Not what I expected...the birth story of Beniah James

I'm writing this down now because I'm afraid it will be like my wedding day...I thought I would never forget a moment, but then details started slipping away. I haven't processed a lot of this, so don't expect any earthshattering or deep thoughts...this is pretty much historical only. Also, I'm not going to be ridiculously graphic, but I'm also not going to overly censor myself. So if you don't want to read words like "vernix, vagina, or mucous plug" don't proceed any further. It's also long! You have been warned!
So Sunday, June 10th, I noticed a change in my discharge that I thought MIGHT have been my water breaking. We called our doula (who is also a midwife) to ask her what she thought...I didn't want to be the boy who cried wolf and I have no idea what it actually would look or be like to have my water break. Internet searches don't help...you see everything from the "water main burst" that is popular in movies to the barest trickle that may not be detectable. She thought it sounded like that was maybe what was going on, so hopefully labor would start soon. We put the carseat in the car, looked up some Scripture to use during birth, and relaxed around the house for the rest of the day. Nothing happened.
Side note: I am GBS-positive, and apparently pretty heavily colonized. Not a huge deal, except that I was supposed to get 2 doses of IV penicillin during labor-this would prevent me from passing it to the baby. So our birth plan was to labor at home until we guesstimated that I was about 4 hours from delivery and then head to the hospital where I would get the penicillin and then push him out. Our goal was little monitoring, little intervention, and no pain medication.
Anyway, that evening she called us and said that since it had been 12 hours since my water might have broken, we should probably go to L&D triage to be assessed. If they hadn't broken, we could just go home (this is what we all thought would happen). If they had, we could look at our options then-it isn't good to have broken waters for too long with GBS because of the risk for infection. So we headed in.
As per the usual (I've been to L&D with what I thought were contractions several times this pregnancy), the nurse introduced herself, had me change to a hospital gown, and then hooked me up to a fetal heart rate monitor and a contraction monitor. "Hmmm," she said. "Can you flip to the left? Now the right? No, come back toward me." (I've read enough to know that this is not a great sign) Then she hit the red "panic" button and said in a scared voice, "I need help in here NOW!"
Within minutes there were at least 6 people in the room, making me flip, giving the baby a scalp massage through my vagina, pushing on my uterus from the outside, and making me sign consent forms for anesthesia while using words like "emergency crash Caesarean." Apparently, his heart rate had dropped into the 60s (less than half of what it should have been) and stayed there for about 5 minutes. Thankfully, it came back up and settled into what looked like a healthy pattern. In relieved voices, they told me that he looked stable for the moment, but I wasn't going home. They wanted to monitor me for 24 hours. If he didn't do it again, they would assume it was a coincidence or fluke and if he did, we might need to talk emergency C-section or at the very least, a labor induction. We called our doula and had her meet us there. They checked, and didn't think my waters broke, so at least that was ruled out as a potential problem. They checked my cervix, and I was dilated to a 1, 50% effaced, and he was at a -3 station-so pretty much not in labor.
Long story short, he "crashed" like that 3 more times in the next 4 hours, leading to alarms, panic, multiple people flipping, pushing, and shoving on me to get him to "come back", and had all the staff and our doula so convinced that we were going to have to crash section us to save his life that they had started medication preps (going so far as to hang but not start a general anesthetic) and prepared an OR. He recovered each time, but my doula was pretty sure that a crash section was in our future, and started preparing me for a surgical birth. At that point, I didn't care. I wanted him out safely and healthy, and would have done anything to make that happen.
He stabilized for the rest of the night, so they allowed me to start using the bathroom on my own (thank goodness-they had hyperhydrated me with 3.5 liters of IV fluid in the event of needing to do an emergency delivery). I became very uncomfortable around 3 AM, going to the bathroom what felt like every 5 minutes, not being able to find a comfortable position in bed, and having what felt like strong menstrual cramps with nausea. At first, I didn't think anything of this because I have had these symptoms on and off (but often at night) for weeks. I told the nurse, just so she would be up to date, but didn't figure it was anything significant. The contraction monitor wasn't picking up any contractions at all.
Soon I had to wake Josh up and have him apply some counterpressure to my low back. Then I started having to breathe through the cramps. They were still manageable but I really had to concentrate to get through them. They also started coming closer together-in fact, I remember thinking "Aren't I supposed to get a 5-10 minute break between contractions in early labor??" I couldn't have been getting more than 2 minutes in between 1 minute long cramps-at most. Still nothing on the contraction monitor.
