My full birth story

I've been holding something back for the last ten months (today!), but with therapy, healing, and time, I'm feeling more and more ready to share it with others - the full story of Eleanor's birth.

I described a lot of the birth here, and while I did not lie, I left out a huge part. If you don't feel like reading this whole post (TL;DR): my epidural didn't work for my c-section. Meaning, I felt everything during surgery. But here is [still edited for length] the full version:

Wednesday, August 31

• 39 weeks, 3 days pregnant. Midwife visit with a cervical dilation check. I was dilated to maybe one centimeter and my cervix was still high and thick (you want it to be low and thin). Super frustrated but hoping things happen over the weekend near her due date.

Sunday, September 4

• Due date came and went. Uneventful. Miserable. Loathe going into work the next week, where everyone delights in reminding me how huge I am and how I'm still here.

Thursday, September 8

• 40 weeks, 4 days pregnant. Midwife appointment; still only dilated to one centimeter. Feeling so huge and frustrated and f-ing OVER being pregnant. Cry in the Taco John's parking lot over some potato oles. Hate life and everyone in it. 

Monday, September 12

• 41 weeks, 1 day pregnant. Midwife appointment, where I am still only dilated to one centimeter. My blood pressure is high and we do a non-stress test on the baby. She is fine, but with my blood pressure and being pretty overdue, they decide to induce me that night.
• We go to the hospital that evening and they give me Cytotec, a drug inserted into the cervix to help it "ripen", which also hopefully starts contractions and kicks off labor. This is the first step in many inductions. I try to sleep that night as they give me more Cytotec every few hours.

Tuesday, September 13

• In the morning not much has happened so we start on Pitocin, the drug that starts contractions. I don't feel much at first, but then the contractions start to feel like bad menstrual cramps. 
• I also find out early that morning that my blood pressure is still high, so I have to go on magnesium sulfate, which is an anti-seizure medicine. At this point, there is more danger to me than the baby, so the "mag" protects me from having a seizure. There are two awful consequences of being on mag - it counteracts the Pitocin, which makes it harder for labor to progress. It also makes me drowsy and dizzy and a little out of it, which means I am confined to the bed for all of my labor. This means I have to have a catheter and I'm not able to do the things that help labor progress, like walk and squat and let gravity help get baby down.
• I'm not really sure of the timeline of things as the day progresses. We have our doula with us, which is extremely helpful. She helps with pain relief and getting me into the few positions that I can do in bed to help labor progress. As the day goes on, they keep upping my dose of Pitocin to keep contractions moving, still hoping I'll continue to progress and have a vaginal delivery.
• Later in the day, as my contractions keep getting stronger, I'm checked again and I'm only dilated to two centimeters. Not a good sign when you're actually in labor. I've been able to manage the pain, but we decide to try some Fentanyl (a narcotic pain killer) through my IV to try and help me relax and regain some strength, which will hopefully help me dilate more. I really wanted to go through labor with no pain killers, but my doula makes me feel better, telling me that I was on the highest level of Pitocin she'd ever seen without any pain killers. And if I can dilate more, we might still have a chance at a vaginal birth.
• It's into the night and the Fentanyl has provided little relief, while they continue to increase my dose of Pitocin. I'm checked again, with no dilation progress. My blood pressure continues to be high, my platelets are dropping fast, and there is protein in my urine. At some point I am diagnosed with "severe preeclampsia". The protein in my urine means my organs are not functioning correctly, and if my platelets drop too low, I will not be able to get an epidural if I need one, because of the risk of bleeding (platelets help blood clot).
• At some point they "break my bag" (break the amniotic sac that the baby is in - when it happens naturally in labor it's called your "water breaking") to help me continue to progress.
• We decide to get an epidural, to help my body relax and hopefully progress more, and because at this point I've labored for over 12 hours and am barely dilated. At this point I've been in so much pain for so long, I barely feel the needle in my back. Once I decided to get the epidural, they really cranked up my Pitocin to get contractions moving. The thought is that now I can't feel the pain from them, so it's ok that they are unnaturally strong (Pitocin creates contractions stronger that your body naturally would).
• Epidurals start with a "bolus" shot (a big shot of the meds), and then continued pain relief with ongoing smaller doses of the pain killers. I get initial relief from my first bolus, but it wears off quickly and then I go back to feeling all of my contractions, which are now much, much stronger than before due to the cranked up Pitocin. I try to use the clicker to administer more meds in my epidural, but feel no relief.
• We get the anesthesiologist back in the room, who says the epidural looks fine (it's not placed incorrectly or leaking or anything). He gives me another bolus to see if this one works. I get some initial relief, but it wears off quickly and I'm back to being in intense pain.

