38 Weeks – A Birth Story

This is a long one, so strap in!

I think at 38 weeks, the baby in utero is the size of a mini watermelon. I wouldn’t know because 3BB came into the world at 38 weeks and 4 days. So I never got around to writing my week 38 post.

It all started on Tuesday, February 1 when I went to my weekly doctor’s appointment and got ready for a pantsless NST test, and planning to spend extra time there for another ultrasound because 3BB would most likely not cooperate with the NST. What I wasn’t expecting was leaving the appointment to go over to labor and delivery and having a baby like 15 hours later.

My blood pressure was elevated when they initially took it at the appointment. That had usually been the case because they make you walk all the way to the back of the office and at many weeks pregnant, that would raise anyone’s blood pressure. But usually it would go down by the second time they took it. That didn’t happen. And then they hooked me up to the blood pressure cuff while we did the NST. We’ve done that before and all was well. But this day was very, very different.

I couldn’t get a normal blood pressure reading. And since I was 38 weeks pregnant, and considered full term, there was no reason to mess around with it. And I’m glad they didn’t. 

I started sobbing as soon as the doctor told me. I felt so stupid, but it was a bit of a shock. I wasn’t planning to have a baby that day. I had so many things I had left to do. And I needed to get my mom to the hospital, and my hospital bags and the car seat. And then I was like “what do I do with my car?”

Thankfully it is probably pretty damn common for women to burst into tears when you tell them it’s baby day, and my doctor and the nurse were very helpful and told me what I needed to do. And when I was driving over to the hospital parking garage, I called in the biggest favor to my friend Marisue, to see if she could swing by my house to pick up my mom and my stuff, and bring them down to the hospital. Marisue is a saint and went above and beyond and got my mom to the hospital safely, and made a special trip to bring me McDonald’s too, which I’m so thankful for because I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and they weren’t going to let me eat. And since I didn’t then eat until 7 AM the next day, that double quarter pounder really did the trick and got me through labor.

Have I mentioned that in addition to all this, we were expecting a MAJOR snow storm that night that was going to dump a foot of snow on Chicago?

Actually, in hindsight, it all worked out for the best that it happened when it did. Because if I had gone into labor at home in that snow storm, I don’t know that I would have made it to the hospital and we would have been stranded. And ever since they had predicted the snow, I was seriously panicking about getting stranded. So everything happens for a reason.

Plus I did always want 3BB to be born on 2/2/22. 

I got over to the hospital and checked into triage. They put me in a gown, hooked me up to the blood pressure monitor, put the monitors on my belly to make sure 3BB was OK, and then they ran a bunch of blood work, made me do a urine test and had me do a Covid test. 

Did you know that the barometric pressure can cause women to go into labor? Apparently when there are big storms a-comin’, labor and delivery becomes a hot spot. 

Because of that, there were no labor and delivery rooms, so I was in triage for quite a bit. But it was fine. Once my Covid test came back negative, I was able to take my mask off. And it gave my mom time to get down there and time for the McDonald’s to arrive so I could scarf it down before the labor and delivery nurses told me I couldn’t have any food.

My blood pressure was not cooperating. I actually assumed once I got hooked up, and my mom made it safely, that it would go down and all would be good. I mean, a lot of the high readings had to be due to the fact that my day had gone sideways and that I was going to be delivering a mini watermelon out my who hah in just a matter of time.

I had two or three readings where the top number was over 160. No one came in, so I figured they’d let a few high readings go by, as long as the baby was OK. I was wrong. About 2 minutes later, the nurse came in and told me they were giving me some medicine in my IV to bring my blood pressure down because it was getting scary high. At this point I wasn’t freaking out at all (although I probably should have) because I was blissfully unaware that this was pretty serious and borderline dangerous for me and the baby.

Around 4 PM, we finally got into a labor and delivery room. Once I got in there, I was determined that even though things were not going to plan, I would at least be adamant about several things on my birth plan, before my doula arrived.

Oh, hahahahaha, the universe had other plans in mind.

