Ash Orion's Birth Story
Submitted by juliannepigeon
First of all, my due date was August 1st, which was to be two days before my 21st birthday. The entire pregnancy I joked about how more than anything I didn't want to be in labor on my birthday. I joked about how that's about the last thing on my list I'd ever want to do on my birthday. I also wasn't joking. I really didn't want that to happen. Guess what?
Around 6:00 a.m. on August 3rd I started having contractions I couldn't ignore. They were just painful enough to keep me awake. During my shower they began stopping me in my tracks; I'd been staying with my older cousin because she was much closer to the hospital than where I'd been living so I let her know right after. She's a little nuts, so she insisted I go to the hospital then and there even though I needed to wait until I was 5 centimeters to be admitted into the Alternative Birthing Center.
My midwife, Camille, examined me when I got there around 10 and I was only 3 centimeters, so she told me to go home if I could and come back in a few hours. My cousin has three crazy babies and needed to go do her thing, so we determined it would be better for me to stay and hang out at the hospital. In the meantime, my fiancee had been in New Jersey and was on his way up with his mother.
I walked around the hospital for about two and a half hours, and by the time I was rechecked, I'd only progressed to 4. Camille got the go ahead to admit me into the ABC despite the fact and so we moved up there. For the next eight hours or so I bumbled around the room with an occasional penicillin IV, contractions getting stronger and stronger and only getting to another centimeter.
By around 9 o'clock I was absolutely exhausted and Camille didn't think I was going anywhere anytime soon, so she gave me the choice to either 1. break my water and we'd keep on truckin' or 2. rest with Ambien and some morphine so I could sleep. It was up to me, but she was of the opinion that I should rest because of how tired I already was. She was worried that if I went into transition then, I'd be too drained to handle it. So I rested.
I went up to the regular hospital room and took the medicine. As soon as I did, I became very woozy, but all of a sudden the contractions were a great deal worse. When I asked why the damn morphine drip wasn't working, Camille told me that lo and behold, I was in transition. I went from 5 centimeters to 8 in about an hour. SHEEIT. Those were the, as my fiancee put it, the "Halloween scream" contractions. Camille thought it was go time and that I'd be fully dilated any time. Hahaaaaaa.
I was in transitional labor for another 5 hours. I was back in the ABC in the birthing tub, trying different positions, bellowing my head off but all the time having some kind of out-of-body experience brought on by the pain and the Ambien. I kept nearly falling asleep in the tub, but howling in excruciating pain the whole time. My contractions at this point were back-to-back and at some point my water broke.
After 5 hours of this, I hadn't dilated another smidge. I was hell-bent on having a natural labor, but at this point I didn't have any energy left in my body. I rationally asked for an epidural in a second or so I had between contractions, and I promptly fell asleep. Most of these details are fuzzy for obvious reasons.
I was woken up around 5 am, Camille telling me I was finally fully dilated and that it was time to push. We did that for 3 hours with no change. Ash's head would come down a little, then go right back up. No one had a logical explanation for this, but soon Ash was in distress. Abruptly a lady I had never seen before walked into the room and casually informed me that they were preparing me for a cesarean. I pretty much lost my shit. How did my labor that I so badly wanted to be natural get to this point? I'd tried SO HARD and yielded to the epidural, and I couldn't even have him vaginally? It was the absolute last thing I had wanted. I went weeping into the operating room.
Ash was born at 8:40 am on August 4th, about 27 hours after labor had begun. My labor was awful and I still regret the turns it took. Ash was so beautiful and I wasn't even able to hold him because I was still so looped out on drugs; I missed those first moments. He didn't cry when he was born, he made sweet little cooing noises. It was a joy to finally meet him when I could, however, and he's a little ray of sunshine.
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My midwife, Camille, examined me when I got there around 10 and I was only 3 centimeters, so she told me to go home if I could and come back in a few hours. My cousin has three crazy babies and needed to go do her thing, so we determined it would be better for me to stay and hang out at the hospital. In the meantime, my fiancee had been in New Jersey and was on his way up with his mother.
I walked around the hospital for about two and a half hours, and by the time I was rechecked, I'd only progressed to 4. Camille got the go ahead to admit me into the ABC despite the fact and so we moved up there. For the next eight hours or so I bumbled around the room with an occasional penicillin IV, contractions getting stronger and stronger and only getting to another centimeter.
By around 9 o'clock I was absolutely exhausted and Camille didn't think I was going anywhere anytime soon, so she gave me the choice to either 1. break my water and we'd keep on truckin' or 2. rest with Ambien and some morphine so I could sleep. It was up to me, but she was of the opinion that I should rest because of how tired I already was. She was worried that if I went into transition then, I'd be too drained to handle it. So I rested.
I went up to the regular hospital room and took the medicine. As soon as I did, I became very woozy, but all of a sudden the contractions were a great deal worse. When I asked why the damn morphine drip wasn't working, Camille told me that lo and behold, I was in transition. I went from 5 centimeters to 8 in about an hour. SHEEIT. Those were the, as my fiancee put it, the "Halloween scream" contractions. Camille thought it was go time and that I'd be fully dilated any time. Hahaaaaaa.
I was in transitional labor for another 5 hours. I was back in the ABC in the birthing tub, trying different positions, bellowing my head off but all the time having some kind of out-of-body experience brought on by the pain and the Ambien. I kept nearly falling asleep in the tub, but howling in excruciating pain the whole time. My contractions at this point were back-to-back and at some point my water broke.
After 5 hours of this, I hadn't dilated another smidge. I was hell-bent on having a natural labor, but at this point I didn't have any energy left in my body. I rationally asked for an epidural in a second or so I had between contractions, and I promptly fell asleep. Most of these details are fuzzy for obvious reasons.
I was woken up around 5 am, Camille telling me I was finally fully dilated and that it was time to push. We did that for 3 hours with no change. Ash's head would come down a little, then go right back up. No one had a logical explanation for this, but soon Ash was in distress. Abruptly a lady I had never seen before walked into the room and casually informed me that they were preparing me for a cesarean. I pretty much lost my shit. How did my labor that I so badly wanted to be natural get to this point? I'd tried SO HARD and yielded to the epidural, and I couldn't even have him vaginally? It was the absolute last thing I had wanted. I went weeping into the operating room.
Ash was born at 8:40 am on August 4th, about 27 hours after labor had begun. My labor was awful and I still regret the turns it took. Ash was so beautiful and I wasn't even able to hold him because I was still so looped out on drugs; I missed those first moments. He didn't cry when he was born, he made sweet little cooing noises. It was a joy to finally meet him when I could, however, and he's a little ray of sunshine.
Read more birth stories or share YOUR birth story now!
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