Then around 7 AM, the physicians on call came in and started talking to me about induction of labor. With the multiple times Ben had crashed in the night, they just weren't comfortable sending me home. Also, my blood pressure was higher the last few readings (which were done in the middle of what I now know where contractions). I nodded to get them to go away, because I was concentrating on breathing through the now pretty painful and pressure-y cramping, but remember thinking "Why do you have to induce labor? I think I'm in labor!" My doula convinced them to check my cervix. 1.5 cm, 60% effaced, and baby at a -1 station. So not much change, except that he had moved down. Because of this, she convinced them to wait 1 hour and recheck. If I wasn't making progress, we could start talking about Pitocin. They agreed and left. It was probably about 7:45 AM.
Then I started really having intense pains that I couldn't just breathe through. I was moaning. I went to the bathroom (AGAIN!) and just started crying. All I could think was, "I am not even having real contractions yet (still nothing on the monitor) and I don't know if I can do this for 12-24 hours or longer! Was I insane to think I could birth unmedicated?" Josh followed me into the bathroom and I just leaned forward and cried on him. I whispered, "I don't think I can do this!" I felt awful-these were things women were supposed to think and feel in transition (8-10 cm of dilation), not the very beginning of labor-the "gentle part"! What was wrong with me? I have dealt with some pretty intense pain in my life (physically) and I really thought I would handle this better.
I tried kneeling, sitting, standing-nothing was comfortable, everything made more pressure, and I felt like someone was scraping my insides with a fork whose tines were made of razor blades. If anything, I was now having 30-60 seconds between contractions that lasted 90 seconds-and still nothing on the stupid monitor! I went to the bathroom again and couldn't get off the toilet. Suddenly, the contractions started coming on top of each other-literally. One would peak, and as it peaked, the next one started, and it peaked immediately after the peak for the prior one ended, and so on. I started screaming and begging Josh to help me, do something, get someone in there, I can't do this, I want an epidural NOW (remember, I'm still thinking I have a good 12-24 hours to go), please, I'll do anything you ask, I just need help! (I'm really kind of embarrassed about this part) My doula got the nurse and suggested we might want to hang the penicillin because it looked like I was in active labor and going fast. Then they got me on a birthing ball in an attempt to make me more comfortable (after at least 2 people peeled me off the toilet and dragged me back to the room because I could not do it myself). The nurse went to get the penicillin.
I did about 5 contractions on the ball...everyone kept telling me to relax between contractions-but there was no in between contractions. None whatsoever. I remember moaning, "I thought I was supposed to have little breaks" and crying, and begging some more. Still nothing on the monitor. My doula started palpating my contractions as she realized what was going on. The nurse walked back in with the penicillin and I suddenly lunged/leaped up off the birthing ball and leaned on the bed, shrieking (I did not choose to do this-my body did it for me). I felt like I had to push-badly. My doula said the baby was coming down so fast she could see the bones in my spine arching, rippling, and bulging out. She told the nurse we better check me again, and the nurse didn't seem convinced. It had only been 25 minutes since my last cervical check which showed almost no progress and her paper strips weren't showing her any contractions. But based on my doula's insistence and the way I was acting, she told me to get up on the bed so she could check.
Um. Not happening. I wasn't capable of doing anything except standing on the floor, leaning over the bed, and groaning/shrieking through contractions. She finally just checked it with me standing there. "Oh!" she said in kind of a panicky voice, "I don't feel any cervix, and his head is RIGHT HERE with no water bag!" (apparently it broke at some point)
Just then my doctor happened to walk in-he was doing his normal morning hospital rounds and came in to check on me. He didn't even know I was in labor-just that I was admitted to the hospital for monitoring. "Dr. K," the nurse said hurriedly, "She is complete and she needs to push."
I was helped/shoved up onto the bed on my side so he could check, and sure enough, I had gone from 1.5 to complete in 25 minutes. They said I could start pushing whenever I wanted. So I did. I made way more noise than I ever thought I would-I am not normally a loud person, but I couldn't help it! (my throat is still hoarse from all the screaming-so embarrassing!) Pushing took about 30 minutes, and I did tear because his heart rate started dropping again, so we had to get him out fast! Stitching up the tear actually took longer and was almost more painful than pushing (no anesthetic).

Anyway, he is here now! He is healthy, and I am sore and exhausted, but okay. So much for my birth plan! I think that all those decels were just Ben's/God's way of keeping us in the hospital-if we waited till we knew I was in labor to head in, he would have been born in the car or elevator. We are staying in the hospital for 2 days because there wasn't time for antibiotics, but we are okay. My doula (from her palpations) thinks I had the same number of contractions in that hour or so of really intense stuff as most women have over 12-24 hours.
Was it worth it? Yes. Absolutely. Would I do it again for him? Yes. Do I want to do it again soon? No way! Maybe someday, but not soon. Anyway, we are in love, and I think we had the best experience we could given what happened. The hospital staff has been great, and were very supportive of our birth plan, doing everything they could to stick with it (some things, like intermittent monitoring, had to go out the window because of the decels).