Disclaimer: this story is long, and not so neatly wrapped up. You’re getting the TMI version here; so if that’s not for you, consider yourself warned.
January 19, 2021 – 8:00pm
My mom had arrived to stay with Eleanor, so the time had come. Leslie and I left home on our two hour trek to Savannah to start the induction process.
The entire drive felt a little eery. We were listening to my old school rap playlist (think middle school / high school days), because it was the only music that wouldn’t make me feel weepy. [I mean, who could cry to Put it on Me by Ja Rule or Nelly’s Grillz??]
I even told Leslie that I felt like we were driving to our last meal. A slow paced walk down death row. (I know that seems dramatic, but I just knew that life as we currently knew it was over with forever)
By the way, have I mentioned lately just how much I love Leslie? He never once judged me or criticized me for feeling my feelings or vocalizing all of the morbid things that came to mind at any given second in the last month. He bent over backwards, shelving his own emotions and feelings in favor of making my life more comfortable. [I knew this weighed on him as hard as it did on me, but he was completely selfless in pursuit of my well-being]. Okay, I’m done doting on him ….for now.
We finally get to the hospital at our scheduled time of 10:00pm. The entire building shuts down except for the ER at that hour, so we parked there and proceeded through a temperature check, metal detectors and bag checks, with our masks, of course.
The lady at the desk let us into the back, and told us how to get to labor and delivery; so we made our way across the hospital.
Side note: we preregistered to have Eleanor (almost six years ago), and they still needed our driver’s license and insurance card to admit us to the hospital back then. This hospital asked for my name and nothing else, then proceeded to treat me and admit me based on word of mouth. My mind was blown.
Anyway, we got situated in our labor room and they took my vitals with the promise to return for my rapid covid test. They didn’t test Leslie, and he had to wear his mask any time someone came in our room; but once I was cleared and my test was negative, I was able to take my mask off. Hallelujah!
I was hooked up to an IV of fluids at this point, and also a heartbeat monitor for baby boy.
The nurses were so nice and accommodating, so that was a relief.
Around midnight they mentioned that the doctor on call (which is who I was using, since I didn’t have an actual doctor at the high risk ob that I had been seeing for only a few weeks) wanted to use a foley bulb to get me from my current status of two centimeters dilated to four.
Now I don’t know if you’ve ever spoken with someone who’s used a foley bulb for induction, but I’ve only ever heard about the pain associated with that process.
Anddddd that would be accurate. It was not a comfortable situation. They basically insert this really long tube into you, and once it’s in place they fill the end of it with a saline solution to inflate the balloon (or bulb) at the end, which then forces you to dilate. [Or something like that, I don’t know guys, Google it. I’m not a doctor, so this is my translation of it]
It definitely did not feel good at all. The only thing worse [at that point] than the bulb being there, doing its job, was when she came back in a few hours later and snatched it out of me. Sweet baby Jesus, I was not prepared for that bandaid to be ripped off (or out of me) quite like that!
But the bulb had done its job. I was four centimeters dilated.
Time for Pitocin. I wasn’t worried about this part. When I went into labor naturally with Eleanor, they still used this to move things along a bit more quickly. I knew what to expect. Contractions would get stronger, but that just meant that things were progressing.
So they added that to my IV, upping the dosage every thirty minutes.
Let me remind you that this entire pregnancy I had to pee 24/7. I don’t remember that happening with Eleanor until the very end, but this babe wasn’t playing around with how low he was positioned, and I’m assuming that made all the difference.
So every time I had to pee, Leslie had to unhook the heartbeat (and now contraction) monitor, and help me roll my IV to the bathroom. We were both taking small naps here and there at this point, so to wake him up when my bladder woke me, I had to throw things across the room at him because he sleeps so deeply that he doesn’t respond to voices on their own.
This throwing things, unhooking monitors and peeing went on for hours.
The sun had come up. Shift change had occurred at this point. We had new nurses.
The doctor wanted to break my water. She was going to check my dilation and break my water all at once, because that was the next step in my induction.
