Okay, when we last left off in Part One of AK's birth story I had dilated pretty quickly and went from 3cm-10cm in 4 hours. It was 3pm and we were just giving the green light to begin pushing. If I'm being completely honest here I'll tell you that I dreaded this part. Some people say they feel relief when pushing, but I on the other hand couldn't disagree more. When I pushed with Reese I felt everything and it was awful. My hips burned, under my ribs burned, and I was so exhausted. This time I was determined to have a different experience.
My nurse had called anesthesia to make sure that my epi was filled, and to give me an additional dose to get rid of that window of pain I was feeling. My legs were numb-ish but I could still wiggle my toes, I couldn't feel pressure where I should have to correctly push, yet I felt each and every contraction on my lower left part of my belly. I began pushing with all I had and was hopeful that we'd be meeting Little Miss quickly. I always hear of these stories of "3 pushes and he/she was out!", and I was hoping that I'd have her out within an hour.
An hour of pushing turned to into two hours, and different doctors were coming in to check on me (Mass General is a teaching hospital, so not only was Dr. Lee in there, but a resident, my nurse, the baby's nurse, and a medical student). We tried numerous positions- on my back, on my side(s), using a bar holding a towel, and I was feeling extremely discouraged because I wasn't making progress. The reason I wasn't progressing was that Adeline's position was sunny side up which meant that the largest part of her head was trying to come out first, and she just wasn't clearing my pelvic bone, rather hitting it and going back up with each push. They tried to turn her, but to no avail. My doctor who was due to come in at shift change at 7pm, came in early. She arrived in my room at 6pm and began to discuss our options. By this point I was starting to loose it, I was hysterical and completely out of my zone. I didn't want to push anymore because I was so exhausted and in so much pain that I moaned and sobbed through each contraction (that may I add were right on top of each other giving me zero time to recover in between). My body was almost in shock- I threw up and kept waiting for what anesthesia had given me to kick in, but for some reason this epidural was failing just as it did during Reese's delivery.
My doctor said that they could try the vacuum to assist in delivery, however there were many risks associated with it. First, the baby could have gotten superficial lacerations on her scalp, she could (in rare cases) bleed under her skull, and I would be at a much higher risk to tear and have fissures. Not only that, but I was warned that I would have to push just as hard (if not harder) than I had been as the vacuum only assists in delivery, and doesn't do all of the work. Todd and I needed to talk, and I wanted privacy and everyone out of the room. I was hysterical and needed a moment alone with my husband. I kept thinking, "How is this happening right now?! How did this labor/delivery experience go from so good to so bad? Why me?"I had a million emotions running through my head and began to feel sorry for myself--- I've known of so many women that have had amazingly easy deliveries, yet my worst nightmare was coming true--- having gone through the whole vaginal labor, yet ending up with a possible c-section. Had I known this was going to happen, I would have opted for the c-section from the beginning.
After outweighing our options, Todd and I decided that we weren't willing to take the risks associated with the vacuum assist. If it were a sure thing, that I'd be able to get Addy out vaginally, that would be one thing, but that wasn't the case. With my track record and luck, she probably still wouldn't have come out and we would have had all of the above happen and still had to have a c-section.
When Dr. L came back into my room we told her that we were opting for the c-section. She wanted to check me one more time to see how close Addy's head actually was to see if it were at all possible to deliver without assistance. Her face said it all, and when she began to speak it reconfirmed everything that we had thought in the first place. Adeline was in fact stuck, and no amount of pushing was going to make her come out. C-section it was.
To Be Continued...
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