birth story: oskar edward

As many of you know, we had a planned induction for Wednesday morning, but I was not looking forward to that. Naturally, that morning at around 5 am I started having contractions. Brent and I got up and went downstairs for a walk in the rain/mist. I tried going up and down the stairs. We called the doctor and the doula, a type of birth coach who helped us with the pregnancy. Both thought we should go ahead to the hospital.

I did not realize that our doctor would be there to meet us and wrongly, it turns out, assumed that everyone was late to their induction appointments. I had not been able to get moving that quickly that morning. So we missed seeing our doctor.

Once we got there, Claudia, our doula, met us there and asked right away what our plan was. All along I had not wanted to be induced, and since I was in labor, I felt like we could go home and labor. So we told the nurse that when she came in. She was not happy. The nurse evaluated me and I was at 2-3 centimeters dilated. However, the blood pressure readings they were getting for me were VERY high. The day before at the doctor’s office it had been 120/80, and now they were telling me it was 176/104. Just not possible. I asked them to manually take my blood pressure because I had had problems with these machines before. So for two hours they searched high and low in the hospital for a blood pressure cuff. They finally had to buy one! They got the same reading.

The doula explained that if the hospital thought this was indeed my blood pressure a c-section was in the offing.

After some back and forth with our doctor, we decided to check out. I signed myself out. On the way to the doctor’s office I called Erica. She almost fell off her chair when she heard we had left the hospital. Apparently people NEVER do this. Carol, Brent’s mom, is here to help us and was also a bit surprised at our decision.

At the doctor’s office my blood pressure was elevated, but nowhere near their readings. 142/75. Not in the danger zone. I saw the doctor. She evaluated me and urged me to go back to the hospital.

We had an appointment with the acupuncturists at 2:45. At this point it was around 11 am. We went home to get lunch, and my contractions came stronger. Our doula had asked us to call her when we left for the hospital again, and regrettably, I was freaking out and just told Brent we had to leave. We called her when we go there.

I thought I had wanted a natural childbirth. I really liked the idea. But above all I wanted not to have a c-section.

Claudia got to the hospital and told me right off the bat, “Well if this is going to be your attitude then you might as well go home. Our game plan has changed for today. No natural childbirth.” That was just what I needed to hear I think. Things had changed. OK.

I was in a lot of pain. “Claudia, is it normal to be in this much pain, this early?”

No, she said...but I get the sense she did not know if I was just a wimp or really in a lot more pain than the average person. HA.

At this point an epidural was suggested. I jumped all over that. I honestly did not know if I could get the baby out. Claudia was great at calming me down. I felt hysterical. She kept telling me to ride the contraction’s wave. Up and then down. I did this while I waited for the anesthesiologist. I had not wanted an epidural because women who get them are more likely to have a c-section. Now I should mention that the hospital where I delivered has a 40% c-section rate, so the odds were not really on my side here. I was also very afraid of having something put into my back. I have heard some really horrible stories about this.

Anyway, at that point I would have done anything. Putting it in went really well and from then on out I did not feel the contractions. I did not feel good and was hooked up to all kinds of machines to monitor me and the baby, but I was not ready to give up.

And then we waited. I had made it to 4 centimeters dilated on my own. I needed to get to 10. I was not progressing, so the doctor recommended that I start pitocin, a drug that mimics the hormone your body makes when in labor, oxytocin. At this point I would have done whatever they said...so we did that.

A few hours later and some other unpleasantness, I was ready to push. I could tell. It was 2:34 in the morning and I decided I wanted the baby out before 3 am. The doula told us that most women push on average for 2 hours, with first time moms pushing for an average of 3 hours.

The doctor checked and decided it was time. I started getting sick. I pushed three times, and on the third push my doula told me to stop throwing up, I was not sick and I needed to watch my baby being born. She took the throw-up bin away and I stopped and looked down just in time to see little Oskar join us. At 2:54 the little guy was born.

September 8th was Carol’s husband, John Gordon’s birthday. He passed away this year so it was very fun to have Oskar on his birthday. I am sure he and my mom and dad were watching over us.

Oskar Edward Lattin
Born 9.8.11 at 2:54 am. 21 inches long and 7 pounds and 12 ounces.

Photos of Oskar available here as they are available!