Asher's Birth Story - Part 2
This is part 2 of our son Asher’s birth story. If you haven’t already, read part 1 here.
After the Pitocin was started, I wasn’t aware of time, but wholly focused on getting through each contraction. I had a lot of back pain with contractions, so even though my midwife, Kristi, wanted me to rest, laying on my back was out of the question. For a while I was standing at the end of the bed, leaning on the bed with my elbows while Brian applied counter pressure to my hips and back with EVERY contraction. This helped tremendously! Without the counter-pressure, the contraction felt unbearable and I started to tense up, but with it, I felt more calm and able to endure.
While in this position at the end of the bed, the rest of my water broke in the middle of a contraction. It felt like I had popped a HUGE water balloon between my legs. We called the nurse and she helped me into the bathroom to get changed.
At some point my nurse, Natalya, told me they were going to turn the Pitocin up to a 7. Apparently I was already at a dose of 5 mU/min and felt like I was having strong contractions with barely any break between them. I pleaded with Natalya not to turn it up and she recommended a compromise to go to a 6. As far as I know, this was the last time they increased the Pitocin.
I labored for a long time kneeling on the hospital bed with my arms resting on the head of the hospital bed which was set at an incline. Brian continued to apply counter pressure with each contraction. At one point Natalya offered to step in and give him a break. Brian came around to the head of the bed and offered me sips of water and squeezed my hand. Natalya also started rubbing my legs and back in between contractions which I remember feeling SO GOOOOD!
After laboring in this kneeling position for a while I started to get tired and discouraged. While I wanted a natural birth as much as possible, I wasn’t opposed to certain drugs and had already taken an anti nausea medication. At this point in my labor, they sensed my fatigue and discouragement and offered me a drug that would help me to relax. I don’t remember the name of it, but Kristi explained that it would probably feel like I had a couple glasses of wine, so we referred to it from there on out as the “wine drug”. Pretty soon I remember feeling like it was hard to keep my eyes open and dozed in and out of sleep, waking up to groan through a contraction and then dozing again. I think Brian also rested at this point.
At one point I remember saying I felt more pressure and Natalya called Kristi. When Kristi came in she started setting up the delivery equipment and she filled the bath. I was still laboring on the bed at this point, with a peanut ball between my legs. They asked if I wanted to get in the bath. I knew this meant I was close! I wasn’t sure how I could do contractions in the bath because of how I needed pressure on my back. They encouraged me to give it a try, and I could always get out if it didn’t feel good. They helped me to the bathroom and had me sit on the toilet first to try to use the restroom. Kristi encouraged me to go through a few contractions on the toilet. She sat beside me and rubbed my back while the contractions came. They also had to prepare the bluetooth monitor that was taped to my belly to be submerged in the water so I kept laboring on the toilet while Natalya taped it up.
When I finally got in the tub, I remember struggling to figure out what position would be comfortable. Leaning forward had been the most comfortable for my back so I tried sitting sideways in the tub so I could lean forward with my arms propped up against the side of the tub. Brian sat facing me next to the bathtub, encouraging me through each contraction. I started to get hot so they put a cool cloth on my neck. In this new position and environment, I was tempted to tense up again through contractions. Kristi, Natalya and Brian kept reminding to moan nice and low, in order to help encourage my whole body to relax. Prior to being in labor, I remember thinking I wouldn’t make any “weird” sounds during labor, but all that flew out the window when I started experiencing intense contractions and had no choice but to vocalize the pain in a long, low moan.
I hadn’t been in the tub for long when the bluetooth monitor stopped working. Since I was on Pitocin, they needed constant monitoring on the baby, so Natalya brought in a new monitor, and while she was trying to set it up I became really uncomfortable in the tub and wanted to get out. I also had a hard time not knowing what I had progressed to and asked repeatedly if they could check me. Since my water had been broken for so long, they were avoiding checks to prevent exposing me to bacteria that could cause infection. Once I was out of the bath, they agreed to check me. I was at a seven or eight. There was also some sort of swelling around my cervix and so they decided to give me Benadryl to try and help the swelling go down and help me dilate the rest of the way, and also gave me another dose of the “wine drug” in the hope that I could rest a little bit before it was time to push. Kristi also said that Natalia was going to help me get into specific positions to help me progress further.
Everything after this was really hazy to me. I think the Benadryl on top of the “wine” drug made me really loopy. At one point I remember asking Brian if I was going cross eyed. He assured me that I wasn’t, and it was probably just that I was so sleepy I was struggling to keep my eyes open. At one point I also remember this overwhelming feeling of gratitude for Natalya, Kristi and Brian. In between contractions I looked at all of them and exclaimed “thank you so much for being here! I just love all of you!” Thinking back to that moment makes me giggle because I am sure I sounded so loopy.