It started when the nurse was hooking me up to the monitors and I asked for the wireless monitors, the ones that you can move around with, so you can freely move around during labor, but they can still monitor you. I wasn’t so dumb to think they’d let me go unmonitored with high BP, but I know that Northwestern has portable monitoring and I wanted to take full advantage.

No such luck, the nurse said. I was like “say what now?”

Well, because of the BP meds that I needed earlier, I was now going to be put on magnesium. The magnesium helps prevent seizures, which are common with the BP meds. But magnesium makes you prone to falling, so once they put that in my IV, I was confined to the bed. For the rest of the time until the baby came out. 

Yep. I was just told that I had to do the entirety of my labor and pushing from the bed. On my back. There were no ifs, ands or buts about it. 

And then I sobbed. For quite some time. Because I didn’t know how I was going to do it without being able to move. And not being able to use any of the comfort measures that my doula would help to ease the pain. And then I apologized to the nurse for crying and getting upset, because it wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It was just the hand I was dealt. 

So I used the bathroom to pee and poop, the last time I’d be able to stand up and use the bathroom for 48 hours, and just decided to do the best I could.

Magnesium is no joke. The nurse prepared me and told me that the initial dose will make you feel like you’re on fire from the inside. So she brought a bunch of ice water and towels so I could cool myself down. She wasn’t exaggerating. It felt like you were standing under a CTA heat lamp that was inches from your face. Like I literally was convinced the light above my bed WAS a heat lamp and they had to tell me that nope, that was just a regular light and this was the magnesium.

Thankfully that is just with the initial dose and subsides. If I had to deal with that on top of contractions, I think I would have just given up.

The plan was to induce with a balloon. They put one in my cervix and one in my uterus and gave me some medicine that would dilate the cervix and get things moving. The balloons would be in there for four hours and then they would check and see how I was progressing, before moving on to Pitocin.

I was close to 2 cm dilated before the balloon went in. My sister was laughing because she didn’t know they used balloons to dilate/induce, so she was like “oh now 3BB is getting balloons to celebrate in Club Uterus!” That was not funny at the time, but yes, 3BB had balloons to celebrate her coming into the world. As it should be.

They finally put the balloons in around 6-6:30 PM. I had to pee before they did it, which required me to use a bed pan. Have you ever used a bed pan? It is probably one of the worst things ever. Peeing in front of an audience is hard enough, but peeing in front of an audience on a plastic tub you have to squat over uncomfortably is so much worse. Especially when you crack said plastic bed pan, and the plastic ends up pinching your ass while you’re trying not to pee all over your hospital bed that you are confined to.

The doctor and nurse that put in the balloons were very surprised that I didn’t even flinch with the balloons. I was like “when you have undergone several procedures where people jam things up your cervix with fertility treatments, you just kind of get used to it.” So that was a good thing, I guess.

I don’t remember much from the 4 hours the balloons were in. I don’t even remember if they were painful. I think I may have tried to take a nap? Watched bad TV? I remember This is Us was on, and I was a few weeks behind so I didn’t want to pay too much attention so I didn’t have anything spoiled. 

Around 10:30 PM they came in to check my progress. I was dilated up to 4 cm and they were happy with that, so they decided to take out the balloons and move me to Pitocin. They told me Pitocin was going to suck and they were going to ramp up the contractions and things were about to get more painful.

In this time I met with the anesthesiologists that would be doing an epidural, if I so wanted one. They wanted to go over everything while I was still pain-free, to make sure I didn’t have any questions. My biggest question was how long should I wait to make a decision. I didn’t want to decide to pull the trigger and then it be a 30 minute wait and miss my window. Thankfully it’s a big hospital and they said that wouldn’t be an issue. They are in constant communication with nurses and patients to put the highest priority patients first, before someone who has some time to wait. 

My goal all along had been to wait for an epidural until at least 7 cm. I wanted it for the worst part of labor and pushing. I also didn’t want the epidural to slow things down, which can happen. But this was all when I was able to labor OUT of bed. 

