Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Labour

During my pregnancy I was always a little worried about the delivery. I don't have very much lower body strength - would I be able to do it? I was told that women who are paralyzed can deliver naturally, and it is the uterus does most of the work. My obstetrician highly recommended that I have an epidural during labour, because she didn't want me to become overly exhausted during the labour and then have no energy left at the end when it was time to push. The epidural would allow me to relax (somewhat). So, I had an anesthesia consultation where we talked about my condition and how that would affect the epidural. I was told I would probably have the epidural put in earlier than most women, because they wanted it to take effect before I was too far into labour. That was all fine with me. I was happy to do whatever the doctors recommended; they are the experts, not me, and all I wanted was to get my baby out safely. I was considered 'high-risk,' after all.
As with many first babies, I was late. The doctors didn't want me to go too far overdue, and so I was induced at 41 weeks. The induction began at about 10:15 am. Things progressed quite slowly, and so the oxytocin kept increasing. Throughout the day we had been asking about the epidural - when would it come? They kept saying someone from anesthesia would come to talk to me. We just kept waiting. By about 8 pm I was only 4 cm dilated. I felt like I had been there forever, but the nurse kept saying I still had a long ways to go. Around this time the pain really set in. I just kept trying to push it off though, knowing that the epidural was coming. When anesthesia finally decided that they were ready to give me the epidural, at around 9:30 pm, they wanted to talk it over because they were concerned about my condition. I appreciate that they want to be sure I am safe and they were doing the right thing, but we had already had a consultation with them, they knew I was coming in for an induction that day, and I had been there since 8 am. We were starting to get pretty antsy, but to be honest, all I could really focus on was the contractions. They had started to move so close together that I wasn't getting a break in between. The hospital also had a rule where they only check your progress every 4 hours once the water has broken (mine was broken earlier in the day by a doctor to try to start labour), because of risk of infection. And because things during the day had moved so slowly, the nurses kept telling me to just relax, I had a long way to go and should just  'breath it off'. I started to feel very scared because I was in so much pain and, apparently, I was no where near the end. I just kept doing my best to keep it all in and not complain too much, I needed to save that for a few hours later. But really, I couldn't imagine pain any worse.
It was at about 10 pm, 2 hours into 'real labour' that I couldn't take the pain and told the nurse that my baby must be coming. She didn't really believe me but agreed to get a doctor to check my progress. Sure enough, it was time. They said there was no time for an epidural. By 10:30 pm I was pushing, and my little man arrived safely at 10:40 pm.
And so, even without an epidural (without any kind of pain management at all, actually, since we were relying on the epidural), I did it. My weak, can-barely-walk-100-metres body managed an amazing feat. My disability really seemed to have very little effect on the delivery. I wasn't able to move around around too much during the labour, but overall really it all was pretty smooth. Each woman will have a different experience, and disabilities bring additional challenges, but I am amazed at the perfect design of pregnancy and childbirth. I am so thankful that God has given me the opportunity to experience it and blessed me with an amazing little boy.