On Friday, November 21st I woke up to my alarm and went to the bathroom like normal. I realized that my shorts had a large wet spot on them and sure enough when I used the toilet a little involuntarily fluid came out. Since my water had broken prematurely with Judah, I immediately knew that my membranes had broken and this was amniotic fluid. To be honest, I was pretty upset, scared, and frustrated. I started crying mainly because I was one day shy of 38 weeks and with all the knowledge I have, I just know that babies do best when they are full term which is 39 weeks AND labor proceeds the best when your water breaks after regular contractions start. I had been having Braxton Hicks contractions ever since like 26 weeks but nothing painful to this point. After Alex helped calm me down, I called my midwives and the midwife I spoke with was very reassuring and told me it was basically up to me when I wanted to come to the hospital. We agreed I’d call the midwives back around the 24 hour mark to make a plan if nothing had changed. I went about my normal day Friday but was definitely more stressed as I had not had the chance to get to a few larger items on my ‘to-do before baby list' that I really wanted to accomplish, but more pressing items were at hand that I needed to get done first. I was soaking through pads pretty quickly and small gushes would come out depending on my movement/position. Since I was feeling normal and fine, my mom came over during Judah’s nap to be with the older kids so I could run a few errands. The remainder of the day there were no changes and I was continuing to soak pads. We went to bed as usual but had my mom on stand-by. It took me a while to fall asleep and I maybe got 2.5 hours of broken sleep as I was a bit worried about labor not starting. I got up and did some stretching and movements to hopefully encourage contractions. I did a few ‘induce labor' circuits from pelvic floor specialists on IG and used my yoga ball for some additional swaying and stretching. During this time I was also drinking a lot of strong red raspberry leaf tea. By morning there were no changes, other than the normal braxton hicks I had been having for weeks. I called the midwives and we decided I would go into triage. After getting the car packed up and my mom al set with the big kids, we headed downtown. After meeting with my nurse and a student mid-wife it was pretty apparent that we would be staying and admitted. After a while though, the head mid-wife came into the room and said we would need to confirm the leaking I was having was indeed amniotic fluid. I was pretty shocked as I instinctively knew it had to be amniotic fluid and honestly was kind of annoyed, but it was hospital policy. Well that first test came back negative!! I was dumbfounded as I knew it was wrong. They told me sometimes the test does have a false negative but since I had opted to be measured and had gel in me they couldn’t do the more extensive/expensive test because the gel messes with the results. I had been measured right after they swabbed me for the first test, but wasn’t made aware I’d have to wait 6 hours for an additional test if the first one was negative. Long story short, I was sent home and told to come back in 6 hours if I was still leaking. I was pretty annoyed and then on the drive home turned my mindset around and realized this was a blessing so we could put up the Christmas tree as a family (which Eli was really looking forward to that day), I could sanitize all my pump parts and the bottles, and I was able to deep clean the oven. My friends think I was crazy, but really a mom in “early labor” is usually very productive, at least it is for me, since sitting around makes me anxious and stalls labor. So we got some things accomplished around the house, spent a few more hours together as a family of 5 and then headed back to the hospital around 4pm since I was still soaking through pads.
They swabbed me for the additional test and the results came back pretty quickly. It was POSITIVE for amniotic fluid. The midwives knew I likely was correct, but they had to follow procedures. Throughout Saturday, I maybe had two contractions that were a tad bit painful but nothing noteworthy at all. I discussed options with the midwife and we agreed that I would start with nipple stimulation with a hospital grade pump as this was successful with my last labor. The birthing rooms were pretty busy and since I wanted one with a birthing tub, we had to stay in a triage room for 5 hours or so. I ordered food, did the pumping routine while swaying on a birthing ball, wrote a newsletter for my email subscribers, did some squats and walking but nothing changed. I think I had one more slightly painful contraction, but I knew it wasn’t really anything productive. Mentally I was already getting defeated since I wanted to have natural labor. Eventually the birthing tub room opened up and we moved upstairs.
