> Shannon's Story (Due Date: January 2006)

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Looking back, I now know that I had IU with my first two pregnancies as well.  At about week 33 of my first pregnancy, I started to get very regular Braxton-Hicks contractions.  I timed them and they were coming definitely more often than the 4-6 times an hour the doctors say to watch out for.  So I told my doctor, stating that they increased in intensity and regularity when I walked around, and he told me that was normal.  I distinctly asked him if I should stop activity when the BH’s came on, in order to calm them down and he told me that there was no need to, that I was not in danger of delivering my baby early at all.  Then at 36 weeks, 2 days gestationally my water broke.  It only took me 5 hours to dilate to 10 but my son had turned sunnyside up and couldn’t fit out my pelvis.  So after four hours of off and on pushing, my doctor performed a c-section and my first son, George, was born.  He was healthy and beautiful. 

At about week 31 of my next pregnancy, I started to feel the BH’s at about the same intensity as the 33 week mark of my first pregnancy.  My husband and I decided that these BH’s probably were connected to my first baby being born slightly early, so I tried to rest as much as possible, in order to reduce the amount of BH’s I was having.  I still had to work and care for my first son, however, so my rest wasn’t complete.  At one point my uterus got rock hard for two hours in a row.  I called my doctor who said it must be my baby pushing me.  I swore to her that it was one huge stuck BH contraction but she told me that wasn’t possible and I didn’t need to worry.  My water broke at the 35 week, 4 day mark and five hours later my second son was born in a successful VBAC.  Henry was jaundiced and required two weeks of oxygen, but, thankfully, was totally healthy otherwise and, of course, also beautiful!

Pregnancy number three came along and my husband told me he was going to severely limit my activity at the first sign of any regular Braxton-Hicks.  At week 24 I was pushing the stroller up a hill and my first “stuck belly” experience happened.  Within a week, all walking caused this rock-hard uterus phenomenon.  When I started to have regular BH’s even when sitting or laying down by week 27, my husband made me go into Labor and Delivery.  Sure enough, I was contracting every 5 minutes with a wavy “irritated” line at the bottom of the toco machine tape also registering.  I was not dilated or effaced at all thankfully, and was diagnosed with an IU.  I was put on Procardia and modified bedrest. 

During the next few weeks I had a couple more L&D visits when things got scary (more painful and regular contractions as well as a gush of fluid that I thought might have been my water breaking) but mostly just endured the increasing IU pain and discomfort, praying my third son would “bake” inside me long enough.

Then on Thursday evening, December 15^th, when I was 34 weeks and 6 days along, I started another spurt of contractions, not unusual IU stuff, except these just kept going and going, only letting up some for an hour or two when I took my Procardia dose.  I didn’t sleep much at all that night, with my contractions being painful enough to keep me up and spaced only 2-4 minutes apart.

I had a doctor appointment scheduled for the next day.  I took my 9 am Procardia pill a half an hour before I left for the doctor’s office so the contractions calmed a little to enable me to drive the 10 minutes there.  The doctor (not mine, but the one on call for that night, who I had wanted to meet beforehand…glad I did, as he was the one who ended up delivering Theo) said Theo would probably come sometime that weekend as he was “ready”…engaged in my pelvis and my contractions had been regular for long enough to know this was “it.”  He said the Procardia would only delay things a few hours or a day, not stop what was inevitably in the process of happening.  I told him I’d discuss with my husband what to do about the meds and then asked one of our favorite IU questions – so how am I supposed to know when to head to the hospital?  He answered, once your contractions get back to every 2-3 minutes and maybe feel more intense than last night.  Okay, ambiguously clear!

So I went home and called Josh and we decided to just trash the meds since I already was tired from little sleep the night before so why prolong the labor process if delivery was imminent anyways?  Josh had a few meetings, so said he’d be home by 4 p.m., but called me every half an hour or so to make sure things weren’t progressing TOO rapidly and he would need to cancel and come home right away (he was REALLY worried about me going fast once I “got going.”).  I took it easy for a couple of hours but as 2 pm approached figured I could do more and be safe to not make things too intense before Josh got home.  By the time he arrived, I was again at 2-3 minutes and the pain was increasing.  He wanted to rush right to the hospital but I wanted to give it more time.  So we compromised and decided to go to a place right NEAR the hospital, walk around and then head into L&D.

So the only thing near the hospital was a dollar store and a Safeway…pretty funny to roam those aisles “just browsing”…a little different than how you’d do it in a mall or something, but it was kind of a fun bonding thing w/Josh.  We got bored after about a ½ hour so went to the hospital and walked but the hospital is tiny that just 15 minutes of walking got us around it three times.  By this point I was every 1 ½ -2 minutes and contractions were nearly as long as the time in between.  I could talk and walk through the pain, but it was more intense, so Josh said, that’s good enough, let’s go.  So we walked to L&D and I said, “I’m in labor,” happily and the nurses looked at me like, “yeah right,” and one showed me to a room.  By now it was about 5 p.m.

They stuck me on a monitor and, yes, of course, my contractions slowed to every 6-8 minutes.  The nurse asked me the typical questions about intensity of pain, etc., which had also abetted every other contraction (I remember this alternating pain thing w/my second son’s labor also, weird!).  I explained to her that I had an IU when she asked how long I’d been in labor, etc.  And, just for fun, my worst contractions barely or didn’t show up on the toco machine while my smallest ones did…ai!  So after a little while of this, she checked me….2 and 70% and -3 station!  Doc had said the same dilation and effacement but also said 0 station that morning so this was BACKWARDS progress!  The nurse said I wasn’t in labor (ohmygosh, how many times have we, collectively, heard THIS statement?!) and asked what we wanted to do, go home or have her call my doc and see if he wanted me to stay a little longer.  I looked at my Josh and explained that I really didn’t want to go home because of his fear of me going fast.  She said, “Don’t worry, this is not going to be a rush to the hospital type of deal, you have plenty of time…you might not have this baby for a week or more.”  I was just speechless.  I really didn’t know what to do and I did not want to lose it and cuss her out.  So after a while of me not saying anything, she went to call my doc.

