They started with low dose pitocin and I spent the next 12 hours trying to progress enough to put a balloon foley in. I started at 1/2 cm dilation and only 4 pitocin. I sat on the birthing ball, walked the halls (when the monitor cooperated which was rare), and spent a lot of time resting. By 4:30pm one of my midwives checked my cervix and still no progress in fact now instead of baby being fully engaged she was floating in my cervix... so we waited. My parents brought us movies and stopped in to check on things.
At 5pm the midwives switched and I was initially scared of this change as the new midwife was a bit more blunt about things but as I quickly found, she was just as good!
At 8pm the new midwife checked me again and I was finally at a 1! So she inserted the bulb foley and my parents went home for the night, all of us expecting a mild night. When they gave me the bulb foley with my son it was really mild and I slept through the dilation to 3cm so I expected about the same with this one, boy was I wrong!
The pressure from the bulb foley never went away. It became contractions that came on strong and fast; probably thanks to the increased pitocin, now that the foley was in. Before I knew it I was using all my coping mechanisms just to deal with the contractions that were coming without a break... and I ran out of them fast. My nurse suggested that I get in the shower and see if that helped me cope since in the bed I was just tensing my entire body every time. We moved to the shower and at this point I told my husband to get our doula there because I couldn't believe how strong and fast these contractions were and I wasn't even dilated!!
The shower helped distract me for a bit and give me time for the doula to show up. The midwife checked on me in the shower and said as soon as the bulb fell out I could switch to the tub which sounded better to me. But once I got out of the shower I switched to the birth ball and again it gave me a good distraction for a while. Eventually, I felt the need to lay down again as the contractions continued to be strong with very little breaks in between, thankfully the doula knew just what to do with counter pressure on my hips and the relief really helped me get through more contractions than I thought possible. The nurse told me it sounded like I was in active labor but I wasn't even dilated enough to get the bulb foley out so I really shouldn't have had contractions that strong.
After another hour or so, the nurse suggested a walking epidural where they would place the epidural and give me one bolus dose so I could have relief for a few hours and then it would wear off completely so I could walk and move again outside of the bed. Since stalling labor was one of my fears, I really didn't want the full epidural but I was SO exhausted, not dilating, wearing out fast, and I needed some relief. After talking it through with my husband and doula I took the walking epidural and it gave me complete relief for about 4 hours so I could sleep! After the first half an hour or so the bulb came out and I was at 4 cm!
Around 3:40am the midwife decided to break my water because the external monitors were no longer picking up my contractions and without that they couldn't increase my pitocin. Breaking my water went great and my waters were clear. I then slept from about 3am to about 6am without any pain and it was amazing! They kept upping my pitocin every half hour and about 7am the epidural started to wear off but it was totally bearable until around 8am, when they started to get intense again, but further apart making them a lot more manageable than before.
My husband at this point called my mom to come down and I kind of assumed I would have this baby before noon. I wanted to labor at this point as long as I could bare it so my labor didn't stall out like it did with my son. Around 10am the contractions became intense enough the midwife checked me and I was 7cm, I was very happy for this progress and shortly after decided to take the full epidural assuming I was far enough along it wouldn't stall my labor and my blood pressure would stay in control.
The epidural took a lot longer to work than the walking one did but eventually it did give me relief and it wasn't so strong that I couldn't still move my legs most of the time (still couldn't quite lift them on my own).
After a few hours the midwife checked me again and on top of making no progress, the baby had also flipped on us to be sunny side up which was stalling my labor. We spent the next few hours trying to get her to flip back. I had enough feeling in my legs I was able to do a modified hands and knees and sit back on my knees. This is also about the time my contractions whimpered out and started to do doubles and triples further and further apart. So the nurse turned off the pitocin for half an hour, then upped it to half the dose, and then back to the full dose again seeing if I had just become accustomed to the 20 plus pitocin dose going in me constantly.
At about 3pm the midwife came in and told me if I didn't have any change in progress by 4pm I would need to have a repeat c-section. Because baby was getting stressed, her head was starting to mold, and my contractions were stalling again and were at like half the strength they had been.
This news devastated me! Seriously I became a huge emotional wreck! I was crying and upset and though my husband, doula, and mother tried to tell me I was not a failure, I felt like all the work I had done for the last day and a half was pointless if it ended in a c-section. We started praying and asking for prayers from close friends and family, and after feeling defeated I focused on trying to just accept the situation. My prayer was that if I was to accept the c-section for whatever reason that I wouldn't have any change at 4pm and I would have peace about it, but if I was meant to keep going in labor, that I would have some change when the midwife checked me again.
I was so grateful for more time to dilate and started working through contractions again until they became strong and I asked for another bolus on the epidural. This bolus never really took affect though and my pump ran out of the epidural. By the time they gave me a new bag of meds it couldn't catch up with my pain and I would go between having hardly any relief to just taking the edge off the contractions. I did move to 9cm by about 6 and again asked for another epidural bolus and progressed to 9.5cm with an anterior lip.
Unfortunately, I never felt the benefits of that bolus either nor the pump after that point. Within 10 mins of being checked, I was feeling the need to push and couldn't stop things from moving. I also realized that the epidural had pretty much completely worn off because I could completely move my legs and I was feeling everything! The midwife said at that point it was best if I could feel it because it would make more effective contractions and a shorter pushing time. Not gonna lie, I kinda threw a fit about it (well as much as I could between contractions), I told her I wasn't supposed to be feeling everything and I never wanted to have to push all natural. Not much I could do about it though as I was at 10cm, my body was pushing and it was time for me to push!
With my doula and mother on one side holding my left leg and my husband and nurse on the other side holding my right leg, the midwife started coaching me through pushing and I did not think I could do it! I was scared but the pressure and pain was so intense I couldn't focus on fear! Each push became more intense and I thought for sure I was going to faint! The midwife was blunt with me and kept telling me what I needed to do to push. My room suddenly became very crowded with nurses, the nursery nurses, and who knows who else.
I had to close my eyes at this point to just focus on breathing and pushing.
Each pushing session became a mental game of staying in the moment and making them as affective as possible. My midwife kept telling me I had to push harder and I felt like I wasn't doing a good enough job even though I was giving it my all, but my husband and mother quickly picked up on this and clarified to me that I was doing great! The midwife then clarified that she was just being loud I was doing wonderful and to keep going! To my surprise she also started doing perineum massage with essential oils which I was really impressed with since we had never even talked about that (she also did the delayed cord clamping without my asking which I was impressed with as well!)
After 15 mins of intense pushing I finally heard the words is been waiting on, her head was crowning and with another push it was out!!! Within seconds I pushed out the rest of her and she was in my arms!! She was crying and absolutely perfect! I looked up to the faces of my doula telling me how good I did, the midwife telling me how amazing the birth was, and both my mother and my husband crying watching us both. I had a lot of pain after pushing her out but thankfully no tearing!
The moment was intense but after 36 hours of labor, and pushing with no epidural, I got my VBAC and my precious baby girl, and she could not be more perfect!
Welcome to our family Lydia Graceyn!