Pampered Pregnancy – Blissful Birth

The Doulas have had a nice time getting to know Dana and her pregnant belly! She’s a post dates mom, 4th pregnancy and really hopes to naturally go into labor with this final pregnancy.

Starting on her due date Dana began to update us regularly with any signs of labor and let us know how she was feeling. Today is April 15th tax day and I was in downtown Austin when I received a call from our Doula Collective that Dana had went to Dr. Engs office for a checkup, which resulted in a sonogram that showed decreased placental fluids. Dr Eng wanted Dana to go to the hospital and begin an induction! I called Dana on my way home to pick up my Doula bag and we discussed the plan for getting her back in control of her birth, regardless of needing to begin with an induction. I was happy to report one ‘myth buster’ for Dana, that just because she would be induced using pitocin to enhance contractions and kick start labor, that didn’t mean she had to be stuck on her back in a bed preparing for the inevitable epidural. I told her in fact, that she may not choose to have the epidural at all. I tried to cheer her up and assured her that I would meet her at the hospital soon and we’d have some fun together while we waited for active labor to kick in.

I went home, took a quick shower, grabbed my doula kit, my birth ball, and my awesome camera, then jumped in the truck to head to St. David’s Hospital in central Austin.

I arrived at the hospital about 3:30, left my truck with valet (for only $4) and took off for the third floor room 6 to check on Dana. When I got there they had just finished getting her iv started, so things were stalled for a bit. Dana gave permission for a shadow doula to attend her birth as well, and Ruth showed up at 4pm. Two doulas for the price of one, does it get any better than this? I have to admit, it was sort of like a girls ‘slumber party’ for awhile. Poor hubby Rocky! haha

Dana was just being hooked up to the iv and they were changing nurses. Dana really liked her first nurse better than her second, though the second one would only be there till 7pm, so we knew we wouldn’t be with her for long. She really wasn’t too bad, she just seemed to be fairly inexperienced still. She tried 2 different times to draw blood and start the iv for Dana, but failed and had to ask for help.

Apparently Dana was a little dehydrated today and so when she went to her dr check up, they said the FHT were high, about 170s. The nurse told us that since her arrival to the hospital, Dana had only had 2 contractions, both with late decels, so they were all a little worried about the baby. They said they couldn’t start pitocin until the baby was hydrated and stable and showing better variables.

The hooked her up to a big IV bag of fluids and ran it through her pretty quickly. (she got up to pee several times) Nurse #2 didn’t like it when Dana was sitting so she told her to side-lie and semi-recline to improve blood flow to baby. While the 2 nurses were there together, the first had said there was no need to check Dana’s Cervix, since Dr. Eng had checked it earlier and she was only 2 cm. Then no sooner did the door close as Nurse #1 left to go home, did #2 come in and do a cervical exam. I could tell from what she was saying that she couldn’t even FEEL the cervix, as it was very posterior and out of reach. She said Dana was still 2cm, but that the cervix was so posterior she really couldn’t strip the membranes. Later, I overheard her at the nurses station and she was telling them she wasn’t sure she was even feeling the cervix. (I guess she was embarrassed, oh well)

About then Dr Eng comes in and the nurse proceeds to tell her that there were a couple bad decels and she didn’t like it. AND that Dana just doesn’t seem to be able to get in a position that the baby likes.

This causes Dr Eng to decide to “break the news” to Dana that she should be prepared for what may be an inevitable c-section. My heart started beating really hard. (it made me angry that they were trying to scare Dana so early in her labor) Anyways, Dr. Eng seemed to get over it and left. When she came back she said the strip was looking a lot better, so they could likely start pit soon. (too weird, thankfully it was just a brief scare)

About 30 min later they started (5:45) her pit at 2cc. Every hour they upped it by 2, all the way up to 10. By 7pm she dilated to 3 cm. About 8:30pm, she decided to nap for awhile, but they woke her up 30 minutes later to check her cervix, and she texted me to say she was at 4cm, that they had stopped the pit to let her do some stuff on her own, so Ruth and I headed back in to get to work. At this time it was about 9pm.

Dana decided to do some ball sitting/bouncing/squatting and Ruth and I kept her company and distracted her by chatting about our own births, etc. After almost 30 minutes, I asked Dana how many contractions she’d had since she got out of bed and she didn’t think any. This made her want to get back in bed and lay down, because that’s when her contractions were always the strongest. She did finally have a couple more contractions, but it seemed clear to the hospital staff that her body was not going to do this without some help. So back on the pitocin she went. This time they started her on 4cc and eventually got up to 14 toward the end.

