Birth

Preeclampsia gets worse until the baby is out.  On September 23rd, I had a normal NST where Jackson looked fine.  My blood pressure was about what it had been, around 150/95, but on the way home I noticed my ankles starting to swell.  This is usually normal in pregnancy, but shouldn't have been happening since I was on bed rest.  The next day I was significantly swollen.  By the afternoon it hadn't gone down, and my BP was up to 155/100 ish.  I weighed myself and noticed I had gained about 10 lbs since a few days before.  This is a major warning sign, so I called the office.  My midwife set up an NST for the next day, Saturday.  That day, my blood pressure was in the 160/100s.  My blood work was still normal, but my urine was still a mess and we decided to induce.

A pitocin induction was the LAST thing I wanted.  I was absolutely terrified.  But with my BP that high, I was really worried my placenta would abrupt or I would stroke or seize, or that Jackson would stop being okay.  I had also really wanted a natural birth, without pain meds.  That more than likely wouldn't be possible, since pain further increases BP.  I also knew Jackson was posterior, facing up, so I was fully expecting back labor, though I didn't really know what that meant.  I was absolutely terrified as they wheeled me up to Labor and Delivery. 

When the started the Pitocin, it took a little while to get contractions going.   It seemed like my uterus reacted to the pitocin by grumbling rather than actually contracting.  It stayed tense enough that I was having too many "contractions" to increase the pitocin, but not strong enough contractions to profress labor.  I didn't want to let them break my water until Jackson had a chance to either turn or lock into my pelvic bone, even though they wanted to to break the weird contraction pattern.  By midnight, I was dealing contractions lasting several minutes and not totally releasing tension.  At this point the back labor was so intense I was barely maintaining control.  I have no idea what real contractions feel like because all I could feel was the intense pain/pressure in my lower back. I couldn't feel the actual contractions about that at all.  Although I had an incredible nurse who got be an excercize ball and waas helping me use it, she had to keep jabbing me in the stomach with the fetal monitor to make sure Jackson was still okay.  It helped to be on the ball, but I was too distracted by her holding the monitor into me to feel real relief.  It was a bad angle. In a healthy pregnancy, I wouldn't have done this.  Continuous fetal monitoring is unneeded in most cases, but I was really afraid of abruption because of the high blood pressure.

The back labor, inability to move around, and jabbing made me decide to get the epidural.  I really struggled with this decision.  I was intensely disappointed in myself for not being able to handle it.  In hindsight, I think I could have handled it had I not been so scared for me and Jackson, immobile (I could sit on the ball, but not stand or walk), and monitored.  I'm also glad I did, because my blood pressure dropped to safe levels.  I think this means I might have gotten a spinal headache from too low BP if mine wasn't so high.  I know it had gone up more once labor was really going.  In any case, the epidural didn't hurt at all, and provided complete relief from the back labor.  But I have to say, the catheter was really uncomfortable.  If I get an epidural again I'll ask if I can just use a bed pan every so often instead.  By midnight Jackson had turned and decended into my pelvis, so I let the midwife break my water.  That's when I found out one reason why I was so huge.  It POURED and POURED and POURED.  My belly seriously felt half as light after the initial draining.  I was suprised at how much of a difference it made.  I felt like I was 2 months less pregnant.  As it turns out, I had an unusually high amount of fluid.