I texted my doula when the balloon came out and she said to let her know when I was in active labor and she would head over. She also warned me that without being able to move out of the bed and take advantage of the shower or anything else, labor was going to be really hard and that I should keep that in mind. 

When the balloon came out and I was 4 cm dilated, they broke my water before starting the Pitocin. That was a weird feeling, like peeing myself in bed. Like the bed pan experience all over again.

When the balloons were in, I had some contractions, but they were manageable. They were like period cramps. And I was at least thankful for them because then I knew the balloons were doing something.

Once the Pitocin started, the contractions got a bit more intense. They were still manageable for the most part and several minutes apart, like more than 5, so I knew they weren’t the worst contractions. I curled myself into the fetal postion in bed, just like I would do when I got bad period cramps. My doula suggested I try out the peanut ball, which is a pillow that is shaped like a giant circus peanut, since it can help get the baby in the right position and open my pelvis. 

The peanut ball is not comfortable. I was hoping that it would help relive some of the back pain I was having. That back pain was unrelated to labor, since I still have that herniated disc that causes me issues and lying on my back makes it worse. (Yet another reason I sobbed when they told me I had to lie flat on my back for the duration of labor and couldn’t move around.) I did my best with the peanut ball, but this was when the contractions started to ramp up, so I’m pretty sure I threw the damn thing across the room.

I could see my contractions on the monitor and could see that they were getting worse and closer together. Around 1 AM, so about 3 hours after they took the balloon out, they were starting to get pretty bad. I was breathing through them, but they were getting closer together and starting to become a bit unbearable. 

The nurse was like “want the epidural???” and I was like “I’m just worried it is too soon. It’s only been a few hours since they started the Pitocin.” She said “who knows? You may be like 7 or 8 cm at this point?”

I lasted about a half hour more before I told them to get me the epidural. The pain was bad. It was like your worst period ever cramps bad, at least for me. It was about as bad as the period I had after my failed embryo transfer, which was still to this day, some of the worst pain I’ve ever been in. Contractions were right up there with that. So while I knew I could get through it (I mean I got through those horrible period cramps with just a heating pad and Advil), I didn’t think I wanted to. I actually told my mom after the fact, had I been able to get up and walk around and move through the worst of the contractions, I probably could have done it naturally.

The anesthesiologists came in and got to work. The contractions were not very far apart at this stage, and since I had to be rather still while they put something IN MY SPINE, I mostly just yelled “fuck” really, really loudly, over and over, to get through them. 

Then I got SUPER nauseous and thankfully the nurse handed me a cup so I could use that if needed. I then banged that cup against my head, really hard, whilst yelling fuck over and over, to get through the contractions. 

They had a heck of time getting that damn epidural in. Apparently said herniated disc didn’t help matters. They had to go in a few times to finally get it to work. And man, once it did, the relief was glorious. 

It was at this point that the nurse took a look down at my vagina to get ready to put the catheter in and was like “oh, wow. I think you’re closer than you think, from the amount of blood I’m seeing.” So that made me at least feel a bit better that I hadn’t just progressed like a centimeter or two in that timeframe.

Turns out I was already 10 cm dilated. So they thought I was probably about 9 cm dilated when I got the epidural. Which means I did it!

It also means that I fucking labored, IN BED ON MY BACK WITHOUT BEING ABLE TO MOVE, for basically the whole time without any pain meds. So I will be telling people this for the rest of my life when they tell me about pain. 

NINE CENTIMETERS WITHOUT AN EPIDURAL! 

It worked out so perfectly because I got the meds in time to push, which was what I wanted since I knew that pushing was hard and took a lot of energy and I knew being able to do it and not be thinking about the pain was going to make it easier for me.

Finally around 2 AM, they said it was time to start pushing. I was still in shock, that as my first time, it was literally like 4 hours from 4 cm to fully dilated and pushing. I was totally expecting that part to take 8-10 hours. 

