I can’t believe my baby girl just turned 2! Of course her birthday has me thinking about her birth which I have honestly never sat down to write until now! So here goes..
Originally, Kinley’s due date was December 5th, but that day came and went quickly.
The standard procedure at my previous doctors office was a mandatory induction at 41 weeks. I prayed SO hard I would go into labor naturally but I never did, so on December 11th at exactly 41 weeks, I was induced.
We checked into the hospital on Sunday night at 7:30 PM. I changed into the hospital gown, got my IV, fetal monitor strapped on, and laid down in my hospital bed. Then at around 10 PM a doctor (whom I’d never seen before) came in with a student to insert the foley bulb for my induction.
For those of you who don’t know, a foley bulb is an inflatable balloon they insert into your cervix. After it is inserted, it is then blown up to try to get your cervix to open manually. Typically you need to be at least 1 cm dilated to be a candidate for a foley bulb induction. Fortunately, I was already 1 cm dilated so I needed the foley bulb to get me to 3 cm, which is the goal of the foley bulb induction. The doctor inserted the foley bulb, while trying to teach the student, and then left. From then on it was a waiting game.
Around 6:30 AM the next morning a nurse came in to check the foley bulb to see if I was 3 cm dilated. The nurse tugged on the fully bulb and it came right out. She then checked my cervix and said, “Yep! You’re 3 cm dilated! Now we can start the pitocin!” I was so happy to hear that the induction was successful and that labor was finally beginning.
The nurses started the piton drip through my IV and instructed me to walk the halls, bounce on the birth ball, and to labor in whatever position I felt comfortable prior to my epidural. I walked, and walked, and walked- attached to a pole, with an IV in my arm, dressed in the hospital gown. Every 30 minutes they increased the pitocin. Eventually it was noon and the pitocin was as high as it could go. I still hadn’t received my epidural but I was still walking, talking, laughing, and carrying on with my husband and family members.
The nurses thought it was strange that I was still in no pain with the pitocin as high as it was. They decided they wanted to check me to see how far dilated I was. The OB on-call came into the room to check me and her face looked concerned. She looked at me and said, “I’m sorry honey, you are only 1 cm dilated.”
WHAT?! You can imagine the shock and HORROR on my face. She said, “Apparently the foley bulb wasn’t inserted correctly last night, so we need to re-do it.” Then she called in the nurse who had previously said I was 3 cm dilated and made her check me again. She wanted to show her that I wasn’t 3 cm dilated and made a teaching moment out of it. There’s nothing quite like having several women check your cervix dilation in a matter of minutes 😳
As you can imagine, at this point I started to get upset. I had been in the hospital for 17 hours with no sleep and NO FOOD— and literally nothing had happened yet. I explained my frustrations to them and said, “I REALLY need to eat. I’ve been here since 7:30 PM last night with no food. There’s no way I can make it another 12-24 hours with no food, considering I’m STILL 41 weeks pregnant and STARVING.” Fortunately they let me eat, and even drink some coffee 🙌
From there the OB on-call said she was going to manually stretch me to 2 cm, re-insert the foley bulb, and increase the pitocin. Yikes. I was starting to get desperate so I went along with it.
Fortunately, just 2 hours later the foley bulb fell out while I was going to the bathroom which meant I was 3 cm dilated. Finally labor was beginning! As the pitocin kept increasing and the contractions started, I laid down on my side in the hospital bed and let the contractions come one after the other. I didn’t sit up, walk around, bounce on the birth bath— nothing. In my defense, I was very tired after already being in the hospital for 24 hours, but I also didn’t know (at the time) how in-effective it was to labor laying down!
About an hour or two later, the OB on-call came in and asked me if I wanted her to break my water. She told me it would speed up the labor. Instantly I said yes!!
This was a pretty risky move considering labor had been progressing so slowly for me, but at the time I didn’t really understand what it meant. I didn’t fully grasp that I had 24 hours from the time they broke my water for the baby to be born, or I would have to have a c-section.
At almost 5 cm dilated, I requested a epidural. It was my plan from the beginning that I was going to get an epidural, so once I started to feel those painful, pitocin-induced contractions I called for the anesthesiologist. I was planning on being completely numb during labor because that’s what an epidural was for, RIGHT?! Well..I had another thing coming.
