Around 7 Thursday morning, the nurse came in and let us know
we could start Pitocin soon. They put it in on a slow drip at 7:30. Katie went
to the hotel to take a nap, and we sat and waited for things to get moving. My
next exam showed no improvement, and I was still happy and talking. We wanted
to increase the Pitocin, so they did, and the contractions finally started
coming better. At 9:50, the on call doctor decided to break my water, I was
between 5 and 6cm dilated. I had not wanted to break it until further along,
but she thought this would be the only way to get things moving without just
continuing to increase the Pitocin because she knew I didn’t want an epidural.
I was not happy but let her break the water to get things moving. Then she
reduced the Pitocin to a 2.
The monitoring really wasn’t going well, my contractions
were really hard to pick up on the monitors, so I decided to let them try and
place an internal monitor. Yeah, that ended up a bust. Not only did they dig around
forever inside to try and place it, it freaking hurt!
My contractions weren’t responding to the low dose of Pitocin,
either. So we again asked them to increase it, favoring a “git er done”
approach rather than this up and down we were seeing. They increased it two
more times, up to a 6, which helped quite a bit. By 12:45 when the doctor came
to check on me, I was 7cm dilated and 80% effaced. As soon as she left, I told
Maria I was going into transition, I could feel it. I started to focus inward
and take myself to a quiet place to work things through.
I didn’t feel comfortable on my back and knew that if I
could get the pressure off my back I would be able to get through it better, so
I flipped on to all fours on the bed. During the time I was on my knees, I
prayed and reminded myself to relax and let my stomach muscles relax and it
wouldn’t hurt so bad. When I relaxed my stomach muscles and focused on
breathing, it didn’t seem as bad, though I knew they were stronger now than
they had been yet.
I guess I had everyone in the room fooled into thinking
things were stalling again, though. With all my inward focusing, I was so quiet
and still that Maria thought I was getting a little break. I was a little too
eager in letting her know there was no such break. Not even a few minutes
later, I could feel her head coming and let everyone know she was coming with
several grunts. I was ready to push.
The nurses called the on call doctor in to come and catch
and when she came in, she was not happy that I was on my hands and knees. But
this was how I naturally KNEW it would be ok. Molly’s head was already there. I
could have pushed her out before the doctor even got there! Unfortunately, the
doctor did not agree with me, and I was flipped unhappily onto my back. At this
point, all the progress I felt I had made on my knees stalled out. There was at
least a good 5 minutes where nothing happened between flipping over and
pushing. It was heart wrenching. But the doctor wasn’t comfortable with me on
my hands and knees, so onward we went.
Finally, it was time to push and focus and get Miss Molly
out, on my back. Suddenly, I began to fear the crowning “ring of fire,” and
cry. Maria helped calm me down and soothed me. I don’t remember how many pushes there were,
but it felt like my pelvis was spreading so far. Something was wrong, her
shoulder was stuck for a few seconds. It took a little more effort to get her
out, on all our parts. I tore. Finally, at 1:52, she arrived. She was 8lbs 10oz
and 20” long. In spite of her shoulder getting stuck for a few seconds, she was
perfect and her shoulder had no issues.
While they suctioned her and clamped her cord, I remember
just announcing, “I did it, I did it!” and Maria smiling and agreeing with me. As
they wiped Molly up, Katie cried and kissed me and thanked me for helping them
bring Molly in to the world.
Katie cut the cord and they handed her to me. Before I let
her go, I told her it was my pleasure to carry her. Then I got to experience
the joy of giving Katie her long awaited princess. What a glorious moment it
was. The look on her face will be forever ingrained in my memory like a photo. The
moment was frozen in time.
I couldn’t have asked for a better journey. Katie, Kevin and
their entire family were amazing. My doctor was amazing. The Labor and Delivery
nurses were awesome. This truly has been a dream come true. Watching Katie and
Kevin fall in love with her was the biggest reward I will see here on earth for
this journey.
My husband- who had gotten there around 10am, unfortunately,
was out while all the good stuff happened, but got there less than 2 minutes
after Molly arrived. When he got there, he hugged and kissed me and told me how
proud he was of me. And then he asked if I wanted to do it again.
Heck YEAH!
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