Now that I've crossed the finish line of birthing baby Coyle it seems silly to recant the difficulty of labor. But boy - was it hard.
People have been asking me up until this point, "I wonder what you think will be harder - doing an Ironman or birthing your baby." Never having doubted the answer - definitely birthing the baby.
The feelings of pain between an endurance event and labor are so different. Painful contractions feel like enduring a fresh injury that repeats every 5-10 minutes. It's like spraining your ankle and having those 30 seconds to a minute of
pain - pain - pain where you need to catch your breath, gather your thoughts and wait for the sensation to recede before you can do anything else. Except, in this case that feeling is right below your gut. On bad contractions I also felt a sensation of burning fire radiating across my lower back.
In contrast to an endurance event, I would argue that at no point should you feel "pain." You can feel sore, tired, the burning sensation of lactic acid, exhaustion and the difficulty of moving forward. However, none of those sensations compare to what you can't train for - contractions.
After doing everything I could to induce the little bugger - prenatal yoga, swimming, prenatal massage, dinner at Chianti in Beverly for their legendary pumpkin ravioli inducing dish, and going for an hour and a half walk in the woods - he started making his move on a Thursday evening.
In the beginning the contractions were akin to menstrual cramping, occurring every 7-12 minutes. Over the next 24 hours they grew worse.
Generally, the hospital won't open their door to you until you're either having contractions every 5 minutes, for a minute and consistently for an hour OR until your cervix is 3-4 centimeters dilated. At 4 cm dilation they will admit you and give you an epidural, if you want one.
That second night of laying next to me in bed with contractions, Pat told me later, was horrifying for him. Every 7 to 9 minutes he'd be awoken by a moaning woman in pain. On my side of the bed, I could sleep for only a couple of minutes in between contractions before the next erupted. By early morning I had one that nearly made me puke.
33 hours.
It was 5:30 am on Saturday morning. Despite not having reached the 5-1-1 mark, we decided to head to the hospital to see what was going on.
Once we arrived, triage hooked my belly up to a monitor which showed how often the contractions were occurring. Mine were roughly 6 minutes apart. They also performed an internal exam to figure out how much my cervix was dilated.
1 cm. I would be sent home.
Frustratingly, I would watch the next 20 hours pass one contraction at a time.
...12:04 (9 min)
12:13 (9 min)
12:23 (10 min)
12:32 (9 min)
12:40 (8 min)
12:47 (7 min)
1 pm (13 min)
1:08 (8 min)
1:16 (8 min)
1:25 (14 min)
1:35 (10 min)
1:40 (5 min)
1:46 (6 min)
1:56 (10 min)...
55 hours.
My mind was shot.
It was 2 am Sunday morning and one fired off that unravelled me. I didn't care if I was not at 5-1-1. I couldn't do this anymore.
The car ride in.
Bumps on the road.
Stinging contractions.
Laying on the triage table.
The internal exam.
"You're 4 centimeters, Abigail! You did it! You've got your golden ticket to be admitted into the hospital."
A rupture of tears.
Joy.
Relief was coming.
I got the epidural almost immediately and fell into the excellent care of the MGH staff. After a few hours of being admitted and with no further dilation, I opted for the pitocin to speed up the contractions. This worked for two and a half hours until one particularly strong contraction caused the baby's heart rate to fall from the 150s to below 80.
8 staff members were in the room within seconds. A stab in the leg with some kind of concoction and a flurry of activity quickly addressed the emergency.
It was frightening to see danger to the baby. He was okay though. The good news was that those couple of hours resulted in 7 cm of dilation. However, as I would find out 7 hours later, without the pitocin I would only progress another 1 cm on my own.
67 hours.
The team, Pat and I were looking at our options -
It had taken 67 hours to reach 8 cm, 3 of which progressed to that point with pitocin, the baby didn't like pitocin, the pace between my contractions was not fast enough to dilate quicker, and probably some unknown factors too like the baby's position in my body and his size - all led us to believe that this delivery was not progressing as quickly as we wanted.
I could sit there all night. The next day and the day after. No one put pressure on us to make our decision one way or another.
Looking at where we were in the process and what was happening - we were ready to have this baby. We opted for the caesarean section.
67.5 hours.
I was prepped and in the operating room. Numbed up. Nervous. Teeth chattering. Heart tight.
Pat was escorted in and sat very close to me. His face to my forehead, I asked him to press his hands down over my shoulders. He spoke to me gently. At first about how he let my parents know what was going on and that they were on their way in to the hospital, about conversations that he had with his brothers and anything else light in topic that he could share.
He kept close as the surgery went on - telling me I was doing a great job, to breathe slowly, giving me relief by touch.
We heard his little cry.
My body was responding to the surgery and at the same time the knowledge that my baby was alive in this world.
My teeth clanked together, my chest bounced from the hard table, my breath quickened. I tried to breath slowly. In, and out. In, and out.
Hyperventilation.
He cried a little more. Looking backwards I could see Pat crying too. Now close to hysteria, I asked Pat to stay with me. My hands shook violently. My heart hurt. He held my crossed arms down on my chest to keep them from leaping straight up from the table.
In the background the surgery was going perfectly but I was a wreck. Seeing that I was loosing it, I was offered something to calm me down. Two shots later and I deflated to a more controlled state.
My head rolled to the side - and there he was. Our baby was laying in a bassinet looking straight at us.
I was looking at a whole new beautiful world.