Meanwhile, Josh and I had an “intense discussion” with me crying, saying this is why I wanted to not come in until the very last second and him apologizing for rushing me and being paranoid about having to deliver at home.  He said whatever I wanted was fine and he would back me up and he loved me, etc. etc.  The nurse came back at this point and said my doc said to keep me and monitor me for one more hour.  I asked if I could walk around or bounce on my birthing ball or do something to help the labor along and she said, no I had to lie down and why did I want to get the labor going anyways being at only 35 weeks, 0 days didn’t I want to have this be false and keep my baby in longer.  UGH!  This made me feel worse.  So I just shut up and laid back and told Josh to go get some dinner.  He left and I turned on the t.v., found The American President (a movie I’ve seen at least 10 times, so knew I’d like), and figured, if nothing else I was going to relax and try to just enjoy the next hour of nothingness.  I told God I gave up and if he wanted me to keep Theo in another week even, I was willing to go through the pain and humiliation….I told Him it was in His hands.

So it wasn’t long into the show that I noticed I had to work harder to make it through my contractions, concentrate on breathing, etc.  So I started to time them and, sure enough, they were back at 2-3 minutes apart!  By the time Josh came back and a new nurse came on duty (praise the Lord!), I was really squeezing the side of the bed to make it through the contractions.  The nurse checked me and said, “Wow, you’re a loose 3 now!  That’s progress!  I’m going to call your doctor right away!”  Within 10 minutes, the doctor came, checked me and said, “Woa you’re at least a 4 and he’s right here!” (what station “right here” is, I don’t know, but I’m guessing he was at least back to 0 again)  Then, he said, let me break your water, so you can have this baby tonite!  And with that, he quickly broke my water…we got no choice in the matter.  I don’t know what I would have chosen, but all I knew now was that things were moving fast.  At this point, it was 7:45 p.m.

The nurse said it was time to change my room and asked if I wanted a wheelchair or to walk.  I chose walking because I figured it would take a long time to get a wheelchair and things were progressing so fast, I wanted time to get settled in our room.  I ended up stopping at least 5 times on the way to my room because of the incredible pain…nothing like transition in transit!  When we got to the room, I made Josh go into hyperdrive: “start the shower, put in a cd, turn up the volume, bring me my water bottle!”  I made him hold the showerhead on my tummy as I moaned and talked about how I was scared and this was so hard.  When the contractions subsided enough, I was praying to Jesus to help me get through this…I told Him how tired I was from my weeks with my IU and that I really couldn’t handle more than a couple minutes more of transition.  Immediately after that prayer, I suddenly felt I had to push.  Could it be, already?!  I told Josh and he said, “Wow!  Great!” and ran to get the nurse.  I sat on the tub chair thinking, this CAN’T be right, it was way too fast!  The nurse and Josh showed back up in an instant, helped me out of the tub as I said, “I feel like I need to poop a baby, so I figure he’s ready.”  She laughed and checked me…I totally expected to be humiliated with her saying something like, sorry, you’re only a 6, but instead, she said, “You’re right, you’re fully dilated!  Just breathe through the next contraction, because we aren’t ready for you to push yet.”  The room became a flurry of activity…Josh went to pee, so he wouldn’t miss the “big event” as nurses scurried in to set up.  My main nurse ran out, I later found out, to catch my doc right as he was about to leave the hospital to go across the street to his office.  Meanwhile, I prayed, “Okay, Jesus, thank you for the fast transition.  Now I fear I don’t have the strength to do much pushing at all.  Can You make it so I only have to push about twice, please?!”  Immediately a strong contraction hit and I screamed about how I had to push and the nurses all yelled to just breathe through it and NOT push….OHMYGOSH, I’d heard before how torturous this can be, and that’s no lie! 

By the next contraction, everything was in place and my doc told me to push with it.  Gladly, I did and I was amazed to hear him tell me to stop.  “That’s the head.  Woa!  Hold on, DON’T PUSH.”  Josh told me later that Theo’s cord, which was HUGE…at least 3 times what a normal cord width was…was wrapped so tightly around Theo’s neck that the doctor couldn’t pull it over his head.  He just cut it off right there and it totally deflated, utterly grossing-out JoshJ.  Anyways, then he told me to push again and I did and Theo was born…I saw him slip right out.  It was 9 pm, just 1 ¼ hours since I was dilated to 4 and the doc broke my water!  The doc kept checking me out, not believing everything had gone so fast and I had no tears whatsoever.  He and my main nurse kept telling me what a great job I had done, but I knew it was all just God taking care of me and giving me only what I could handle (which wasn’t much after these months of IU pain!) After being cleaned up, I got to hold Theo and nurse him (he didn’t do much, but what he did, was good strong sucking…even sort of bit me once!) and then they took him again to weigh him and do the vitamin shots, etc.  My doc guessed at his weight (what he does with every birth, I guess) and was WAY off…he guessed 6,9 and Theo was just a wee 6,0. 

So God answered my prayers all through labor AND was true to what I felt he told me long ago when I first got IU, that Theo would never have to be in NICU.  We had a fabulous stay in the hospital and even though we experience neurotic parental worries, Theo keeps proving to us how healthy he is!  We are in total awe!