Birth Story

Aidan John Foley – December 29, 2004

This is the story of Aidan’s birth. He was born on December 29, 2004, 12:33am, weighing 8lbs 9oz and he was 21in long.

In the room with me were Daddy, and two of my girlfriends, Christen and Julie. Before going into the hospital I had very specific rules. No one was to go below my knees and no one was to watch Aidan come out. I did not want to be naked, nor did I want anyone to see me naked. I am very self conscious.

I was admitted to the hospital on Monday, December 27th to be induced. I had developed a rash all over my stomach that was spreading to my arms and legs. The doctors were not sure what it was so it was determined that I was to be induced. I was completely okay with this lol. At 3:30pm Monday afternoon I was admitted and started on Cervadil to open up my cervix. They inserted it at 5pm and it was to stay in for 12 hours. 5am Tuesday morning rolls around and the nurse comes to take out the Cervadil. At 6am I am given a Pitocin drip. The info on Pitocin is they start you at a level 4 and they can go all the way up to 60 without needing a doctors input to increase. I was on pitocin for a total of 12 hours before labor began. All Tuesday I was fine but not showing much progress. Early Tuesday evening my midwife came in to check me. I was at 2 and 1/2cm. She then discussed what was going to happen next. She was going to increase my Pitocin one more time and hope for a little more dilation. I had two options at this point. If I was dilated enough she would break my bag of waters OR if not she would stop the Pitocin completely, give me something to help me sleep and we would start all over again the next day. I said no way was I starting from scratch again! So they increased my Pitocin to 52. This was my magic number b/c almost immediately my contractions got extremely intense. Up until this point I had done everything naturally. I labored with the Pitocin this high for about 30min. I was walking around my room and using the birthing ball. I was also crying b/c I just hadn’t expected the pain to be SO intense. Finally I told my nurse I was going to need drugs….I just couldn’t do it on my own anymore. She asked if I wanted an epidural but I felt it was too soon. She asked if I wanted meds in my IV and I said yes, please. She gave me a shot of Nubain and said she’d need me to get back into bed. I got back into bed and was able to kind of float off. The Nubain has an effect on you that kind of feels like you are floating or high. At 8:40pm my water broke. A perfect example of how the Nubain affects you……when my water broke my first thought was that I had peed myself. Then I thought I had gotten my period. Finally I remembered why I was in the hospital to begin with and I said out loud that my water had broken. Then I realized how wet and gross I felt and proceeded to announce this over and over again lol. I had to get up from my bed and walk into the bathroom which was across the room. Remember my “rules” during labor? Yeah, these went straight out the window. People are 100% correct when they tell you that you just won’t care. I didn’t give a rat’s ass who saw me naked at this point. As a matter of fact, my girlfriend Christen helped take my underwear off (I was having major contractions one on top of another and just couldn’t do it myself) and hold up that mattress pad the hospital gives you after your water breaks. She was eye level with my butt and I couldn’t have cared less. At this point the midwife came back in and asked how I am doing. I was sobbing b/c I was in so much pain. She asks if I have thought about medication and I look at her as if she has 10 heads. I say YES and she says do you want an epidural and I say YES again. She leaves to get the anesthesiologist. He is there within minutes. I walk back to the bed and my water “breaks” again. And again. The nurse tells me she isn’t going to bother putting anything else on me to “catch” the water b/c she has never seen so much and I’ve soaked through everything. Fine with me, I don’t care. (I found out after Aidan was born that I had well over one gallon of amniotic fluid in me – that explains the size of my belly!) At this point my friends leave the room but John stays while the epidural is put in. The anesthesiologist has to do it three times b/c for some reason it doesn’t take. I have a VERY high tolerance to pain medication. I can honestly say the horror stories I heard about the epi did not apply to me at all. I didn’t feel him doing it one bit. The hardest part for me was staying still while he was putting it in b/c I was having really strong contractions. That was the worst part of the entire thing.

The epidural is put in and I am feeling just fine. It really is like instant relief. I am able to drift off to sleep for a little while. I wake up around 11:15pm and I tell the nurse that I REALLy have to go to the bathroom. She asks if I feel like I have to move my bowels (I really hate that phrase) and I say yes, desperately. She says let me check how dilated you are. She goes to check and looks at me and says she is shocked. I’m horrified thinking that she is going to say I am only 4cm along. She says I am 9cm!!! YAY! I have gone from 2 and 1/2cm to 9cm in about 2 and 1/2hrs. Fabulous. I tell her she needs to go and get the midwife immediately b/c I am so ready to push.

The time is here. My midwife comes in and I begin to push. I think everything hit me all at once at this point. I start to cry and I am very overwhelmed. Not from pain at all, I was feeling no pain at this point, but I think I realized all at once that this is it and my son is going to be here. I sob through my entire labor. I also dry heaved through the entire thing. Thank goodness I hadn’t had more than two bites of ice cream all day b/c I know I would have thrown up. In retrospect, I think this helped me though b/c dry heaving uses the same muscles that you would use to push. During labor I am convinced I can’t do it. I ask the midwife to pull him out, I ask for a c-section, I tell her I can’t do it. She says I can, John says I can, Julie and Christen say I can. I finally buckle down and say that I am going to do this. I push and push and then the midwife says the head is out and to push really easily. I do……Aidan is born. I have pushed for a total of 50 minutes. Honestly feels like 10min. I am still crying at this point but now I am crying tears of happiness. I cannot even begin to explain the rush of emotion. He is finally here. Aidan cries and all is well. All of us are crying now. The midwife puts him up on my chest and he looks at me immediately. John cuts the cord after a few minutes and the nurse then takes Aidan to the bassinet to be cleaned up, weighed and dressed.

Now it’s time to deliver the placenta. Again, not the painful/awful experience I expected. I gave two little pushes and it was out. The midwife showed us all and explained each part. I honestly just thought it was gross lol. She massages my belly which does hurt but it’s okay.

Now comes the fun part – the stitching up. I did not have an episiotomy. My midwife was great about massaging me and stretching me but it just wasn’t enough. I ended up tearing. But not a “normal” tear. She informed me she had never seen such a tear. She thinks that Aidan dragged his hand and fingernails out behind him as he came down and caused the tear. I tore in a “W” shape. Up one side, down the middle and up the other side. I also didn’t tear in a normal area – my outer labia were fine, it was my INNER labia that tore. Great. She used every suture in the room to stitch me and it took about 45min to finish. I did need to get a shot b/c when she started I could feel everything. After the shot all was well though. Or, as good as it could be.

After I am done being stitched up my Mom, MIL, SIL and brother are able to come into the birthing room. They all say hello to Aidan and are so happy to meet him. They stayed for a few minutes and then it’s time to go. I am exhausted. The nurse takes Aidan to the nursery to finish getting checked out and I am able to sleep for a little bit. She comes back to check on me – I have to pee before they will take me to Maternity but I am unable to get up yet b/c I had a reaction to the epidural and my left leg is completely dead. I can’t move or lift it. So the nurse says she’ll try again in a little bit. About an hour and a half later she comes back and while I am still tingly I am able to get up and go the bathroom. I am moved to the Maternity ward – it’s about 5am. Aidan is brought into our room at 5:30am. Both he and I had a fever during delivery so they wanted to take him up to the nursery to be checked out. His fever came down nicely in the next day or so.

We are in the hospital in total from Monday to Friday. John stays with me the entire time. We are checked out of the hospital on Friday afternoon. It is my 28th birthday and I have received the best birthday gift I have ever gotten – I was taking my son home with me for good.