After meeting my new nurse, I decided to continue some movements like walking, lunges, squats, and birthing ball stretches. The midwife and nurse agreed I should get some rest and we would reassess in an hour or so. I laid down and used the peanut ball in a few different positions. I don’t remember falling asleep, but it was nice to relax more. The new midwife highly suggested I start oral misoprostol (a synthetic prostaglandin), to help induce contractions. I was hesitant as I’ve never had to take anything with labor before, but I was also getting fatigued and knew the baby needed to come so I agreed. I had brought caster oil with me to the hospital, which if you don’t know is known to really help kickstart labor. I had told myself I would take some castor oil an hour after the low dose of misoprostol. I had not told the midwife that I took it but knew from all my research that it was fine and the only real side-effect was an upset stomach and loose stools. I wrote down in my notes that I took about 2 tablespoons of caster oil in orange juice around 2:30am. Nothing really changed though so I agreed to my second dose of misoprostol at 3:30am. Whether it was the caster oil or second dose of misoprostol, I will never know, but more painful contractions started around 4:40am. I started feeling more nauseated and went to the bathroom around 5:15am. I laid down for a while when the really painful contractions started coming, which quickly got me up and walking around so I could sway my hips with the contractions as that’s what feels best for me. They were getting pretty intense and closer together so I told the nurse what was going on. Of course this was all happening around shift change! They filled the birthing tub for me around 7am and I got in shortly after. I labored in the tub on my hands and knees for 20 minutes or so. I was really breathing through every contraction and in my own headspace, as I labor with my eyes closed and just let my body do its thing. Someone had given me a waffle cushion to lean on at the edge of the tub since I was on my knees and that was more comfortable. I stood up and leaned on Alex for a few contractions but then stayed on my knees for the remainder of the contractions. About 15 minutes later, I was getting pretty vocal during the contractions and knew Alex should call the nurse in. My nurse had gone down to triage to help place an IV though; she didn’t realize how close I was to delivering. Anne, the new midwife, came back in and helped me labor with encouraging words. I was doubting my strength since it had been such a long “pre-labor” and I was running on very little sleep.
Anne suggested I get out and have a few contractions on the toilet. This was pretty intense but really helped the baby get into a better position. By the fourth contraction on the toilet, my body was instinctively starting to bear down and push. Alex helped me get back in the tub at 8:23am. The deep moaning and exhales kicked in and I knew the baby was close. I had a couple more very intense contractions that brought baby down. My nurse made it back in the room just a minute or so before baby arrived. After many loud “ouch, oughhh!!” I pushed him out on my knees and the midwife helped me bring him up through my legs to my chest. He was here and covered heavily in vernix! The nurse helped get a blanket over him and we relaxed back in the tub. I got him latched and we stayed in the tub for a few minutes. Due to my history of bleeding, I had agreed to the intramuscular pitocin shot after birth so the nurse gave me that while in the tub. Eza William was born at 8:27am, Sunday November 23rd. He was healthy and doing well. I, on the other hand, was about to experience a pretty traumatic post-birth.
Almost 2 hours post-birth, the nurse offered to help me rinse off a little in the birthing tub since there was a handheld shower to use. I agreed and went to the bathroom first and then got rinsed off a bit. After getting back in the bed, I felt quite a large gush of blood come out and told the nurse. She looked and said it was still a normal amount, but then within a few minutes I felt more and more blood and really felt soaked down there. By this time I had a pad with the mesh underwear on and so the nurse pulled everything down and what I saw almost made me faint. It was no joke a thick wall as thick as a brick of coagulated blood. I knew something was wrong and so did the nurse, she immediately paged the midwife team and told her what we saw and then basically said, we don’t have time. I'm administrating more intramuscular pitocin and think we need to start IV pitocin as well. It turns out this nurse knew her stuff regarding hemorrhages as she experienced them with her 3 births. Before I really knew what was going on, I had more drugs going in me and my whole body was shaking uncontrollably. I was pretty scared and asked Alex to pray outloud. They lowered my bed down because the midwife needed to insert FIVE large capsules into my rectum. I don’t know what the drug was but apparently it’s more effective than IV pitocin at getting the uterus to contract and I was still bleeding heavily so she said she had to get them in me. Dang, when I say those hurt worse than childbirth I mean it. I was screaming and yelling and meanwhile my body was uncontrollably shaking making it harder for the poor midwife to get them in. Eventually the bleeding stopped and I could breathe slower. It took me a while to feel myself again after all the meds. They also had started me on a bag of fluids. At one point there was a whole team of people in the room, but I guess that’s what you get when you go to a university associated hospital. The OB on rotation wanted to make sure there wasn’t any retained placenta, so an ultrasound was ordered and someone came to my room to perform it. Nothing was found which was a relief! I apparently just have a very low toned uterus? Whatever the case was, I am glad for my nurse and how quickly she acted when all appeared to be ok and I was feeling fine. I never really felt dizzy or lightheaded when transferring to my new room, but I did pass a tennis ball sized clot when I went to the bathroom which was a bit triggering after all that just happened. All was well though and they just kept monitoring the size and shape of my uterus and kept doing their fundal massage pushes. I was happy to finally be able to rest and soak in some baby snuggles.
