Seamus’s Birth Story – 03/19/23

** My birth story with Seamus is MUCH different than my story with Fergus. There may be some graphic details, however, not as graphic as Fergus’s. This birth does involve numerous medical interventions if those themes are triggering for you. 

My first pregnancy, birth, and postpartum were vastly different than that of my most recent experience with my second child. That being said, I am still grateful for a safe delivery and that Seamus was born healthy. 

Pregnancy with him seemed to drag on forever, especially as I have to supplement with progesterone injections. If you’ve experience needing IM progesterone, I sympathize with you greatly. The last month of my pregnancy I also was quite sick, as in going from a GI bug that triggered preterm labor to a sinus infection to severe strep including a double ear infection that I was still suffering from when I delivered. 

I had prodromal labor from 34 weeks until 40 weeks pregnant when I was induced due to being so sick. I initially went into the hospital for pain relief from my ear infection. My blood pressure was elevated due to the pain which of course won me a trip to labor and delivery triage. Seamus was looking great on the monitor, I was already contracting every 3-6 minutes, and in my head I was thinking I’d get to leave and have the homebirth I’d been planning for months. That was until my labs came back and my midwife informed me that her professional opinion was I was too sick to successfully deliver at home. Instead, the OB admitted me to start our induction. I was already 4 cm dilated and 60% effaced from the prodromal labor so that left only pitocin as our option for getting labor going. I still wanted to try going without an epidural so we started pitocin low and decided to work our way up. It was 11pm when we’d first arrived in the ER and we got admitted to the floor at 6am so both Sean and I were completely exhausted. We were able to get a couple hours of sleep before contractions became more intense. If you’re planning on having an unmedicated birth or are having a baby in the future, I highly recommend avoiding pitocin if at all possible. It made contractions quite strong and it quickly became difficult to breathe through them. I tried walking around, doing hip circles and rocking on the birthing ball, standing and swaying, and pretty much anything else I could think of to cope. Sean was applying counter pressure and providing verbal/emotional support. Several hours later and I hadn’t made any change in dilation but was 80% effaced. I felt incredibly defeated as I’d been doing all of that work for seemingly nothing. We agreed at that point to rupture my bag of water. Seamus’s head was already quite engaged so it wasn’t the movie-esque waterfall but more of a small gush then steady trickle. I continued my techniques of trying to cope through contractions and trying to relax. Truth be told, contractions were more bearable after rupturing my water as there was less “pressure”. 

After nearly 12 hours of laboring on pitocin, my nurse offered a single dose of IV pain medication so we could try to get my body to relax more and I could get some rest. Mind you, I’ve been coughing this whole time and physically felt miserable going into labor and in the triage room both of my eardrums ruptured. So my whole labor my ears have also been leaking and my head throbbing although my blood pressure did drop to nearly normal range with the relief of pressure in my head. Almost as soon as I’ve gotten settled into bed, Seamus begins not tolerating contractions. His heart rate was dropping from 120s to the 60s with each contraction and no position changes we did helped. We tried an amniofusion, where saline is infused back into the uterus after your water has been broken to attempt to give the baby more cushion and relieve decelerations in their heart rate. The amniofusion caused the worst contractions I have ever felt in my life, even compared to transition in a natural birth. It truly felt like my abdomen was going to rip open with each contraction. It had been nearly an hour of Seamus not tolerating contractions and a whole team of medical personnel were making their way into my room with the thought that any longer and we’d be needing an emergency cesarean section. At this point my whole low-intervention birth plan had gone out the window and I at least wanted to be awake for the birth of my son. I opted to get the epidural and while the anesthesiologist was getting ready, there was an emergency with another laboring mom and as quickly as my room had filled, it was nearly empty again. As the anesthesiologist was getting my back numbed and my nurse was holding me in position as I cried through the intense contractions, there was a call for my anesthesiologist in the emergency that was taking place. For over 15 minutes we waited. The anesthesiologist made it back to us and the epidural was placed. As we were getting ready to sign consents for a c-section, Seamus’s heart rate leveled back out as he began tolerating contractions again. Wanting to see if this was a fluke, we tried changing my position. His heart rate maintained a healthy, steady number. Our panic began to subside and eventually we settled in to FINALLY get some rest after basically being awake for well over 24 hours with only a couple hours nap. 

At some point pitocin was restarted. I woke up a few times during the night, but the epidural was so heavy that I couldn’t feel any contractions. My fatigue-addled sick brain just reasoned I could sleep it off and be ready for delivery despite having the epidural pump set for spaced out yet regular doses. Around 2:45 am on Sunday the 19th, I wake up to some increased pressure in my pelvis, but again nothing too crazy. Just as I was going to call the nurse, she happened to walk in to check my cervix again. She basically just pulled back the covers and said “Well, his head is right there so I’m going to call the doctor in here and we’re going to do some practice pushes”. Sean woke up just as I was starting to push, much to his shock and surprise. Despite not being able to feel anything below my waist, I only pushed for 20 minutes with the doctor just barely making it in time. Not enough time to turn off of my back for delivery to prevent tearing. Seamus came flying out into the world, screaming as they placed him on my chest. It was a surreal moment. It truly didn’t feel like I had just given birth and my brain was trying to wrap itself around the fact that the baby on my chest was the one I had been loving on for 9 months already. Sean cut the cord after some delayed clamping while the resident stitched up my 2nd almost 3rd degree tear. Then shortly after, my room emptied again as quickly as it had filled. 

We were moved to the mother baby unit and recovery began. From birth, from sickness, from the whiplash of almost everything on my birth plan going wrong. Recovery was rough. Physically, I couldn’t sit comfortably until well after the six week mark due to the tightness of the stitches. Emotionally and mentally, I was filled with anxiety and fell into postpartum depression. During pregnancy you hear all of the horror stories and after suffering a loss myself, I was so scared something would happen to my newborn. I recovered from sickness shortly after delivering, however, it took a couple months to fully regain my hearing after my eardrums ruptured. It was a long road and with my mental state being what it was, it felt like it took even longer. I felt better when I was able to get outside and walk around, but I didn’t want to nor did I have the energy to. I struggled to do anything for myself and poured everything into caring for Seamus. Fortunately, even though he had a long going on for classes, Sean kept us afloat and tried to make sure I was still eating and getting showers, etc. Sean has taken so much initiative during my postpartum period with our second and I feel much better and more capable this time around despite also having a very energetic toddler along with a newborn. 

Remember, pregnancy/labor/birth/postpartum are all different for each woman and even each baby. If you are experiencing postpartum anxiety and/or depression, please don’t try to stick it out like I did and just get help. It’ll make your postpartum experience so much easier. 

Thanks for reading!