3 vaginal, 3 cesarean

Copyright © 2005 Beyond Pregnancy. 

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Revised: 07/04/06.

I'll start with mine.... the abbreviated versions, of course.  Notice the changes in care between 1992 with my first, 1998 with my third and 2004 with my youngest.

With my oldest,  I had been having contractions on and off for days, didn't think anything of it because they didn't hurt.  Finally, on Saturday night 3 days after my due date, I was absolutely exhausted.  I decided that once again they were just Braxton Hicks contractions and went to bed.  I slept sound and was surprised to find the contractions continuing and timeable when I woke the next morning.  I went to the mall and did some walking, hoping to bring on labor.  It didn't really help.  Finally, around 5 PM they started coming nice and regular.  I started timing them and at 9 were 5 minutes apart for at least an hour, but still were perfectly comfortable, but we headed to the hospital anyway.  When I got there they started to feel mildly crampy and was at 4 cm.  We did the rest of the labor without any medications and at about 11:50 I told the nurses I had to push.  They just kept telling me to breathe, and one nurse checked me... I was at 10.  So they made me move to a gurney and start yelling down the hall for the doctor.  My water broke in the hall between labor and delivery.  Then we got to the delivery room and I kept yelling, I need to push, to which the nurses responded, "Breathe!"  From there all I remember is telling them "NO" and then hearing him cry.  All I could do when we got to recovery was stare at him.

With my second child, I was at the doctor a few days before my due date.  They checked and found I was dilated to 3-4 cm, but wasn't in labor, or even contracting.  He suggested that since I dilated so quickly last time that I meet him at the hospital in the morning and we would induce.  So we went home, made all the necessary arrangements and headed to the hospital in the morning.  By 9 AM I was strapped to the monitoring equipment in the new Birthing room and the Pitocin was started.  Within 15 minutes I was having some of the most excruciating contractions I've ever felt.  This was NOTHING like my previous labor which worked its way gradually - this was terrible!  One and a half hours later I finally give in and ask for something for the pain.  The nurse tells me that I can't have anything until I am at least to a 5 and checks me, I'm at 6.  I got a shot of Stadol and within 10 minutes I'm yelling, "Time to Push!"  They call the doctor back to the room and I start pushing.  The funniest part of that delivery was the doctor saying, as he delivered the head, "I see girl ears..." and another push later, "Oops, sorry little guy." as he places the baby on my belly.  He was sound asleep.  Guess the Stadol affected him instead of me.  It was one hour and fifty minutes of the worst torture I've ever endured, and I would NEVER recommend induction to anyone after that.

My longest labor was my daughter... the midwife broke my water at 10:30 am... I was already dilated to 4-5 at her office the day before. I walked around all day having painless contractions. Around 3:50 pm I started to feel mildly crampy, and on they way down the hall my midwife mentioned that if nothing got "started" by 4 that we would have to start Pitocin because the hospital regulations said that a physician had to be "on premises" (including in the parking lot) during every midwife's delivery, and the doctor had to leave by 4:30. Well, having had pit with #2 (my 1 hour 50 minute labor) I guess my body said, "NO WAY" and full blown labor we go. She was born at 4:15. Only 20 minutes from mild cramping to done. If only the 3 after her could have been so easy.

My fourth was a breech who flipped the morning we were going to the hospital to turn him.  The doctor was concerned that he had turned so easily and we decided to induce (against my better judgment) so that he didn't flip again.  Within an hour of the pitocin starting the contractions were coming and surprisingly mild.  But my room was filled with nurses because his heart rate kept dropping.  Once it went from the usual 140 to 55, and that's when they told me that we would have to do a C-Section because he wasn't tolerating labor.  My husband told me that I turned white as a sheet, and I just started crying.  Well, I am thankful for that surgery, because he had gotten the cord around his neck 3 times & once around his arm - which explains the  major decels and limited recovery - C-Section saved his life.

The next one was born 5 weeks early - his brother's fault.  The older 3 were at their dad's house for the weekend and I was playing with my now toddler.  He used to do this little "lord of the dance" thing and wanted me to dance with him.  I had five weeks to go and wasn't too worried about it, so I did his little stomping jig with him.  All of a sudden I feel almost a "pop" and something running down my leg.  I knew it had to be my water broken, but didn't want to face that yet.  I walked around for the next 30 hours hoping to bring on the contractions that usually come when your water breaks.  They never came, so I went to the hospital.  I  was fine until they put me on bed rest,  he was in a great position when I got to the hospital, but after 2 days he decided to lay sideways and wouldn't turn... C-section revealed that HE had the cord around his neck 3 times too. His position made it so they had to make the uterine cut vertical instead of horizontal.

My youngest  was a planned section due to the crossing uterine incisions. We got to the hospital and did all the registration.  I then walked down the hall, and into the OR.  The spinal was simple as was the rest of the surgery.  That surgery revealed a true (but thankfully loose) knot which would have made a section necessary anyway.  I nursed him in the recovery room and was moving my legs pretty quickly.  When they took me to my room I actually moved from the gurney to my bed on my own, totally surprising the nurses, who expected they would have to help me.  I recovered very quickly and was up and walking that same day.