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Birth Stories
Spencer Keating
I got home from yoga at 8:15 pm and had dinner, a meatloaf that my mom had dropped off earlier. Rob had invited a friend over to have some wine and he and I were sitting on the couch. At 8:55 I didn’t feel so well and I got up to use the bathroom, back to the couch and still not feeling well and I went into the kitchen. Rob came in and asked if I was ok, I responded, “Brian has to leave, RIGHT NOW!”
Rob went to escort Brian out and I went back into the living room. By the time Rob came back into the house it was 9 pm and I was on my hands and knees crying with contractions which were 1:30 to 2 min apart. Rob asked me if I wanted to call Sara, our doula. I told him to call her and he said he didn’t know what to say. My look told him what to say and she said she would be at our house in about 30 minutes, I thought, I’m not going to make it. About 6 minutes, or 3 contractions later, I told Rob we had to go to the hospital RIGHT NOW. We made our way to the car and onto MCV. I made him run a red light and he asked me if I thought I could walk from the parking deck, again the look, and he dropped me off at the door. I went in as fast as I could, Rob says I was screaming and the security guards very quickly brought a wheelchair and up to the 6th floor we went. I was very quickly admitted and walked back to a room.
I was checked about 9:25 when I got there and I was at 4 cm. I was not dealing well and was begging for pain medicine. I kept thinking who was the dummy who said no epidural??? Sometime about this time Sara arrived, she was talking about pain control with the shower, the tub and positioning. I just kept thinking, I’m not going to make it. Anyway, I had to get an IV (VBAC) and I eventually did get a shot of Fentanyl – it really did take the edge off . My water broke on its own about 10 minutes after we got to the room which freaked me out, like a balloon popping inside you, the good news is that the fluid was clear but my baby’s heart rate was very erratic with position change and the only position that it liked was hands and knees with my butt in the air. Rob and Sara kept trying to touch me with pelvic compression and massage, I didn’t want to be touched, I was so hot. I remember Sara telling me that if I let them touch me it might help, but I wasn’t buying it.
I was checked again around 10 and I was at 8 cm then again around 10:15 and I was at 10 cm. I thought oh boy, when the doctor said 10 cm, here comes the part where I get to rest while my uterus shrinks down! When the next words out of his mouth were, now push! WHAT??? He told me to push the baby to the roof, I was still on my hands and knees with my butt up in the air.
My contractions never slowed down, they were always about a minute to 1:30 apart even during the pushing and this is where it gets very cloudy. I am told I pushed for about an hour in labor and delivery at some point I guess they made the decision that things were too risky for the baby and I needed to go to the OR so I had to get on another table and I was wheeled into the OR. The next thing I remember is seeing Rob in a gown and cap and booties, I didn’t know, I was just pushing. I pushed for 2 more hours on my hands and knees on that tiny OR stretcher, at some point they brought in the ball for me to support my upper body on. The baby wasn’t coming down and they let me get an epidural (not for lack of asking, it feels like I asked about a million times). The epidural was light but for precautions I was positioned on my right side and then when I had a contraction I had to lift my right leg to my chest and push. The doctor finally came up to my head and looked at me, I told him if he had to do a c-section to please go ahead and do it, he said he felt it was time and here comes the good part…
At 1:44 am on Oct. 1 Spencer Keating was born. He weighed 7 lbs and 12 ounces and was 21 inches long. It seemed like forever that it took for them to finish closing me up and around 3:30 I finally got to hold him, I was convulsing so from the epidural though that it was hard.
All the nurses were telling me how great I did and how strong I was, they all seemed amazed. The next morning my doctor stopped in and told me how all the nurses told her I did awesome and that I was so strong, nice to hear because I was really feeling like a sissy. She assured me that I should be proud, I did natural child birth without an epidural minus the delivery. I feel ok this time, I really feel like the team did everything they could to try to let me have a vaginal delivery, sometimes it just doesn’t work. The doctor who delivered Spencer told us his cord had a true knot in it which explains the heart rate and that my scar was very thin and probably would not have survived pushing much longer (as if I would have . . .) Apparently the anesthesiologist was amazed, he had never seen anyone on their hands and knees in the OR, much less with the ball, they renamed the ball the Bennett ball after him.
Hope everyone is doing well, thanks for the positive energy, it worked. I’m just glad I made it home [after yoga class], otherwise I would have been on the side of the road calling 911.
Marcy