When the anesthesiologist inserted the needle into my back, I felt the warm tingly sensation I was supposed to feel, but nothing went numb. The nurse told me it would take 20 minutes for the epidural to take its full effect, but 20 minutes went by and there was still no numbness in my legs. Nothing. So the nurse called the anesthesiologist back in and he gave me a second dose. They told me to wait another 20 minutes and it should definitely work this time. Well 20 minutes came and went and nothing went numb for me.
At that point they told me there was nothing else they could do. I realized at that moment that this labor was going to be a lot different than I thought it would. Like, A LOT different…
The pain was pretty manageable until around 6:00 AM the next morning. At this point I was starting to go into transition (7-10 cm dilation). Since I had the epidural, I wasn’t allowed to get out of bed, so all I could do was labor in the upright position.
Around this time I told my husband to grab the trashcan because I needed to throw up! Another typical sign you are going into transition. I began throwing up pure water because I hadn’t eaten anything since noon the previous day, so eventually I was just dry-heaving. It was awful. I remember looking at my husband as he started to have a nervous look on his face like— wow things are getting real!
Since I planned on being numb, the pain blindsided me. Every contraction (still had the pitocin pumping) hit me like a massive wave and I did everything in my power to fight them, which I later learned was a counter-productive thing to do. I was trying to fight what needed to happen to get the baby out. I should have relaxed and embraced each contraction, but that’s a lot easier said than done, especially if you are uneducated about childbirth.
Eventually a nurse came to check me and her words were, “You’re 9.5 cm dilated but we will just go ahead and say you’re 10 cm.” At the time I was thankful for her fibbing how dilated I was because I just wanted to start pushing to get the baby out, but now I look back at this and it makes me cringe because my body was not ready.
The nurse then went to get the OB on-call and the other nurses and said it was time to push. I felt no urge, but they said it was time to push, so I did. From there I ineffectively pushed for 45 minutes making no progress. Eventually the OB said I needed to take a break to relax and we could try again later when my body was telling me it was time to push.
Quick side note: don’t ever push unless your body is SCREAMING at you to PUSH! Once you get to 10 cm dilated there is a “stillness” to where your contractions calm and you don’t have an urge to push. This can last up to 30 minutes, but for most women it’s only a matter of minutes. But just because you are 10 cm dilated, it doesn’t mean it’s time to push. Your body still needs to do a number of things before that baby is ready to come out. Your body ALONE will tell you when it’s time to push, and trust me— it will!
Almost immediately after the nurses and OB left the room, labor got crazy intense. I finally did feel the urge to push but I didn’t immediately call the doctor and nurses back in because I was worried I’d make no progress again. So I just labored on my own in the bed and even pushed on my own every few contractions. Eventually I knew it was time for my husband to go get the doctor because baby girl was finally coming!
The doctor and the nurses got set up and this time when I pushed I made progress! I requested to have the mirror in front of me so I could see and be motivated by my pushing. My contractions were still very irregular, about 3-5 minutes apart, so it took me another 40 minutes of pushing to get her out. But FINALLY at 10:11 AM, she was BORN! She weighed 8 lbs 11 ounces, was 21 1/2” long, with a FULL head of hair! Praise God my sweet baby girl was FINALLY HERE!
After Kinley’s birth, I had a stage 2 tear and a broken blood vessel on the inside. I had to receive 4 stitches on the outside and 1 on the inside. I also got really painful hemorrhoids from all the ineffective pushing—and too be honest, this was the hardest part of my recovery.
After everything I went through to get her out, I am so thankful my sweet baby was born healthy and I was still able to have vaginal delivery. There were many opportunities where my labor could have gone wrong or I could have had a much different outcome. I love that this is my sweet Kinley’s birth story, but I disliked several things that happened along the way. I left the hospital telling my husband, “I never want to do that again…” I was traumatized. I felt my body was forced to do something it wasn’t ready to do and my cervix had to be pried open to get the baby out. It felt forced and unnatural. For this reason, I chose to to deliver my second baby at a birth center and had a completely unmedicated birth. I loved every single detail of her birth. Her birth story is coming soon..❤️
I hope you enjoyed the read!
