Rebecca's Birth of a Daughter

First off my labor was a little unique. You see I am completely allergic to all pain killers. That means that even if I wanted to I couldn't have had an epidural. Luckily my pregnancy wasn't too bad. Not a whole lot of pain until the very end.

The week before I was induced my doctor had taken my blood pressure and realized it was a little high, she thought for sure I would go into labor, I didn't. You see that's something else unique about my family, we don't go into labor. My mother was induced with all 7 of her pregnancies and my sister with all 3.

The following Tuesday my doctor asked me to come in so she could check my blood pressure again. It was a little high, you know 160/116 lol. I was nervous, I knew that's all it was but they didn't listen. So they decided to induce me.

I was induced at 1 PM, they gave me cytotek, apparently that helps you dilate. Well I guess my body didn't know that. 5 hours later I STILL hadn't dilated beyond a 2! The contractions at that point weren't too bad and nothing I couldn't handle. Sure they hurt, and they were pretty strong, but my body could handle it. Well since I hadn't dilated they decided to break my water. Boy was that interesting. They also decided to give me pitocin.

May I just say now that I believe pitocin is of the devil, especially if you're doing natural labor. It was about then that things really began to hurt. I could handle it at first and then it just became to much. I started to scream, and when my husband offered to plug in my Ipod so I could listen to it, I told him to shut it! I didn't care, I hurt and I was DONE! He tried to comfort me and remembered something my sister had said about her labor. A nurse had tried to calm her by putting her hand in front of my sister's face and telling her to stay calm, my sister tried to bite her. So my husband put his hand in front of my mouth, and I did bite him.

Through every contraction for about an hour. The nurses tried to help keep me calm, and were teaching me all sorts of breathing tips. It kind of helped, I was mostly just thankful to have another woman there who understood.  It took me almost 9 hours to go from a 2 to a seven. Almost 10 minutes after they told me I was a 7 I told them I had to push, they told me I couldn't. I insisted, so they checked me again to discover that I was a 10. They immediately ran out of the room and called my doctor.

 Now here's a funny side story, while I was pregnant my doctor and I had a discussion about how labor was probably going to go for me. She told me that she was going to tell me to not push, and my response was going to be screw you I'm pushing! And that's exactly how it went. It took her 5 minutes to get to the hospital and then she came into the room. While she was getting dressed I told her I was going to push, and she told me don't do it! Not yet I'm not ready! It's actually rather comical when I look back at it now.

Finally at approximately 3 AM I was allowed to push. I pushed for about 6 minutes when I could feel my daughter crowning. I asked my doctor, “hey is she crowning?” She told me yes and asked if I wanted to feel. I told her no thanks and that I could feel it. At which point it dawned on my doctor that I was completely calm and not screaming at all. She looked up at me rather perplexed and asked if I was hurting? I laughed and told her no! It felt great to push!

My beautiful baby girl came into the world at 3:09 AM. All in all I was in labor for 14 hours. I'm pretty sure I blacked out at the end, because all I remember is them putting her on my stomach, me saying hi and then her being on the table getting warm. I have no memory of my husband cutting her cord.

Now that I look back on it, my labor wasn't too bad. I could totally do it again, although I think I would like to avoid the pitocin next time.

Tags: birth stories on demand, pitocin, birth, birth stories, hospital birth stories, cytotec, induction, birthing stories, birth stories with pictures, childbirth stories, birth pictures, medical intervention