Aleta's Birth Story

For those of you who want to know, here is the story of Aleta's birth! It's very long & detailed, with most of the gory details, so don't read it unless you want to know everything!

On Wednesday night, I started feeling a tiny bit crampy, so I was really hoping that something was going to be starting! On Thursday, the very mild crampiness continued and turned into minor contractions by mid-afternoon. I continued to have minor, irregular contractions throughout the evening, and they slowly got worse and more frequent. I tried to finish any last-minute hospital packing & cleaning of the house so that it would be ready for Jacob's mom, who was coming to stay with Naomi. Around midnight, I decided I should try to get a little sleep, since I was fairly certain we'd be heading to the hospital within a few hours. The contractions weren't bad enough yet that I couldn't sleep through them, so I fell asleep until about 1:30, when the contractions got quite a bit worse. I woke up Jacob, and we called his mom about 15 minutes later so that she could start driving (they live about an hour and a half away).

Jacob went back to sleep at this point, but I couldn't sleep through the contractions anymore, so I got dressed, brushed my teeth, and went downstairs to watch TV shows on Netflix (How I Met Your Mother, to be more specific). While I watched, I timed my contractions. They were coming every 4 to 5 minutes and lasting about a minute for the entire hour that I timed them. By 3:00, they had definitely gotten stronger, so I woke up Jacob and told him we needed to be ready to go to the hospital as soon as his mom got here. I think she got to our house around 3:45, and we headed out!

Once we were at the hospital, we got settled into a labor & delivery room, and the doctor on duty checked me to see how far along I was progressing with the labor. I don't think they had expected me to be very far along, because the doctor was very surprised to see that I was already 7 centimeters dilated & 100% effaced. My doctor got to the hospital shortly after, and she thought that maybe the other doctor had been mistaken with his check, so she checked me herself, and I was at an 8! I was very eager to get my epidural in at this point as my contractions had gotten pretty bad, and I was also terrified that I'd be too far into labor that they couldn't give me my epidural and I'd have to do it naturally. (I'm definitely not one of those women who wants to try the natural birth thing... give me my meds!!). My nurse kept telling me how good my pain control was and how I could probably do it naturally, but there was no way I was going to attempt that!

The anesthesiologist came in and gave me a combined spinal-epidural (I have no idea what that means, but I know it's what I had!), so I finally had some relief from the pain of the contractions. And then it was only a very short wait before it was time to push!

Now, I had pretty much expected this labor & delivery to be easier than my labor & delivery with Naomi, since it was my second child. And the labor part definitely was--I knew more of what to expect, so I had a few signs that labor was coming on. I did most of the laboring at home, and I even made it to 8 centimeters without any pain meds! (I'm not gonna lie... I was pretty dang proud of myself for how I handled all the contractions without medication! I've always thought I was a wimp when it came to pain, so I was happy with how well I did with the labor pain). The delivery part of this birth, however, was a lot harder on me than it was when I gave birth to Naomi.

First, when I delivered Naomi, she came out fairly quickly. Total pushing time was only about 45 minutes, and that included 10 minutes or so during which the nurses had me stop pushing because Naomi was about ready to pop out and we were still waiting on my doctor to get there. With Aleta, the total pushing time was a little over an hour, and it was a lot harder than it was when I had Naomi. I felt exhausted this time around. After the first few pushes, I was already so tired and wondering how on earth I was going to be able to keep going. Then, when Aleta's head finally got close to coming out, it got really painful for me. My doctor said that my perineum was too strong and it wasn't stretching (or tearing) so that Aleta's head could fit through. So for the last 15 minutes or so of the delivery, Aleta's head was right at the opening but still unable to come out, so I had constant pain. Instead of just feeling the pain & pressure during the contractions, I had incredible pain & pressure for every moment of those 15 minutes. My doctor finally asked if I was ok with her doing an episiotomy to help Aleta's head fit through. I told her I was hurting so bad that I didn't care what she did to me as long as she got the baby out! After a few more pushes, the doctor had to cut me even more, because it still wasn't enough to help Aleta get out. Finally, at 8:00 on the dot, Aleta was born!

At this point, I was happy and relieved, thinking the worst was over. Boy, was I wrong! At first, everything was fine. They gave me Aleta right away, and I held her while they cleaned her off and did whatever else they needed to do. I got to breastfeed her, and we snuggled, and then Jacob held her while the doctor was stitching me back up (both from the episiotomy and because I tore a little as well when Aleta finally came out). Jacob was about to go to the nursery with Aleta while they measured her & bathed her & did whatever else they do down there. I was about to get transferred to my postpartum room and finally get to eat something (I was STARVING). This is when my memories start to blur together, because things got really hectic and scary. I don’t remember exactly how much time had passed when this happened, but at one point, I felt a rush of fluid, so I told the nurse that I felt something gushing out. She checked me, and sure enough, I was gushing blood. My doctor was there as well, on the other side of my bed, checking me out and talking to the nurse. The nurse hit the red call button on my bed and started shouting directions at the person on the other end. She said the names of like 3 different meds that she wanted brought in. More nurses started piling in from the hallway, but none of them had brought the meds that my nurse had asked for. As someone came in, she barked at them, “I need you to get this, this, and this NOW. Drop whatever else you’re doing and get them now!” That’s the point when I started panicking. If my nurse was sounding that urgent, I knew the situation had to be kinda serious. I really didn’t want to burst into tears in front of a room full of people, so I closed my eyes and started taking deep breaths to try to calm myself. But because I had lost so much blood, this made my doctor think I was going to pass out, so she and the other nurses kept asking me how I was doing and if I felt lightheaded.

