Odin's Birth Story: Episode I

Odin Andrew Ball was born at 2:15 a.m. on December 12, 2012. He weighed 6 pounds, 5 ounces, and he was 18.5 inches long. His arrival was a bit of a shock, because he wasn't due to be born until January 14. Since I'd had a normal, healthy pregnancy, I didn't expect Odin to come five weeks early.

My labor really started on Monday, December 10, though I didn't realize it at the time. I went to work that morning, and at around 9:00 a.m. my lower back started aching and I had some pain in my lower abdomen. At 11:30 a.m. I decided to go home. I knew I was having contractions here and there, but they weren't painful or strong, so I figured they were Braxton-Hicks contractions and were no big deal. But all I really wanted to do was lie down. I assumed I was just feeling "off" that day and hoped I'd feel better later on. I responded to all of my e-mails and headed home to rest; for the rest of the day I just laid on the couch and either napped or watched TV. I had a couple contractions in the evening that were more intense, but I still didn't think they were anything to worry about.

Monday night I went to bed and woke up at about 1:40 a.m. because I had to get up to pee; in my third trimester my bladder would typically wake me up twice during the night, and I'd usually wake up sometime around 1:30 for the first bathroom trip, so this was completely normal for me. I went back to bed, pulled up the covers, closed my eyes, and then BAM! my water broke. I leapt out of bed so fast I nearly fell when my feet hit the floor. I was so shocked that I had to sit down for a few minutes and try to wrap my brain around what was going on. I took a deep breath and said, "Okay. That just happened." Although I should’ve waited, I went ahead and woke Matt and let him know I would be calling the midwife to find out exactly what I needed to do. Since I wasn’t having painful contractions I told him we wouldn’t be in any huge rush even if we needed to get to the hospital. I called the midwife and she told me that I did need to come to the hospital, and that because my water had broken I definitely wouldn’t be able to leave once I was there. I hadn’t yet packed a bag to take to the hospital, so I gathered the things I would need and got everything ready to go. Then Matt and I drove to the hospital in the rain.

We arrived at the hospital at around 3:15 a.m. Thankfully I had pre-registered so I didn’t have a ton of paperwork to deal with when we got there. Matt and I were supposed to have had our tour of the birthing center on Tuesday evening, so obviously we didn’t need to attend since I was already admitted to the hospital by then. I got settled into my (huge) labor and delivery room, had blood taken (they needed to know my platelet count so that they’d know whether an epidural was an option for me since I’d had a very low platelet count 1-2 months prior), and answered a bunch of questions asked by a nurse. My blood pressure was surprisingly high (my BP had been normal throughout my pregnancy), but the midwife let me rest for a bit to see if it would go down on its own, and after a couple of hours it was back to normal. I figured I was just a bit anxious from the shock of my water breaking unexpectedly and knowing I was going to give birth five weeks early. A few hours later I was put on pitocin to strengthen my contractions and help labor to progress; since my water had broken, they wanted to deliver the baby as soon as possible, ideally within 24 hours. As the day went on, I did have stronger, more intense (and more painful) contractions, and they started to come closer together as well.

Later in the morning I took a shower and then tried to rest some more as labor progressed. The more pain I experienced, the hotter I became. I had the thermostat in the room turned down twice to make it cooler, and by Tuesday evening all of my poor family visitors were freezing. They each literally had two blankets covering them (see photo of Christi). I felt bad that they were so cold, but if I hadn’t lowered the temperature I think I would’ve melted. By early evening, my contractions had become so painful that I decided to get an epidural. I was very thankful that my platelet count was high enough that I had this option. I can honestly say I don’t remember anything at all about actually getting the epidural – I must’ve blocked the most painful part of the day from my memory; I don’t remember what the person looked like – or even whether it was a man or a woman – who administered it, and I don’t remember sitting up for it. But after a little while I felt soooo much better, and I was spending much less energy on just dealing with the pain.

Unfortunately, around 10:00 p.m. my blood pressure was very high again and the consulting doctor was concerned it might cause me to have seizures (eclampsia), so she made the decision to put me on magnesium to lower my blood pressure. I don’t know if you’ve ever been on magnesium, but it was the WORST. While it did lower my blood pressure, it also made me feel groggy, completely weak (I couldn’t even lift my legs up off the bed), and completely drained any energy I had left after laboring all day. Standard protocol is to keep a patient on magnesium for 24 hours after the baby is delivered, so unfortunately I had a whole lot more magnesium misery ahead of me. The magnesium also made me unable to focus my eyes, so for a whole day after Odin was born I couldn’t see straight; it felt like my eyes were crossed and I couldn’t un-cross them. Needless to say, I was thrilled when they finally stopped the magnesium – after a couple of hours, I was back to normal.

At sometime between 12:45-1:00 a.m. I started pushing. It was hard. I had no energy whatsoever. But Odin did finally make his entrance into the world and his exit from my uterus! I’ll cover that part of the experience in episode two.