not get my hopes up but I just can’t wait to finally have my own house, with a backyard!!! And a grill…a GRILL!! AND a sewing room/corner for me!! Yippee! (Update, our offer wasn’t accepted but we have a few more houses we are looking at).
For those of you interested in the story of Badge’s birth, please read on!
I was due on April 18th and finally had my first contractions on Wednesday the 20th. They started around 9pm and lasted all night. I couldn’t rest at all between them. Around 4 or 5am the contractions suddenly stopped and I was able to sleep for a few hours. That morning, Normer and I went for 2.5 mile walk, packed and then went for another 2.5 mile walk that afternoon. My contractions started back again after the second walk and they were all over the place. 7 minutes, 5 minutes, 3 minutes, 7 minutes. We had planned to labor at home as long as possible but I was already in a lot of pain and really wanted to head to the hospital. We were supposed to have a midwife helping with our delivery, but found out that she wasn’t going to be on call that day. I immediately called my sister-in-law, Chantel, to come be our doula. She has so much experience and I knew she would be a huge help.
We arrived at the hospital around midnight on Thursday the 21st. I was in so much pain because the contractions were so intense. I was so disappointed when the nurse checked me and I was only 2 1/2 cm.
We labored all night only to find out at 4am that I was still 2 1/2cm. I was already asking for the drugs at this point because the pain was so unbearable. Thankfully, I had an amazing birth team who encouraged me and reminded me of our birth plan and why we wanted to do things naturally. Finally around 8:30am, I threw up and immediately felt a ton better. They checked me and I was 6cm with a +1 station! Progress!! At this point, I felt normal between contractions and even carried on conversation! We met our doctor at this point who seemed nice enough. I had never seen him before but had been assured by my midwife that all the doctors in that practice would be supportive of our natural birth.
At 10am on Friday morning, the nurse checked me again and declared that I was 10cm! I starting sobbing with joy that this would soon all be over. (Dun dun duuun….little did I know it wasn’t going to be over anytime soon!). I pushed for over an hour, my water finally broke but the baby wasn’t coming out! At 11:30, the nurse checked me and with much dismay, said I was only 7cm and my cervix was now swollen. This meant that I couldn’t push through the contractions even though I had the urge to. (We aren’t sure why I was only 7cm, don’t know if the nurse checked me wrong or I had regressed. I’m not even sure it’s possible to regress that much. All I know is that it was a huge problem).
From this point on, I was in the most horrible pain. During every contraction, I would grip the sides of the bed and scream. It was the hardest thing I have ever done to fight the urge to push. Both the doctor and the nurse came in several times and physically tried to push my cervix open. That. was. not. fun. I screamed the entire time. I was so exhausted and mentally worn out. I was begging for an epidural. All I wanted was for someone to just knock me out so I wouldn’t have to feel the pain anymore. Our doctor kept coming in the room and pushing pitocin on us along with an epidural. Even though I wanted the epidural so bad, I knew that it wasn’t the best thing for us. The baby was never in distress and all we needed was to get me to relax so my cervix could open up. Normer was such a supportive husband. He was there by my side the entire time, helping me through everything.
I ended up getting two doses of Fentanyl. Each dose only lasted about 45 minutes, but it was enough to take the edge off and allow me to relax. Our doctor came in the room several times saying rude things like, “This is the room of no interventions” or “This is how a Bradley birth is…”. I was so angry with him, he had no compassion and would just burst in while I was in the middle of a contraction and start talking to me. I couldn’t do anything else but focus on not pushing so there was no way I could have a conversation with him! Around 2:30p, we had a turning point. The swelling finally was going down! The doctor still wanted us to take the pitocin but we declined. At 4:00pm, they checked me and I was ready! I was at 10cm again with NO swelling! I started pushing and we tried out various positions. The nurses all came in and told us that this doctor only delivered in the typical position and I had to get on my back. I was so angry. Everything we had learned in our birthing classes said to not get on your back! It slows things down! The doctor also went off on episiotomies. We had in our birth plan that IF I was going to tear badly, to give us a pressure episiotomy (google it if you don’t know what that is). Our doctor apparently did not know what that is. Um, hello??
We finally ended up with my legs in the stirrups and the baby started crowning. The doctor gave me an episiotomy without consulting us. I didn’t even know he had done this until 3 days later. He also gave me a local anesthetic which I did not want. He was so rough with me that I couldn’t even tell when I was having a contraction because what he was doing was so painful. After an hour and 20 minutes of pushing, our sweet boy finally arrived at 5:21pm. We were so over joyed to see him that all most of the stress from the delivery went away. We wanted to not cut the umbilical cord right away, to give it time to deliver last minute nutrients to Badge. I had an unusually short cord, and the doctor immediately clipped and cut it. It wasn’t a big deal that the cord was short and I can’t believe that he didn’t respect our wishes (once again). The doctor started stitching me up and I keep asking what he was doing, how many stitches I was getting, but I NEVER got an answer. I still don’t know how many stitches I got! Needless to say, I’m never delivering with this practice again. It was hard enough what we were going through without someone else just making things harder for us.
And to end on a positive note, despite all the pain, Badge’s birth was simply amazing. When his head and shoulders were finally out, they had me reach down to pull him out all the way. I will never forget the moment I first touched him and put him on my belly. He is such a beautiful baby and I love being his mom. I’m so grateful that God blessed us with a son after such a long journey. We love you Badge!