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3-2-10 – Part 3 – The Drive to the Hospital
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10
Timing the contractions and writing down or recording on the iPhone app seemed useless at this point. All I could do was focus on breathing in and out and then take the breaks to look at the clock or to grin at Dale and tell him he was driving beautifully.
Our drive was, unfortunately, right during Steamboat’s morning rush hour, 9:30 am.
I didn’t know it at the time but I had been in active labor since 8:30 am. That knowledge would have helped as I was feeling very anxious that this was just the “easy” first stages of labor and that the big, painful stuff was still ahead. If I could have known that the intensity was already actively taking over my body, I could have been a lot more proud of myself for breathing so well and remaining so calm.
We were stuck at an infuriatingly slow pace behind a pokey series of cars. I was so busy breathing slowly, deeply in, then out, that I only faintly noticed. I can’t even remember if Dale and I talked about much. I just know I felt nervous. Could I do this?
Dale drove like a dream, I didn’t even feel the bumps, but I kept counting the moments when I would not be sitting in my truck staining the seat and would be in a hospital room free to make as big of a mess as I needed. Dale parked exactly where we had talked about and planned—CLOSE to the entrance.
It was 9:45 am.
Dale ran into the hospital and got me a wheelchair. He helped me out and as I sat there waiting for him to lower the feet supports another contraction, a large one took over. I felt like those feet supports took forever to fall down into place. The contractions were about 3-5 minutes apart and they lasted about 1 minute each.
How long was this going to take to get the wheelchair ready? The pain crystallized every moment.
Once my feet were supported, I breathed a sigh of relief to be off that soggy mess of towels and headed into the hospital. Our nurse, I’ll call her Proserpine, greeted us at the door. I gave her a huge warm smile, something I thought rather heroic in the moment.
We got into the room, Dale in his eagerness to wheel me in accidentally clipped the door jam and jolted me forward. I remember thinking it was good that I wasn’t in a middle of a contraction or I might not have been as kind about it. He felt awful. I think that helped curb my scolding. I wanted us to be a team and to begin by blaming him would not be a good start.
This picture is of our room, number 52, the room where our son would enter the world.
In the room I was surprised and disappointed that Linda (my doula) was not there, yet. I asked about her and Proserpine said she was here, but still on her way to my room. That made me feel a lot better.
My clothes at this point were just in the way to me, especially since half of them were soggy wet, so I pulled them all off and tried to get comfortable on the bed. That was nearly impossible especially as Proserpine pulled out a baby monitor and began strapping it twice around my abdomen.
I felt bothered already that the monitor might keep me from having this baby naturally. I felt annoyed at how the doubled elastic straps were squeezing my belly tighter than I would like.
“Do I have to have that on?” I asked her.
“Absolutely,” Proserpine responded, “We have to make sure the baby is alright.”
This was already a deviation from my hopes, I tried not to let it bother me, but thoughts of how this meconium might throw a monkey wrench in the works, fears of intervention, baby stress, fear of a cesarean, fear that I couldn’t handle the contractions, discomfort as I rotated into several positions on the bed took hold of me. After strapping the monitor on, I was relieved to know that Proserpine must have been alerted to my birthing “plan” because she never once pressured me to get an IV port or an epidural.
She checked my cervix and when I heard I was dilated to 5 cm, I would have danced a jig if I had the energy. That meant that since 8 am I had dilated from 2.5 (where I had been the week prior) to 5 cm.
This meant I was progressing, the baby was moving down. I felt like I could really do this, if God could just prevent me from getting stuck before 10 cm.
The contractions were supposed to feel this difficult because I WAS IN ACTIVE LABOR. I think this all happened around 10 am.
At this point Linda arrived and the process of breathing really began in earnest. For every contraction I grabbed Linda or Dale’s hands and squeezed. I know that sometimes I squeezed too tight because I felt Dale wince once when I vised his wedding band against his pinky.
But the comfort of holding their hands as I breathed, helped me know I wasn’t alone with the pain, that human, loving, supporting, squeezing hands accompanied me into the darkness.
I was surprised I wanted to touch someone in the pain. I started to get into a rhythm. I knew when the contraction was coming, I knew what it would feel like and I knew I’d get a break afterwards.
That predictability felt very safe and manageable. It helped to think that my uterus was contracting and working the baby lower.
I tried to use the restroom after about 30 minutes and while seated I felt overwhelmingly nauseous. Dale and Linda had left me to have some privacy. It was the only time I would be alone for the rest of that day. But I soon called Dale in because the nausea was too scary to face by myself on top of everything else.
I attempted to ignore the warning that this was why the hospital wanted women to have an IV port put in as soon as they were admitted, to keep them hydrated and nourished. I thought back to my missed breakfast.
But I knew I still did not want an IV. About this point I really felt the power of my will to choose, I felt proud and thankful to have “stuck to my guns” even though I was in such a state.
** Warning: Real Life Details**
I began to dry heave. I remember thinking, “
This is about as bad as it gets! I’m in labor, throwing up, while sitting on the toilet.”
But surprisingly after two dry heaves, I felt much, much better—so much better than I looked up all bright-eyed at Dale and announced that I wanted to labor in the tub.
***
I soon was climbing in a beautiful, bubbling, warm bath. That made a huge difference to my comfort level.
To be continued Sunday . . .
Read Part 4 “Dignity and Pain”
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10
April 2nd, 2010 at 6:33 pm
Jonalyn, I’m looking forward to the rest. My sister tried twice to have natural home births in a bath and was rushed to the hospital twice for emergency C-sections. Sigh. Blessings on you and yours, Deb