The nurse started raising the pitocin about every 15-20 mins due to lack of good strong contractions, but little did they know that the monitor belt wasn’t working right, so who knows what those contractions REALLY did?

They wanted to check her every hour and soon she was 5 cm. She was still talking some between contractions and listening to her hypno-birthing iphone recording; now she was really getting into her zone. Tanya did some back massage work for awhile to just let Dana focus on her contractions. She was starting to actually need to use some of her focused breathing techniques and when they checked her and she was 6-7cm. (so progress was no problem at this point) Ruth and I switched positions and Ruth worked on Dana’s back, while I sat in front and rocked with her on the ball.

As Dana entered transition and the contractions got more intense, she started to want to do some position changing. She tried standing, hands and knees on the bed, just knees on the bed, etc. She was beginning to get irritated at not being able to get a comfy position. Suddenly she decided she wanted to go into the bathroom. We helped her off the machines and bed and into the restroom. After a minute or so, she called her hubby Rocky in to be with her through the contractions. They stayed in there alone for the next 20 minutes or so and they nurse came in to talk with us about how Dana was doing. I told her I thought Dana was very close and that I had heard at least one “pushy” contraction while Dana was in the restroom with her hubby, likely she was complete now. The nurse asked Dana to come out to the room so she could check her cervix and Dana wasn’t very happy about having to move again. She had another couple contractions (one ‘pushy’ one again) and finally came out. She was uncomfortable enough that she was getting confused and losing focus when we tried to offer her choices, so I decided we needed to take a more direct approach if we wanted to get her back into the bed. I told Dana that she was likely 10 cm. and ready to begin pushing, but that we needed her to come lie down and let the nurse check her. She finally got back in the bed, the nurse checked her and called the doctor to come deliver a baby!!! Dana’s cervix was complete, good job, Dana…you did it, girl!

Dana was very uncomfortable in the bed and she was really breathing through contractions, when I told her it was okay to begin seeing what it felt like to push with contractions. She took a bit to get into the pushing groove, so the doctor tried to help her focus on where to push by doing some aggressive stretching in the perineum. This was very painful for Dana, so she asked the doctor to “please stop”. (she was SO polite, it was almost comical) Dr. Eng stopped and watched Dana try pushing on her own for a few contractions again, but we weren’t seeing any progression of this baby. I recommended that Dana let the doctor do the massage again at the beginning of the push to help Dana direct the push, but that as soon as Dana could feel where, she could stop. So we did that for a few contractions and that was really starting to work much better. Finally we began to see her sweet baby boy’s little head of hair and I knew this was it; she was very close! Now that the baby was so low, Dana was starting to tense up with the pain and fight the movement. After the next contraction I told her she had 3 big pushes left and she’d be holding her sweet baby, but she needed to REALLY focus her attention to letting the baby move down and pushing him out. It was almost over and she had to get ready and do it. I told her to push Dr. Eng’s hand out of her. It definitely seemed to work, after 3 good pushes the baby was right there, ready to break through, she was so close. We call this the “ring of fire”, as the pelvis bones separate and the crown of the head makes it past the point of no return. With one last push, Dana brought baby Drake out and we could see his beautiful face. Oh oh! He came out ‘sunny side up’ yelling at the world! He was posterior and we didn’t even know it! (She’d had no back labor, at all) Another small push and he was out, in the doctors arms. As she pushed, we saw his little fist under his chin, too! He had the cord around his neck AND twice knotted around his right ankle!!! Wow what a little fighter! He was very vocal and yelling for his mama. They quickly untangled the cord and handed him to mama to cuddle. At 2:26am, his birth, with apgars of 9 and 9, a big beautiful healthy baby boy!!! Daddy helped cut the cord and mom quickly delivered the placenta. With baby Drake on her belly, I helped her hold him up a little so he could get to her breast and he latched almost immediately. He was right where he belonged and mommy and daddy were joyous. He nursed quite a while before Dana took him off the breast so he could get his newborn exam and weight check. A whopping 9lbs 1 oz with 19.5 inches in length and a stellar newborn exam. He was yelling the whole time about being taken away from mama, too. It was a beautiful birth and my pleasure and delight to share in the journey with Dana, Rocky, and baby Drake Elijah! Thank you all for that honor!

love,

Your Doula Tanya

Here is our beautiful mom IN LABOR!!!  Really!