I remember them breaking my water with Eleanor, but I think I might’ve already had my epidural at that point, so I couldn’t remember feeling any pain with her. I was kind of worried that it might be painful this time, but honestly, her checking me was more painful than her breaking my water.
Another side note: you would think that being checked by a male doctor with bigger hands would be more painful than a female doctor with smaller hands, but you would be WRONG. Anytime I’ve been checked by a male doctor, it’s quick and easy. Minimal discomfort. EVERY SINGLE FEMALE DOCTOR that checked me at this hospital had to jab around a few times in there, and it was quite freaking painful to be honest.
Anyway, she checked me and broke my water. While she was still all up in my business letting my water break, she felt me go from a six to a seven just like that. So that was promising.
Everyone left the room, saying they would be back in half an hour to check on me and possibly up my Pitocin again.
As soon as they left my contractions got immensely worse. I was breathing through them the best that I could, but holy cow they were progressively getting unbearable. Leslie was all “don’t be a hero Tiffany! If you want your epidural before you push this baby out, now’s the time!” and I knew that I didn’t want to feel a baby ripping through my vagina without an epidural. So he pressed my call button and I asked the nurses if I could go ahead and get that out of the way.
While they were calling for the epidural, the nicest doctor (a neonatologist) from the NICU stepped in to chat with us. After all, the reason we were delivering at this hospital was because of their NICU situation, and their full staff of neuro-this-and-neuro-that doctors for babies.
He was the most calming doctor we had spoken with in over a month. I was half-naked on a table, breathing through the worst contractions of my life, dealing with the worst news of my life, and his words made everything feel lighter somehow.
He assured us that he wanted our baby to be able to stay in our room and not in the NICU. His goal was our goal. He also told us that he would be in the room for delivery, with his team, and he would personally do all of the newborn checks and inspections as soon as baby boy arrived. We would go from there.
He told us more stuff too, like that even when something goes wrong in a baby’s brain, it goes into overdrive trying to correct itself and carve new pathways to make up for whatever went wrong. He couldn’t make any promises as to the fate of our baby, but neither could anybody else. He made sure to tell us that any of the doctors that I’d seen prior, who had all but guaranteed the fate of our baby, were idiots. (Okay, he didn’t call them idiots, but he said that no one could speak to things like this, and that they should’ve never even tried)
I immediately wished we had spoken to him weeks ago at this point. The room felt lighter. It felt like someone finally had hope for our baby. Even though he basically told us what every one else had already said “we won’t know until we see him and check him out”, it was something about his delivery and demeanor that made us feel like a small weight had been lifted.
He left our room until delivery at this point.
The epidural people (I’m not a doctor here, don’t judge me) came in and we were ready to get started. They had me sit sideways on the bed while my nurse held my hands and had me bend forward and drop my shoulders. We waited out a few contractions in between whatever they were doing back there, and finally it was time to place the epidural. She told me to bend forward again, and y’all, I felt a gush roll out of me and down my legs. More of my water was breaking, or I was peeing, I wasn’t sure. My nurse assured me that it was fine. Just more water breaking.
This happened two more times, with the final time pouring down my nurse’s pant leg and onto her shoes too. I felt awful. I know I apologized to her so many times, and she was just so perfect and sweet, assuring me that this was far from the worst thing to happen to her. I still felt bad.
Anyway, once everything was set, everyone was leaving the room. The nurses said they would be back in like ten minutes to have me change positions, to make sure that the epidural was working properly and to insert a catheter since I could no longer walk to the bathroom.
They were gone for approximately ten seconds when a slew of contractions came over me. I guess Leslie could see the pain in my face and my grip on the bed, so he came and sat in bed with me, holding my hand and talking me through each one.
I don’t remember exactly how many of those had passed, but they were getting worse. I no longer felt them in my belly, and my legs were jelly at this point, but my lower right back and my entire downstairs were on fire! It honestly felt like I needed to poop the worst poop of my life. Leslie offered to carry me to the toilet (LOL), but I assured him that wasn’t an option.