Wednesday, September 14

• The OB checks me one last time, and I am dilated to three centimeters. My blood pressure is way too high, and I've stopped producing urine all together (despite being pumped full of saline through my IV). At this point it's after midnight and I've been in labor with contractions for over 16 hours. Miraculously, baby has never been in distress the entire time. My body, however, is not doing well. For my own safety, they need to do a cesarean section soon. They end up calling it a "semi-emergent c-section".
• When they wheel me into the operating room, I'm still in a lot of pain because my epidural isn't working. They give me another bolus at some point, but I don't feel the relief. They do some poking on my belly and ask if I can feel it. At first I'm not sure, but then I definitely feel the poking around, so I tell them I can feel it. I think they might have given me some more meds through my epidural or something, because then they decide to move forward with the surgery.
• As soon as they start cutting, I yell out that I can feel it. They ask me if I feel pain or pressure (because with an epidural you can feel some pressure from contractions or pushing or whatever, but you shouldn't feel actual pain). I clearly say I am in pain.
• I'm not completely sure what they are doing, but I hear a female voice say, "We have to keep going." ....And they continue to cut. I am now in blinding pain and screaming/moaning/I don't know what.... They give me nitrous oxide (laughing gas) through a mask, which helps calm me a little but doesn't take away the pain. They have to forcibly hold it over my face as I moan. I feel burning, blinding pain (I think from the cutting), and then intense pain and overwhelming pressure (I think from them pulling/pushing the baby out).
• During this time, Caleb is sitting by my head and said the anesthesiologist is freaking out, trying to see what he can give me for relief. At one point, he has Caleb hold the mask over my face while he scrambles around. He ultimately decides to give me a big shot of morphine, but has to wait until the baby is disconnected from me.
• Eleanor was born at 2:06 AM. I think that the actual surgery was relatively quick - 15 minutes or so? I'm not sure because I either blocked out some of it, or blacked out some from pain... Then once the cord was cut, the anesthesiologist gave me morphine and I had pain relief.
• Once they cleaned her up a bit, they brought Eleanor over to me and laid her on my chest. I could barely open my eyes, but I had her right by my face. My first sweet memory of her was that she was crying, but when I talked to her, she calmed down - like she knew her mama's voice. I don't remember what I said to her, but it was really special to connect with her for that short period of time.
• After the surgery, in my room, I don't remember much, being so exhausted and being on a lot of morphine. At some point though, I went into shock. My blood pressure and my body temperature plummeted. They gave me meds to bring my blood pressure back up, and hooked up this huge, crazy heated air blanket thing to bring my body temperature back up.
• After I was stable, I was still really out of it, but our doula made sure Eleanor got her first feeding with me. At this point I was puking and couldn't lift my arms, so our doula literally held Eleanor on my chest and helped her latch to get some milk. I am forever thankful that she helped us with this - it was really important to me and one of the only parts of my original after birth plan that was accomplished.
• After the first feeding, we all slept for a few hours until we had our first visitors, Caleb and I's parents and my sister.

The next few days were a blur. We stayed in the hospital until Saturday, which I think was a good thing. I had to stay on the mag for 24 hours after the birth, which sucked a lot. I forgot to mention above - I did not get to eat from Monday night to Thursday morning!! That was a really big deal to me. I could only do clear liquids. I would get really hungry but the mag and the epidural made me super nauseous, so I did a lot of puking too.

Once I was off the mag (at 2:00 AM on Thursday morning), I was able to function a lot better. I still had to deal with all the fun of a post-birth body: c-section incision and muscle pain, peeing again after having a catheter, stupid leg wraps that prevent blood clots after surgery, leaking out lots of blood, and hormone craziness after birth which includes crazy mood swings and lots of sweating. I was also essentially in [emotional/mental] survival mode after my traumatic surgery. I'll get into that more later, as it's been a recent topic with my therapist.

I will end here and pick up with more later about what we found out months later - that the reason my epidural didn't work was because there was a tech at the hospital pharmacy who was stealing drugs (Fentanyl in my case) and replacing it with saline. We confirmed that Fentanyl was supposed to be in my epidural, but I likely got little to none of the drug to help with my pain. We are now working with lawyers on a large suit with other victims of this theft, which I'll explain more about later. Here is one of many articles on the case.

It has taken quite a while to get to this point - being able to tell what really happened to more people. It's traumatic and vulnerable and I'm still not "over it". But I feel ready to share, and process it. Thanks for being here to open up to - it really does help knowing I have a great support group of friends and loved ones out there.