I called my doula and let her know it was go time. But as I mentioned before, there was a blizzard and the plows hadn’t been out at all since the snow started, so she was unable to get to the hospital. And I didn’t want her to risk her safety either. In hindsight, she probably wouldn’t have made it in time even if the weather was fine. 

So I was doing this without a doula.

Once I started pushing was when it got scary. I pushed a few times, and there was some distress with the baby. They don’t tell you much as it is going on, plus I was totally exhausted, but it sounded like when I was pushing, there was some distress and they thought that maybe 3BB was on the cord or that the cord was wrapped around her. 

So at this point, I think every single person who worked in the hospital in labor and delivery came into the room. They wanted to get 3BB hooked up to an internal monitor to make sure she was OK. They made me get onto all fours and they put the electrodes into my vagina and attached them to her head.

But that didn’t go smoothly and there was some more distress and then they couldn’t get the monitor working so they didn’t know if it was the monitor or that she was unresponsive. So while I was trying to stay calm, I was also panicking out of my mind hoping that 3BB was OK. It was at this point that I was 1000000% convinced I was going to have an emergency c-section. And I didn’t even care. I just worried about my 3BB and getting her out safely.

They got the monitor on and had me roll over onto my side to start pushing.

Here is where I talk about how much of a rock star my mom was! I asked her to be there for the birth, but to be there as my mom and to take photos. She wasn’t meant to take part in any of it, or help in any ways. But once my doula couldn’t make it, she was thrown into the role of helping me push and staring at my lady bits for way longer than any daughter would ever want. But she did it, and she was there holding my leg while I pushed! 

Once I started pushing, things got scary again. Apparently 3BB wasn’t completely descended into the cervix, and was just kind of floating up above it and “dancing”, one last song at Club Uterus before leaving, I guess! So apparently when I pushed, it caused her some distress and her heartrate was crazy.

I only pushed like 4 times, I think. The doctor that was on call was AMAZING! Plus, the midwife that was on call was there too, so I even got to have that extra person! After what seemed like 5 minutes, but was probably 15, they had me do one last push and then she was out! And she had a wire attached to her and I remember my first thought being “why is she plugged in?” Because I totally forgot about the internal monitor that was strapped to her head. 

Looking back, I think they probably were only giving me a few pushes to get her out before sending me for a c-section. I think it was a lot more dangerous and scary then anyone let us believe. Because the doctor kept telling me how awesome I was and that she was going to tell EVERYONE that night about how I got 3BB out so quickly!

They put her on my chest and she was crying, and the minute I started talking to her, she quieted down. She knew my voice. And right then and there, I fell in love. And all was right with the world. She was always meant to be my daughter and my life was now complete that she was where she was supposed to be. 

Then I went about delivering the placenta. Which happened REALLY quickly. A lot faster than it should. And then they couldn’t stop the bleeding. They doubled up on the Pitocin (which helps make the uterus contract and help stop the bleeding once the placenta detaches), and I was still bleeding A LOT. 

Turns out that the port in my IV fell out, so when they put in the Pitocin, I never got it. 

All I then remember was the midwife up to her elbows in my uterus and them pushing and pushing on my uterus on the outside to help it contract and get firmer to get back to normal. I had bruises on my stomach for over a week from all the hard pushes.

There was so much blood. I couldn’t really see it, but my mom did and she freaked out a little. But the doctors and nurses never did. They again brought in half the hospital to get me patched up and to make sure the bleeding was under control. It probably took them close to an hour to get it all fixed. I again tried not to panic and was just focused on my new baby.

3BB was taken over to get weighed and measured. She didn’t like it much.

She was a tiny little thing, coming in at 5 pounds, 11 ounces. WAY different than what any of our many ultrasounds predicted. She was officially Small for Gestational Age. But she was perfect. 

As with everything in the whole pregnancy, nothing went according to plan, and 3BB did everything in her own way and on her schedule. 

Internet, meet Elliot Ann, formerly known as 3BB.

Since this post is almost 4000 words, I’ll stop here and continue our story in the next post.