So when my nurse came back in, we told her what was going on, and she so calmly checked me just to see how far I had progressed. Her hand went in, and her eyes got big: “it’s time to have this baby!”
I guess when my water finished breaking all over her shoes, I had finished dilating.
Leslie still freaks out about me almost missing my epidural. I’ll be honest, I’m still glad I got it, but I felt everything down there the entire time I was pushing. I keep telling myself that it would’ve been much worse had I not had the epidural at all.
She told me to try not to push, because the doctor was actually with another patient. We needed to hang tight for a few more minutes.
ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME???
So I tried that for a little while, literally death gripping the handle on the side of the bed through each contraction and the need to push; but when the doctor never came, she suggested that we do a couple of practice pushes. Two practice pushes in, and she could see his full head of hair. So we were doing this now!
The NICU team came in, a pediatric team came in, a team of delivery doctors (maybe residents) came in. Our room was full of people. It felt like a scene out of Grey’s Anatomy. (There were probably only a handful of people in a much larger room when I delivered Eleanor, as opposed to the twenty-ish head of people in this little labor and delivery room)
With each contraction, my nurse held my leg, told me to take a deep breath and PUSH 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1…. and again.
I had forgotten that feeling at the very beginning of pushing when you’re not able to see the finish line. When you’re pushing with everything in you, and you just don’t feel any progress.
As soon as that feeling came, it left when I heard them telling me that I was doing great and I just needed one more big push for his shoulders.
And out he came. Except I only heard a small few cries and then silence. The NICU guy (that we liked from earlier) had whisked him away to the other side of the room to do his checks.
Still no cries.
WHY ISN’T HE CRYING?? I remember asking the nurse, and she so calmly assured me that he was practicing. He’s fine. They’ve got him.
He was fine. And I finally heard him cry. And it was so beautiful. I can’t even explain to you how a cry can sound beautiful, except I knew it was possible because Eleanor’s crying at birth was the exact same. It was the sweetest sound.
Meanwhile back on the delivery table, the residents who delivered my baby were doing this fun thing (sarcasm) where they deliver your placenta. If you’ve never had a baby before, you might not even know that this is a thing.
Let me assure you that it is not fun.
I had an episiotomy with Eleanor, and my epidural actually had time to kick in with her, so I don’t remember it being so painful six years ago.
This time, however, lawd have mercy, that mess hurt. It was like delivering a second baby. Okay, maybe not quite that bad, but everything was already sore from delivering said baby, so it was quite uncomfortable to have people down there messing around.
Moving on.
Once the placenta was delivered, and everyone had commented on how nice of a placenta it was (Leslie was like wtf? lol); I feel like they were rinsing me off down there, checking things out. I remember asking if I tore, because no one even mentioned needing or wanting to cut me the way I had been before.
To my surprise, she said I didn’t tear at all! PRAISE THE LORD! Just a few scrapes (that freaking burn when I pee); but I’ll take scrapes over tears and/or stitches any day!
Finally, the room was starting to clear. I wanted to see my baby. I needed to know if he was okay or not.
I looked over, and one of the nurses or doctors was swaddling him up to hand him over to Leslie, who had already made his way across the room to where he was. There was a quick back and forth where Leslie was like “you can hold him first if you’re ready” and then I was all “no, it’s fine, you can hold him” and then I honestly can’t even remember who held him first at that point. But the exchange lightened the mood, for sure.
Eventually he was placed on my chest, and we just laid there. Finally together, earth side. The best feeling. I can’t even explain it.
Everything was sort of a blur from this point until we were moved into the room where we would be staying for the remainder of our time there.
According to Leslie, the NICU people thought that Shep looked perfectly healthy. He could stay in our room with us!
Also according to Leslie, I started pushing around 10:40am, and Shep made his arrival at 10:54am. (I pushed for twenty minutes with Eleanor, so the time was a bit shorter this go around).
We had no clue what the rest of our stay would hold, but having our baby in our arms, knowing that he was considered healthy, was enough in that moment.
Shep Cager Sumner
10:54am
6lbs 15.5oz
20.5 inches