Shortly after that, I dozed in and out of sleep between contractions. They also encouraged Brian to try to sleep. I realized that Kristi had left the room which I knew meant that I still had a ways to go. I lost all track of time at this point, but it was definitely the middle of the night/wee hours of the morning. The following few hours are hard to remember. I do remember feeling so exhausted and wanting to be done, but taking one contraction after another. After a while, I started to feel my body involuntarily pushing during contractions.. I kept asking Natalya if it was time. I knew if my body was pushing, it meant I was close and expected Natalya to call Kristi right away. Instead she said she wanted me to do a few more contractions first. I remember pleading with her to let me push and she kept saying after a few more contractions she would call Kristi. After 15 or 20 minutes of this I said to her...” I feel like you’re tricking me!” She laughed and assured me she wasn’t tricking me.
I began feeling really impatient and really wanting to push and started asking to be checked again. Natalya finally obliged and said I was at about a 9 1/2 or 9 3/4, there was a bit of a lip that still needed to get out of the way, but that she was going to talk to Kristi to find out if she wanted to try to manipulate it the rest of the way. It wasn’t long after that, Kristi came back and she did do something to manipulate the rest of my cervix so that I could start pushing.
I couldn’t believe it was finally time to push! I had no plan as to what position I would push in, which was probably good because I was so tired at this point, I just went with whatever Kristi and the nurse were recommending. She had me lay on my back and scoot down to the edge of the bed, then pulled out the supports you can rest your legs in, but instead of having me rest my legs in them, she explained that during a contraction I was going to use the edge of it to push against with my feet so that I would be in essentially a laying down squat. As I prepared to push for the first time, Brian said this is when he started to tear up a bit, thinking we were minutes away from meeting our son!
I loved pushing because instead of feeling like I was just bearing the pain, I finally could press into it. Pushing was so instinctual and I put everything I had left into it, grunting and groaning so hard my throat got sore. Natalya, Kristi, her assistant, and Brian cheered me on with each push and finally said they could see our baby’s head. It felt like I had been pushing for a long time and not making any progress but Kristi reassured me that he was coming, little by little. Finally, one of them suggested showing me in the mirror. Before this, I never, ever imagined that I would ever want to see…THAT, but as soon as I did, that was the motivation I needed. With each contraction, Natalya held the mirror while I pushed and I watched our baby’s head move bit by bit. Seeing even slight progress made me want to see more and push even harder. I pushed for probably 45 minutes and wondered how much longer I could do it. When I was feeling like I couldn’t take the pain anymore, I prayed out loud “Lord help this baby come out!” Shortly after that I went into beast mode and the Lord gave me strength I didn’t know I had. I told myself to forget about the discomfort, the pain, how tired I was, everything, because the harder I worked now, the faster our baby would be born, the faster I could meet him, and the faster I could have relief from the pain. I started making a lot of progress after that and everyone was getting really excited and cheering me on. At one point, Kristi told me to do little one second pushes between contractions and I think it may have been with the next contraction that his head was born, then finally the rest of him slid right out.
The moment we met happened so fast. I remember feeling so relieved and I think I was crying “My Baby, my baby!” They laid him on my chest and he cried so strong. They asked if he had a name. I looked at Brian for confirmation that we were indeed going to go with the name we had picked out, and he nodded. “His name is Asher James Tromburg” I said. Our son was here after about 15 hours of labor and 1 hour of pushing. He was born at about 5:37 in the morning. He weighed 7lbs 15.9 oz and was 20 1/4 inches long.
So much happened after he was born it felt like a whirlwind. Brian cut the umbilical cord and they got him dried off and diapered so we could do skin to skin. I delivered the placenta and then got stitches for a few minor tears. Pretty soon Kristi finished, congratulated me, gave me hugs and rushed off to a c-section. We ordered some breakfast and Natalya encouraged me to try breastfeeding. I had no idea what I was doing and had trouble getting him to latch on the first try. Then the nurse from the nursery came in to do their assessment on Asher and so I tried to down some breakfast in the meantime. I felt extremely weak and tired at this point, so Brian held Asher for a bit after the assessment was done. Asher passed every test with flying colors. Pretty soon they transferred us to the postpartum floor.
All in all, I was very grateful for how well everything went and that we had such a healthy boy. Labor and delivery is by far the hardest thing I’ve ever done. There were a few things that were unexpected and surprising to me after his birth. One was how sore and beat up my body felt. Not only was I sore in all the expected places, I was also sore in some unexpected places. I had a sore and scratchy throat from all the groaning/yelling. I also had sore arms from pulling myself up to push and my hips/pelvis were so sore I could barely get out of bed and walk to the bathroom. The only thing I had done prior to this that felt even remotely comparable was a 200 mile Ragnar relay where I ran three 6-ish mile legs in a 24 hour period on no sleep. But with the way my body was feeling after labor and delivery, it would be like I ran the entire 200 miles singlehandedly, and then got hit by a bus at he end! But regardless of how beat up my body felt, it is definitely a rewarding sort of pain and Asher is so worth it! Not only that, but it was an extremely bonding experience for Brian and I and I’ll never forget him looking at me afterward and telling me how tough I was.
Read More About Us:
Our Son Asher’s Birth Story - Part 1
Our Journey to Growing our Family - Part 1
Our Journey to Growing Our Family - Part 2