Leo's Birth Story

Leo just turned six weeks old on Sat­ur­day, so yes, it’s taken me a while to get around to writ­ing up our birth story, but it’s been a busy time.

The Induc­tion

Leo was very big.  His ultra­sound esti­mates were putting him at 5 kg (11 lbs), so the doc­tors wanted to induce before I was full term.  At 37 weeks, I went into hos­pi­tal for an induc­tion and three days later, I checked out, still preg­nant. It was three days of con­trac­tions,  after­ward I was exhausted and disappointed.

A week later, I went in for a sec­ond induc­tion. The first time I had been given the med­ica­tion orally, which they planned to start out with the sec­ond time, but I asked for the med­ica­tion in gel form to be put on my cervix.  Within a few hours, I was get­ting nice strong con­trac­tions and my cervix had started dilat­ing. I was in labor.

A Bad Reac­tion to Pain Medication

The mid­wife on duty wanted to give me some pain med­ica­tion to help me sleep, so I could get some rest before the big show.  One of the side effects was pos­si­ble nau­sea, and I raised objec­tions, since I was already pretty nau­seous from HG, which I’d suf­fered from the whole preg­nancy.  She said not to worry about it, gave me the injec­tion and sent me back to my room.  By the time I’d got­ten to my room, one floor up from the deliv­ery area, I was dizzy.  I made a quick trip to the bath­room to pre­pare for bed, and by the time I got in bed, the room was spin­ning.  I vom­ited sev­eral times and got no rest that night.  I felt mis­er­able and don’t rec­om­mend this type of pain med­ica­tion for any­one suf­fer­ing from HG.  Feel­ing the con­trac­tions would have been much more restful.

Get­ting the Epidural

By late morn­ing, things had pro­gressed enough for me to stay down in the deliv­ery area.  I was given an enema (I rec­om­mend these, they aren’t that uncom­fort­able and you don’t have to worry about poop­ing dur­ing the birth), then the anes­the­si­ol­o­gist came in to give me the epidural.  It was the same doc­tor that had done my epidural for Oliver’s birth, and the inser­tion of the catheter into my spinal col­umn had gone really well that time, so I had no wor­ries.  I scrunched up, which is very uncom­fort­able when you’ve got a big belly and are hav­ing con­trac­tions, but I fig­ured it’d be done in no time.  It took 6 tries to get the catheter in.  Every doc­tor and mid­wife who saw me after­ward said it looked like some­one had used my back as a pin cush­ion.  I don’t think it was the anesthesiologist’s fault, my back is a mess, but in hind­sight, this was the worst part of the birthing process, much more painful than the birth itself.

The Birth

Because of his size, the doc­tor was wor­ried about injury to Leo’s shoul­ders dur­ing the birth.  In fact, I had been offered the choice between being induced and get­ting a c-section.  There weren’t any open­ings for a non-emergency c-section for sev­eral days though, so I chose to be induced imme­di­ately.  At this point in the birth how­ever, I asked the doc­tor if it was too late to change my mind. He said it’s never too late.

Around 7pm, my cervix was fully dilated.  At the same time, there was an emer­gency c-section and both gyne­col­o­gists were in the oper­at­ing room, so the anes­the­si­ol­o­gist came in to my deliv­ery room to help out.  The mid­wife manip­u­lated my legs to help Leo make his way through the birth canal while I pushed.  Within a few min­utes, the birth was over.

Sat­ur­day evening, thirty  hours after I started get­ting con­trac­tions, Leo was born, weigh­ing in at 4510 grams (almost 9 lbs, 15 oz).

A Scary Beginning

I looked down and saw that Leo was limp and pur­ple.  He wasn’t breath­ing at first and was imme­di­ately whisked off to the pedi­a­tri­cian.  His 5 minute Apgar score was good, so there was really noth­ing to worry about, but all I could think about was that I wanted my baby.

He was doing well, but was put into the new­born sta­tion for obser­va­tion for his first 3 days.  It drove me a lit­tle crazy to be apart from him, but I was hav­ing trou­ble with my right leg, so I was kept busy with my own issues.

It seems while Leo was being born, his head knocked my lower ver­te­brae out of align­ment and irri­tated some of the nerves in my pelvis, so for the first few days, my right leg was numb and tingly (like when your leg falls asleep), and weak.  I was seen by a neu­rol­o­gist and got an MRI done of my leg and pelvis, which ruled out any­thing per­ma­nent.  At six weeks post­par­tum, I’m get­ting sharp, stab­bing pains in my back.  My leg tires out quickly and the sole of my foot still gets numb occa­sion­ally.  It doesn’t sound like it, but I am mak­ing progress.

The End of HG

I had read accounts that as soon as women suf­fer­ing HG to the end had given birth, their nau­sea was gone.  Unfor­tu­nately, that wasn’t the case for me.  The nau­sea improved day by day.  Two days after the birth, I was able to go with­out anti-nausea med­ica­tion.  I got a bit motion sick in the car on the way to the neu­rol­o­gist, but man­aged with­out the med­ica­tion.  By four days post­par­tum, the nau­sea was com­pletely gone.  My hus­band asked me how I was feel­ing that morn­ing and when I answered, “Okay,” he said that it was the first time in 8 months that I hadn’t said, “Terrible.”

A Dif­fi­cult Homecoming

On Tues­day after the birth, we were released, and as soon as we got home, we heard that my father-in-law was not doing well.  Rainer and Oliver jumped in the car within an hour of Leo and my home­com­ing and made the five hour trip to my in-laws.  My father-in-law passed away that evening.

It wasn’t an ideal start as a big brother for Oliver, with us bring­ing the baby home and then “send­ing him away,” but it couldn’t be helped.  Once he was back, he ignored the baby.  It took two weeks before he wanted to touch or kiss the baby.  Now he’s a great big brother though.  If Leo is cry­ing, Oliver is very con­cerned and tells me to hurry up because the baby is sad.  He gives the baby a kiss when he leaves for day care and when I pick him up, and at bed time.  He’s very gen­tle and thought­ful towards Leo.  I try to have one-on-one time with him as much as I can, which isn’t a lot, but as Leo gets older, he’ll be able to have mom’s atten­tion more and more.

Inter­est­ingly, with Oliver’s birth, I had a lot of trou­ble remem­ber­ing much of the details, but with Leo’s birth, I can remem­ber every lit­tle thing.  Per­haps it was because Oliver’s birth was more painful and trau­matic (Leo’s went pretty smoothly and I didn’t even have to cry out once), or maybe because it’s my sec­ond time around.

Have you found you can remem­ber one birth bet­ter than another?

You may also be interested in reading:

• Waiting for the Birth (5)
• Struggling with Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG): Week 33 Update (2)
• Struggling with Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG): Week 23 Update (14)
• When it's not just morning sickness: Living with Hyperemesis Gravidarum (17)
• Struggling with Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG): Week 29 Update (3)

Tagged as: birth, birth story, Birthing, epidural, HG, induction, labor, nausea, Pregnancy