Care to share your labor and delivery stories?

Ow ow ow ow ow. Pitocin. Ow ow ow. Much passing out between contractions. Many many hours. The room was orange, I felt like I was giving birth in a Burger King. Epidural, sigh of relief, Grunting, yelling, pushing, then…Ta Da! KatawaGrey! Worth every minute. Cosmic.

From the other side of the curtain, it was still amazing!
Never to be forgotten and forever etched in carbonite in my memory.
It was actually Labor Day and the Dr’s seemingly wanted to get it over with so they could enjoy their Holiday. This “sooner the better” approach was welcomed.
It was quite peaceful for me :)

Oh good gravy. Well…. my labor for my first daughter lasted a total of 24 hours and was horrible. I’d been in labor for 19 hours and only dilated to a 4, so they had to give me pitocin. I demanded an epidural first =0). After the epi, I couldn’t feel a thing and the delivery was a piece of cake; she was out in 3 pushes. My idiot doctor and the dumbass nurse obviously did not read my birth plan because the nurse was walking toward me with scissors to perform an episiotomy that I specifically had stated I did not want. My husband almost coldcocked her when she tried to cut me.

The nurse also did two incredibly stupid things, one of which could have killed me. DON’T read this if you’re squeamish. She tugged on the umbilical cord and left placental fragments inside, which caused me to go “septic” and I couldn’t figure out why I felt so awful after my daughter’s birth until I hemorrhaged and almost passed out from loss of blood. I had to have an emergency D&C and a prescription for even more pain medication when my baby was only 1 month old. I really should have sued for malpractice.

My second labor was smooth sailing, even with pitocin and no epidural that time, and was again a 24 hour labor and delivery. I was only in pain for the last 20 minutes, when I shot from a 5 to a 10. Again, the delivery itself was easy for me. She was out in 3 pushes. For that delivery, I had 2 midwives instead of doctors and nurses, and they actually read my birth plan and everything went swimmingly. God bless intelligent midwives.

#1: hospital birth, and everything that is wrong with the US approach to childbirth. It ended up with my baby girl sitting in intensive care under a heat lamp for the first 4 hours of her life, while I held her hand talked to her.

We read a ton and by the time the second one was coming around, the only reasonable route was home birth.

#2: home birth with the most amazing midwife. It was peaceful and my daughter was there (almost 3 years old). We had my mother-in-law come over to watch my daughter. My son was born in our bedroom, my daughter was invited in, and we immediately called our friends and family, who started showing up with food and to see the baby. It was the complete opposite of the nightmare we had gone through.

#3: home birth with the same midwife. Again, very peaceful. This time we had 2 kids. Same thing though. Just amazing.

Funny you mention this. I was just talking about this with my daughter and her BF last night at her 24th B-Day party here. A girl she works with just had a 9 lb. baby boy by C-section on Monday and it got me talking about her birth.

My daughter was one week early and weighed 8. 4 the nurses joked if I had gone another week she’d have been a monster. lol

Water broke and I was induced the next morning when labor failed to start on it’s own. Extremely intense labor of 15 hours, with her crowning and then disappearing again and again. Finally they were threatening me with a C-section as her heart rate was getting erratic and my blood pressure was low. I was so exhausted I didn’t care anymore.

Then, one nurse started shouting at me to push, she said she was ” going to make me so damn mad I’d blow that baby across the room!” Nazi nurse she was! haha

It worked…one final effort and she was born at 11:29 pm on November 18th 1987! :-D

MIld labor for 10 hours at home, while my husband and friends watched the Boston Marathon on TV and ate corned beef sandwiches. Then a race to the hospital, heavy labor for 50 minutes, ten minutes of drug-induced amnesia and then a baby. My water didn’t break until I was in the hospital. (And there was the dreaded enema and being shaved on arrival, SOP in those days.)

With the second baby, my water broke in the middle of the night while I was in bed and we again had a leisurely trip to the hospital. My husband and my OB. discussed sailing while I writhed around on the bed. However, again a fairly short labor and the ten minutes at the end where I was knocked out briefly.

I do remember the discomfort when the nurse kneaded my abdomen to expel the placenta. This was in the dark ages, however.

I was in a minority of women who nursed. With baby #1, the attendant handed me my son, wrapped up in a blanket like a sausage and left the room. He and I had to figure out how to attach him to the nipple. We were able to easily, but I had trouble believing that he was being nourished. His weigh-gain finally convinced me.

My now ex-wife had high blood pressure at 36 weeks, and the regular doctor’s partner was concerned so he sent us over to the hospital to get induced. We checked in and pitocin was started about 4 in the afternoon.

At three in the morning, she need an epidural, which took for ever because the anesthesiologist couldn’t get the needle in the right place.

At 8 in the morning, the doctor walked in and said “okay, I have a hair appointment later today, let’s get this going” and she had my wife start pushing.

The pushing got serious at about 9 a.m., and my son took his time. He started to crown at about 11, but by then my wife was getting exhausted. My son wouldn’t turn his head in line with his shoulders, so they spent an hour trying to turn him and get him out. At about 12:30 he was stuck and started to get into stress, so the doctor declared it time for an emergency C-section. He was born at 1:05 p.m.

The doctor made it on time to her appointment. Two and a half years later my daughter was born via scheduled C-section, easy-peasy.

My first was difficult to say the least. I was two weeks late and they had to start me. After 19 hours she finally started to come but she was posterior and got stuck. I was exhausted but my midwife said that I had to keep pushing or he would have to use the vacuum to get her out. I finally pushed her out but she was a dark purple and the nurse had to run my baby into NICU to get her breathing again. It was touch and go but she is very healthy today.

