FAQ 1: You went drug-less during labor? How was it?
Yes I did, and it was hard. Why would I want to do this? Well, honestly because I wanted to feel like a rockstar. And I do.
I had epidurals with both Christian and Nolan. I'd done a ton of reading about natural labor and I wanted to give it my best shot. This is a HUGE reason I wanted to avoid the induction. I knew that if I wanted any chance at delivering without drugs, pitocin could not be involved in the process. I've never once heard a good thing about a pitocin contraction. As if the natural ones weren't bad enough.
From the time the lab confirmed the presence of amniotic fluid (roughly 3pm) to the time babe was born (shortly after 3am) was about 12 hours. We arrived at 'YeahShitJustGotReal' at about 8pm. We didn't reach 'OkSeriouslyI'mDoneHere' until about midnight. So really it was only about five or six hours of really rough stuff.
Would I recommend it to my friends? ...........Yes. I think.
Keep in mind this all happened less than four weeks ago, so that forgetting that happens - it hasn't happened to me yet. Also, keep in mind I felt really awful afterwards. The hemorrhage I had really made those hours after Bunny was born unpleasant. This has zero to do with the fact that I rocked a drug free birth, but it does taint my whole delivery story. If I would have felt great right away (like they say you will after a natural birth), I think I would be a bunch more excited about it. However, it's hard to separate the two events (birth, and hemorrhage).
FAQ 2: Any advice for going drug free?
Get a doula. Seriously. As excited I was to bring a doula onto the team, I was apprehensive about it too. I was worried about adding another body to the room and I was worried that I'd just be annoyed with someone trying be on top of my labor experience. Yosi really shared this concern. He is wonderful labor support, and I think he was concerned that he wouldn't have a role anymore, or that she was going to step on his toes. We couldn't have been more wrong.
She helped and encouraged me to change positions, and she showed Yosi how to rub my back the right way.
She helped me into the shower (and in the shower, and out of the shower..).
I was really concerned about Jack and Jill during labor. They weren't always in the room, and sometimes they were, but either way I wanted them to feel comfortable and not worried. She was awesome at this too. She reassured me that they were ok, and I'm thinking she probably did quite a bit of reassuring them too.
She held my hand when Yos had to eat something, or pee, or breath for a second.
When I felt hot, she tracked down a fan. And I didn't even SAY that I was hot. She just knew.
When I felt like I was going to throw up during every contraction for those last couple of hours she would bring out this magical bottle of peppermint essential oil and swing it in front of my nose and that puke-y feeling would disappear. She also had a magical bottle of lavender oil that she brought out when I started to get
She was so fantastic, I simply cannot say enough wonderful things about her. I just can't. I am SO glad that Jill brought the idea of a doula into the picture and I'm SO glad we found Evie.
FAQ 3: Ok, so what happened afterwards? Hemorrage means what and what did those hours after the birth actually entail?
It's normal to bleed a bit after delivery. After the placenta detaches, it leaves a gaping wound. Some blood is totally normal, usually the uterus will contract a bit to squeeze the vessels in the wound which limits the blood loss. My uterus didn't do that as quickly or as efficiently as it should have, which in turn caused me to lose more blood than I should have.
Bunny was born at 3:10 and the placenta didn't wasn't delivered for at least another half hour. In that time Doc started a liter of pitocin to help my uterus contract.
After the placenta finally appeared, a lot of blood did too. So she started another liter.
Between 4:15 and 4:30, this wasn't helping enough so she tried some cytotec.
It looked like that was helping enough so they let me eat and rest a bit. It was about this time that I thought about showering but as soon as the nurses helped me to sit up, I nearly fainted. My ears started ringing, the room was spinning, I almost threw up, and I got really hot. No shower happening.
After another couple of hours there was still too much bleeding happening so they did a shot of methergen and started talking about a D&C and transfusion. Scary stuff. Luckily that shot of methergen helped my uterus enough to avoid the D&C, but I had already lost well over a liter of blood and wasn't able to avoid the transfusion.
The nurses wheeled me to a new room about 9 and started the blood transfusion then. I also had pain meds, nausea meds, and a benadryl at this time and so I slept like a rock for a few hours.
Things continued to improve and I went home at 11 the next morning. I'm still more sluggish than before, however, I'm feeling so much better. I have never felt so sick as I did that morning. Luckily, surgery wasn't needed, and most importantly Bunny and I are both fine.
Why did it happen? The Doc thinks it was because the baby was so big and my uterus was really distended in order to accommodate the extra size. The bigger the uterus gets the more work it has to do, and mine was just feeling lazy after delivery.
Enough for tonight. Until next time,
Carmen
No comments:
Post a Comment