The Birth Story of Clive

Leading up to his birth:(I am very pregnant and very hormonal. Tuesday night I was up in the middle of the night with contractions in addition to my normal breaks in sleep due to frequent peeing. Then, while sleep-deprived at yesterday's midwife appointment, we had a bit of a scare. Up until now, everything has been very normal with this pregnancy. So, when the midwife told me the fundal height measurement was lower than expected I was very surprised. I was sent in for an ultrasound to help determine the cause. They concluded I have low amniotic fluid due to dehydration. (I've had a bad cold for a couple of days now.)

After receiving some IV fluids and fetal monitoring (the baby sounds great), my midwives released me to home bedrest with an oral hydration regiment. I have to drink 6 liters of water! I broke out my good old Boulder Community Hospital water bottle that we got when Audrey was born so I know how much I am drinking. So far I have only been able to pack away 3 liters, but I'm working on it.

I have also learned about the benefits of coconut water for hydrating. Naturally fat-free and low calorie, it contains many electrolytes and is an especially good source of potassium. It is much tastier than Gatorade and doesn't contain high-fructose corn syrup like many sports drinks. Unfortunately, we don't grow coconuts anywhere nearby, so coconut water will have to be a luxury that I allow myself only occasionally.

Adam took the day off to help with Audrey. He braved the mommy playgroup scene with Audrey this morning.

On Friday I am getting another ultrasound to recheck my amniotic fluid levels. We think all will be well, but I was very freaked out yesterday.

Prior to yesterdays scare, I thought I would go into labor sooner rather than later. Now, I'm not so sure that the contractions I was experiencing weren't being brought on by my low fluid levels. Perhaps we will have to wait 2 more weeks to meet this little one after all. )

The birth: I went back in to have an ultrasound on Friday morning to recheck my fluid levels. Even after the day of bedrest and drinking all that water my amniotic fluid was only measuring the same as Wednesday. This made me worried, but I was told to go home and continue resting and drinking water; that my midwife would get in touch with me after looking over the results.

While I was driving back home, I got the phone call. The midwives consulted with an OB doc and the consensus was induction. They told me to go home, pack my bags, get Audrey situated, have some lunch and come back to the hospital later that afternoon for induction. At this point, I was scared, but okay with this decision. I wasn't looking forward to spending the weekend worrying about the baby, especially when I was already 38 weeks and his estimated birth weight was nearly 7 pounds.

Adam came home from work, we got everything together, dropped Audrey off at Carol and Herb's and stopped off at Great Harvest for our last meal.

We got to the hospital at about 3pm Friday afternoon. Deirdre Thompson, my midwife, came over soon after and we discussed the plan. After checking my cervix, she discovered that I was 1-2 cm dilated and 40% effaced and concluded I would be a good candidate for starting with a Foley catheter to help further ripen my cervix. She told me to leave it in overnight and that we would start the Pitocin in the morning to really get things moving. She put the Foley bulb in at approximately 4:30pm. My midwife went home. At 8pm, the Foley bulb fell out. I was already 3.5 cm dilated.

My midwife came back to the hospital and we talked about what to do next, she said she really didn't want to start Pitocin so late in the evening. That she would recommend further cervical ripening still with Cytotec and starting the Pitocin in the morning after everyone got some sleep. That sounded good to us. Adam went home with orders to be back for a 7am start. I took 2 Ambien and tried to get some sleep at the hospital.

Before I took the Ambien though, they decided they wanted to get a buff cap started for an IV. I had the worst luck. It took 4 nurses 5 attempts over 2 hours to find a vein that would accept the needle. I am eternally grateful to nurse Jannette who I never saw before this and never saw again. On the fifth attempt, she found a vein with no digging, no vein bursting.

With the help of the sleeping pills I was able to get some sleep from about 11:30pm to 2am. Sometime around 2am, I realized I wasn't asleep anymore and that I was having some cramping. I got up and hung out on the internet for a while to distract myself. By 3:30, I was sure I was having contractions, but they were still mild and not regular. By 5, I was worried about Adam getting back to the hospital in time. My contractions were still managable alone, but I was having a harder time ignoring them. I called Adam at 5:20 and asked him to come back to the hospital, pronto.

My mom was en route to Boulder via O'Hare. I called my mom at 6:00am to see if she was in between flights. At this point I was no longer able to talk through contractions. I was happy to hear that my mom's flights were on time. You never know, especially if you are flying through O'Hare. She was expecting to arrive in Denver at 10:00am and in Boulder at 11am.

Adam arrived at the hospital at 6:30am Saturday morning. I was in the jet tub and was having regular contractions every 2 minutes. They checked my cervix at change of shift so sometime around 7am and I was only 4 cm dilated. This scared me because I was already in quite a lot of pain. At this point things get fuzzy for me. I'm not sure what happened and when. At some point the nurse told me they weren't going to start me on Pitocin if I'm having contractions like this.

I quickly went from having contractions every 2 minutes to every minute to having no break in between contractions. At some point someone checked and said I was 8 cm dilated. And then I was back in the jet tub, for about 1 minute, when I announced that I had a lot of pressure, that I had to push. They told me I had to get out of the tub.

I REALLY have no idea what was going on except that I wanted to push and everyone kept telling me not to because they had to check to see if I was 10 cm dilated and I was having serious contractions. I was very thirsty and the ice chips tasted so good, but it was hard to tell anyone that I wanted them. I saw that Adam was fiddling with the video camera trying to get ready to film the birth. I yelled that I did not care about the camera so we have no video of this birth.

When it came to the actual pushing, I couldn't feel anything except pain and that I HAD to push. I couldn't tell when I was having contractions. (I was only supposed to push during contractions.) Luckily, it took just 10 minutes for me to push him out.

Clive Lysander was born at 8:44am, on Saturday, February 21, 2009.