My second was a breeze compared to the first. I had a lay nurse as well as a midwife for her. Again I was two weeks late and they had to break my water. I was doing well until they draped me over a bean bag. I immediately went into back labor and was in agony. I thought I was going to die and the whole hospital knew it. But when I was ready to push my baby was there and ready to go before the midwife was even ready. After 9 hours of labor I had my second daughter in my arms just loving her.

@geeky_mama – Are you typing out your birth story in real time?

@tom_g…
hahahahaha—no, that’d take days. Ha!

First one took 3 days of hard labor ..I labored at home for the first 24 hours then we went to the hospital thinking birth was imminent.. then I spent another 30+ hours without sleep in active labor in the hospital ..I saw other mothers have their babies, recover and be discharged with their babies before I managed to deliver. <sigh>
Baby girl broke my tail bone on her way into the world..she was clearly overdue at 10lbs, 23.5 inches long..wore size 3 to 6 months baby clothes at birth. We also had a truly mean spirited labor & delivery nurse (one bad one—there were 2 other good ones) who both me and the doula filed complaints against after the birth (and my doula was a 23 year veteran labor & delivery RN from a different area hospital so she knew the stuff this nurse did was endangering me and was truly outrageous).

This caused us to change hospitals/doctors for our 2nd delivery—my son. That birth was the polar opposite. I had a WONDERFUL birth (took less than 7 hours start to finish, the doctor had all these great ideas and encouraged me to watch with a mirror, touch his head as he crowned, it was a mellow, relaxed experience all the way around) with him with fantastic nurses both pre and post partum and that OB/GYNs name is sainted in our home.
Our Sainted OB asked me, at just before 36 weeks gestation, “Would you like to have a baby today?” He did amnio to confirm lung maturity and then induced at 36 weeks gestation on the dot—and we had a healthy 8lb baby boy and an easy birth.
Had he waited until I was at term they estimate baby boy would have been a 12 pounder!

I was feeling contractions and went to the hospital. They sent me home, saying it wasn’t time. I went out to a restaurant for dinner with my family, and went back to the hospital later that night. They hate that because everything is evacuated during labor.

My son decided to kick his way out, so the doctor chose a Caesarian operation. I was still awake, but very groggy. The nurse leaned over and told me what time it was. I couldn’t imagine why she thought I would care what time it is, but later I saw that was the time they put on the birth certificate. If I would have realized I had a choice, I would have had them wait a few minutes so his birthday would be the next day.

My husband was there the whole time, and stayed in the room for the following week I was there. He never let our son out of his sight.

I have had three deliveries with three very different stories.

The first time my water broke and nothing was happening so after a couple of hours of going nowhere fast I got an epidural (easy a pie) and pitocin was started. I got to 10 after about 12 hours then pushed for two and a half hours before he finally arrived.

The second time I was induced and got an epidural, which this time was the worst part. The doctor giving it to me took seven times to get it in and three of those times he hit vertebrae. The whole time he told me how important it was for me to hold perfectly still – during active labor brought on by pitocin. Once the epidural was done and labor really got moving it took another couple of hours to dilate all the way. After I was to ten, the boy came out with three pushes.

The last was the most difficult. I went into labor naturally and everything was moving along rather slowly. After about five hours of labor the doctor asked if I wanted an epidural and with my last experience in mind I steadfastly refused. After he had another doctor come down and describe what would happen and I saw it was not the same person who had done it the last time I relented. I got the epidural and since things still weren’t moving quickly the doctor decided to break my water. When the water broke all hell broke loose. The baby, which hadn’t dropped yet, dropped immediately and seemed to take the cord with him. His heart rate dropped like a stone. Since his heart rate wasn’t coming back up, within about five minutes I was having a c-section. Another fifteen minutes later he was out but not breathing. They intubated him but he (according to the doctor) pushed it out and started breathing pretty quickly so they took the tube out. They showed him to me then took him away for tests. The pediatrician in the hospital told me there was no way to tell if he was brain damaged, we would just have to take him home and watch to see if he hit his milestones. Everyone in the hospital kept telling me what a miracle it was that he was alive. For the first year every time I took him to his own pediatrician they would tell me what a miracle baby he was. I was starting to get annoyed because every time he hit another milestone and I started believing that he really wasn’t brain damaged the doctor would remind me what a miracle it was that he was even alive and how shocking it was that he had no brain damage. Fast forward 9 years and I have a happy healthy kid with not even a sign of his traumatic entry into this world.

We were doing natural child birth in the midwive’s birthing suite. My wife was very much looking forward to spending some time in the jacuzzi during the labor. But wouldn’t you know it, just as she stepped in, she was wracked with a contraction and then they discovered she was too far dilated to be allowed in the jacuzzi!

This was with our first child, our daughter. Because she couldn’t go in the tub, she had to do the other things people do to cope with the pain. She walked around and I massaged her, and this went on and on for hours. And hours. And I was really really tired, so imagine how she felt!

At some point, she ended up going into the shower, and then the midwives or my wife or all of them told me to get in the shower with her and massage her.

In my clothes.

I had not been planning on that.

Eventually, the midwife developed the theory that my wife was afraid to give birth; that she thought she would split open if she managed to push the baby out. Finally the midwife threatened her that if she did not manage to push the baby out in the next 20 minutes, they would have to cut her out. It worked!

My daughter wouldn’t stop crying after she was born. She just lay there in her mother’s arms and cried and cried. Eventually I got out my recorder and started playing with her—a recorder/voice duet. I played for a long time and it got all recorded because the midwife left the video recorder running after taking a video of our daughter as soon as she was born. That’s the part that will stay clearest in my memory, I think. Making music with my daughter’s cries.