Here’s my subjective account of Katie’s labor. I don’t have exact times and details, but our doulas have it on record somewhere. Most of the links are to my twitter updates.
Friday at the OB
Many of my coworkers wished me that my paternity leave would start by the end of the weekend. I did too…
Friday May 29th we found out that Katie needed to be induced. The fluid levels in her amniotic sac were very low. Dr. Woo strongly suggested that we immediately go home, get our things and go to the hospital. I was excited, but not thrilled that there would be an induction.
We headed home, and I alerted our doulas en route. We gave ourselves 20 minutes to wrap up everything and we were on our way.
Hurry up and wait
Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital’s Labor and Delivery ward was booked solid, so we were put in a closet sized room and told to wait for a while. It was quite cozy with our two doulas. Katie and I hadn’t eaten for a while so I decided to get us some food from Thaiphoon.
When I got back I learned that Katie would be under observation while she had a cervidil induction. Unfortunately, we were stuck in the tiny room and I was sleeping on the floor. Our nurse moved us into a much larger room and I was able to sleep comfortably once I ignored my nasty headache.
The “pit”
The next morning we made a little progress with the cervidil. However, we needed more to get Katie into active labor, so we were asked to try pitocin.
Katie was well-read on pitocin and to her, pitocin made the following scenario likely:
pitocin -> epidural -> c-section
Katie and I decided that pitocin would be the best option, despite the possible side-effects. We just asked that they introduce it slowly and increment it slowly. This eventually caused Katie’s water to break.
Unfortunately, we had the nurse who thought she knew what was “best”. At some point she had discretely kicked up the pit-level a bit high. This lead to Katie getting painful, rapid contractions too early.
Transition
These rapid contractions transitioned Katie into a more intense stage of labor, but they started around 2cm – far too early.
Each contraction brought enough physical pain (10 on the scale from 1-10) even the doulas and myself couldn’t ease the pain. This wasn’t normal.
We opted for an epidural. The doulas had to leave for that, and Katie, who was shaking, had to be restrained in order for her to be hooked up. Once she was on it, all was well.
OMG WTF BBQ
Until it wasn’t. The fetal heart rate went down quite a bit. Several nurses and our anesthesiologist arrived, brought Katie on all fours and got the fetal heart rate back up. Except for the fact that Katie could still feel her contractions in the left side of her behind, everything was fine.
The doulas came by and checked on us before deciding to catch some shut-eye in the waiting area.
Before we went to sleep, we decided we should have the anesthesiologist adjust the epidural line. He adjusted it and all was well.
Everything happens so fast
Until everything repeated itself. All of a sudden the OB, anesthesiologist, nurses were all in our room getting Katie on all fours again. The OB wasn’t comfortable with the baby’s heart rate so she had everyone move to the operating room. I called our doulas, letting them know “stuff is happening.” I was told to hold back by a certain nurse and then she said she’d get me into scrubs.
A nurse told me to get in scrubs and the doulas were to pack up our room. When I got into scrubs, the nurse said I couldn’t go into the room, since they decided to operate (meaning C-Section). I waited for a few minutes and the nurse told me to come with her – my son was delivered:
My son was born at 9:59PM on May 29th 2010. He had a healthy 9/10 APGAR score, and looked wonderful. For the first time in my life, I cried.
Recovery
Amazingly, after all of this, Katie was fine. She recovered and we spent a few frantic nights in the hospital getting used to the fact that we were new parents. With the help of good friends and family we’ve made it over a week.