birthday(s) continued

Right, so where was I?

Ah yes. 7AM Monday morning and no more steady contractions thanks to the sedatives, Bupain, I think. We were ever so slightly rested and extremely aggitated at the pace of the contractions. We hung around a little longer trying to figure out what to do. By that point the midwives switched shifts. Leigh Ann left and Kate came in. Kate took a look at the progress Kimmy was making and told her we needed to get out and walk around to see if we could jump start her labor again. We decided to give her mother a call, who had been chilling at our crib all this time, and ask her if they like to go get breakfast with us. We ended up going to Brueger's Bagels. Kimmy's mom paid for us all which was very generous of her, but I think it helped her feel better too by finally getting to do something for Kimmy. Apparently she also vaccuumed our house, fed the kitties and did the few dishes we had left dirty. I don't think she got any more sleep than we did. Her brother, on the other hand, promptly passed out when he got to our place. Anyways, we had bagels and walked around the Eastgate shopping area. Kimmy had maybe three contractions the whole time we were there. It was not encouraging. We headed back to the birth center around 10AM and sent Kimmy's folks back to our place.

When we got back to the Birth Center the midwife made a bunch of suggestions for promoting contractions. Kimmy started taking herbs, Suki's Blend of stuff to make babies shoot our of you. They also had Kimmy take castor oil, which acts as a laxative as well as promotes digestive contractions which, in theory, leads to uterine contractions. Yeah, that was also awesome. Not only was Kimmy plugged up by the baby pressing on her intestines, now she really really had to go to the bathroom. Which is all she could talk about for a good 3-4 hours there until we were able to convince the midwife and nurse, also a Kim, to administer an enema. Oh Boy! That was fun for all involved. I felt so bad for Kimmy. On the plus side, her contractions were getting to be regular again, about 10 miuntes apart by 3PM, but she still wasn't dilating fast enough, maybe 6cm by this point. The Birth Center folks were telling us we might have to go to the hospital since, by that point, it'd been over 24 hours since Kimmy's water broke. This caused Kimmy to get very very upset. She did not want to go to the hospital. We were pretty committed to a natural childbirth experience. They agreed to let us keep trying natural methods to promote labor.

Right around this point I had the idea to call an acupuncturist to come see if they could jump start things for Kimmy. I called her work and got a hold of her boss, Chris, and told him the situation. He called his wife, Toby, who was at home with their one year old, Eljah. She dropped him off at her folks place and ran by the acupuntcure clinic then headed straight to the Birth Center. She was there in 30 minutes from the time I called Chris. She jabbed Kimmy all full of needles and hooked her up to electrodes to continually stimulate the points. She looked like a pin cushion with wires everywhere. Not long after that her contractions started coming closer together. We felt like we were on the right track again, finally at about 5PM.

Toby left and we settled into our very familiar routine of contractions and pushing on Kimmy's back. This went on for another good long while. We tried the tub to see if that would comfort her, but I couldn't reach her back while she was in the tub so she got back out. We'd been planning a water birth along so we were going to save it for later since she still hadn't moved into active labor again. More contractions and pushing. We did this so much that Kimmy actually developed carpal tunnel from pushing back against the bed during her contractions. At 8PM the midwives switched shifts again. Kate was on her way out and Sarah was on her way in. Yes. Three shifts if midwives. We'd been there far too long. Also, at some point before the midwives switched out, Kimmy's mother came by the Birth Center and dropped off my apartment key. She had to go home because they both had work the next day. I guess they didn't realize this would become a multi-day extravaganza. I felt really bad for them, but there wasn't anything we could do.

Sarah said that Kimmy was still hanging out around 6cm when she did her exam and told us to keep trying the herbs and tinctures and voodoo which we did. Kimmy was very very worn out at this point having been in labor since the previous morning. I kept trying to get her to eat and drink things, but she'd only take water or Gatorade and maybe a cookie and a trailmix bar. The lasagna sat basically untouched this whole time. Kimmy was so tired that she was passing out between contractions and once even during one. She just busted out with something to the effect of, "but the chicken's still in the fridge!" I was a little perplexed until she said she'd passed out.

Kimmy was in too much pain to lay down during contractions so I pulled a rocking chair up next to the bed and covered it with pillows so she could sit back and rest then stand up and lean over the bed when she had a contraction. I sat on a birth ball next to her the whole time feeling pretty tired myself. The contractions had peaked at about 5 minutes apart earlier in the evening, but they were starting to fall off a bit. Kimmy's uterus was getting too worn out to manage the labor. The midwife, Sarah, came in about 10PM or so and told us that the hospital was really the best place to handle this since it'd gone this long. They needed to induce Kimmy with Oxytocin, which they didn't have at the Birth Center. She also mentioned an epidural to give Kimmy some relief. She explained the whole process and told us that she'd meet us there to get everything set up and going. I expected Kimmy to protest and try to hang on to her idea of a natural childbirth, but she'd been at it for about 36 hours and was so worn out and tired that she just nodded and quietly said, "yes."

more in a bit