Someone finally brought the meds, so I got a shot of one thing in my left leg, a shot of another thing in my right leg, and then I think they maybe put something into my IV. Either that, or I got another shot somewhere… at this point, there were so many people in my room doing so many things to me at once that I wasn’t aware of everything that was going on. I had an IV going in my right arm, but they needed another one, so a nurse put an IV in my left wrist.

When a third doctor came in the room and introduced himself to me, I finally lost my hold on my emotions and started crying. I felt so stupid, but I was so scared, and I had no idea what was going on, and the fact that they needed yet another doctor’s opinion on what was happening really terrified me. He and the other two doctors and all of the nurses tried to make me feel better about the situation and explain what was going on, but I was feeling so emotional that I wasn’t really hearing or comprehending everything they said. Basically what I know is that I was hemorrhaging and that I lost a LOT of blood. Someone asked me every couple minutes how I was feeling because they were so concerned that I was going to pass out. (I’m sure part of their concern was because I kept closing my eyes and trying to breathe deeply, but it was the only way I could keep myself from losing it).

I should mention how amazing all of the doctors and nurses were throughout this whole ordeal. From the moment I started crying and they realized I wasn’t as calm as I had been pretending, there was a nurse at the head of my bed stroking my cheek, or holding my hand, and telling me how great I was doing. My doctor was with me through the whole thing, and for a large portion of the time, she was the one standing by my head keeping me calm. She eventually sent for Jacob (who had gone to the nursery with Aleta and didn’t really know that this was all happening) so that he could be with me and hold my hand and help calm me down.

Because the whole situation was so hectic and my memories are all a blur, I don’t remember what order anything happened in. Sometime during the whole ordeal, they put my catheter back in so that they could keep my bladder empty while they worked on me. They ordered a blood transfusion, but they later decided to postpone it because I was doing better and my levels actually weren’t as bad as they had feared. Someone was also taking my blood pressure over & over... I have bruises all over my left arm from the blood pressure cuff (see photos below). The biggest problem was that they couldn't get it to work because I had the "labor shakes" and I was shivering too badly. (Women in labor often shiver uncontrollably, and I had it bad. My "labor shakes" didn't go away completely until Saturday).
At one point during the whole ordeal, I had 4 doctors and 7 nurses in my room at once all doing different things… it was insane. For most of this time, one of the 4 doctors was doing something to my uterus, trying to figure out what was causing the bleeding. It felt like the doctor was scraping the insides of me with his hands and scraping out blood. I asked Jacob afterward, and he said that’s actually what it looked like, too. I don’t know what they actually were doing, but I’m glad I couldn’t see! Whatever they were doing, it was INCREDIBLY painful... far worse than any other pain I've had in either of my two labors & deliveries. (My epidural had long worn off when this whole crisis began, and I had just delivered a baby, and my doctor had cut me open and then stitched me back up, so I think it was understandable that it was painful having someone shove their hands inside me and scrape around.) I kept my eyes closed and kept taking deep breaths not only to stay calm now, but also to help me manage the pain. And I did ok with it until they tried to put some balloon thing into my uterus. I don’t remember what it was called, but the doctor explained it to me as putting a balloon into my uterus and then inflating it to stop the bleeding. The plan was to get it into place and leave it in until the next day. The problem was that the balloon wouldn’t stay in place. After a few minutes of the doctor trying to get it to work, I lost my hold on the whole pain situation. From start to finish, I think they were messing around in my uterus for about an hour, and considering everything my body had been through beforehand, and then the fact that any pain relief had worn off before all of this even started, I just couldn’t take it anymore. When they realized how much pain I was in, they gave up on the balloon thing and gave me some morphine through my IV. Their new plan was to take me to the Operating Room, give me some kind of pain relief there, and try again to get something into my uterus to stop the bleeding.

Finally, the medicines they had given me to stop the bleeding kicked in, and things started to calm down a bit. The doctors decided to wait on the whole OR plan and see how things were going after a few hours. They kept me on my IVs, and they left my catheter in, and I wasn’t allowed to eat or drink anything in case we had to go to the OR. The room cleared out, and Jacob and I were left to get some rest. Neither of us had slept at all the night before, and it was now about midday, so we were pretty tired. My morphine had also finally kicked in, leaving me really drowsy and in less pain. I slept for about a half hour before my hunger woke me up, and that was all that I was able to sleep.

Nurses and doctors came in periodically to check my bleeding. After about 3 hours, they finally let me drink some apple juice since I was still doing ok. Finally, at 4:00, they decided I was doing well enough to move me to my postpartum room, and I was allowed to order food. While I got settled in and ate, Jacob ran home to get a few things and get himself some dinner.

And that is basically the end of our crazy day! They kept both of my IVs in place until Sunday morning, just in case they needed to do the blood transfusion. They drew my blood & checked my levels each day to see if I would need the transfusion, but thankfully, I didn't need it. They kept my catheter in until Saturday morning, and I wasn’t allowed out of bed until Saturday morning. By the time I was finally able to get up, I think I had been sitting or laying in bed for about 24 hours.

I really, really hope that we never have to go through an experience like this one again… but Aleta was definitely worth it!

(Definitely not the best photo of me, but Aleta looks adorable! I'm really pale, but I had lost a lot of blood. This was taken Saturday morning, right after I had gotten out of bed for the first time since we got to the hospital.)