Corran's Birth Story

My pregnancy with Corran was pretty uneventful, except for some lower back pain, a pulled groin muscle, and a worry about gestational diabetes. I had been having some problems with the father, but everything was turning out to be okay. Around 36 weeks I stopped working but did continue going to my intern site. My due date was the sixth of June, which I thought was too early, so around the 39th week I had no expectations of having my baby soon.

June 6th was a Sunday, and I'd spent the day at home relaxing. I hadn't grown very big during my pregnancy; I'd only gained about 20 pounds. My back was hurting a little so I decided to take a warm bath, after which I got dressed and ready for bed (at 11:30 p.m.). I noticed I was soaking through. It was mucousy so I associated the moisture with my mucous plug coming out. I wasn't worried since they had told me that wasn't necessarily a sign of labor, so I went to sleep.

I woke up early because I had to take my brother to a meeting. I had a kind of uncomfortable feeling because I was still leaking. So I called my mother, who told me to go ahead and call my doctor's nurse. My doctor was supposed to be at a meeting all that day and the next, so I told the nurse what was happening. She recommended that I go to the hospital and have it checked out. I told my brother that I'd probably have to find someone else to pick him up, and arranged to have my aunt to do the work for me. I then called my best friend and boyfriend and told them to stand by, then drove to the hospital.

I hadn't taken a shower or eaten anything that morning so I was feeling pretty awful when I got there. The nurse checked me in, then took me to a room where she examined me. She confirmed that my water had definitely broken and that I was going to be going into labor very soon, probably induced. So I called my friend (the labor coach) and my two doulas and they came over right away. I took a nice long shower when my aunt brought over my things and before I started labor. I was planning on having a natural birth and wanted to try natural induction before being given drugs, but nothing was working. Thus I was put on Pitocin. My doctor came by to check on me and told me I'd probably be delivering in the morning.

At about 3:00 p.m. my contractions started to be felt a little, but at first it was easy to get through them. The nurse didn't want to check me too often because of the risk of infection, so I was checked only when I felt a change.

I was still handling the contractions well, even when I went into stronger ones. I was checked at 4 cms. About 30 minutes later, the contractions took to the worse and I was having a much harder time breathing through them. My doulas tried getting me to change positions but I didn't want to move. I kept telling them that I really needed to use the bathroom and repeated that so many times that the nurse suspected something and checked me again. She said I was at 8 cms., and that the baby was "low" which she guessed to be about a plus one. I began to hurt even more and even jokingly asked if I could have any medication, knowing that I couldn't at that point. I kept myself confined to that bed and I was trying to get my boyfriend there.

The nurse checked me again when I started complaining about a lot of pressure and wanted to start pushing. She determined that I was at 9+ cm. dilation, with only a sliver keeping me from reaching a 10 cm. She told me to push through it while she helped spread it out and that was successful.

The nurses were trying to track down my doctor when my entire family decided to show up, crowding my room. At first the nurses instructed me to wait to push, then they told me to go ahead and start pushing. I tried the stooping position first but it was too uncomfortable so I went to stirrups. My boyfriend rushed in, saying that he'd been going 80 mph. on the highway to get there. At that point I was hardly aware of anything except the pain so I didn't have the strength to ask my family to move out of the room. My doctor arrived while I was pushing and took the nurse's place. My doula told me that I was about to reach a point where it would sting a lot for a tiny bit, and then it would all be over. But when I reached that point, I couldn't push my son out. His head was just a little too big and I was starting to tear. The doctor snipped me a bit and as soon as she did, he came out on the next push, at 8:50 p.m. I was immediately given my boy while my coach cut the cord, then my boy was taken from me so they could look him over. His Apgar scores were given a nine, and then a ten. I was so proud of that ten because the nurse said she hardly ever gave those out. Corran was eight pounds, seven ounces and measured twenty inches long.