My Birth Story: Welcome to the World Kassiyan Poznyak!

Well, it has been a while! I have not forgotten about my blog. My hands have just been *literally* full lately. As you can guess since I haven’t had any more pregnancy updates I obviously had our little bundle of joy, Kassiyanchik. Boy, I have lots to say but the first post I want to make is my labor story. 5 Weeks pp and counting and I still haven’t gotten a chance to sit down and share it on here. I actually started writing it I think 2 weeks pp, but then my laptop screen broke so now I can’t even continue off of that and have to start all over again! Oh boy!

Anyway, to try to get this done in one sitting, let’s cut to the chase. It was a very difficult labor. And I am not just saying that because this is my first baby and all that but it was not your typical labor experience that is for sure.

It all started on June 16- it was a Sunday. I started having really bad pressure/bone pain. Which I remember at that point I had those pains constantly but if I were to lay down or take a bath I would be able to find some comforting position. Not this time. I couldn’t walk, sit or lay. I remember hubby and I actually set up our big computer monitor in our bedroom that day to watch the Hangover 2, and I just could not find a comfortable place in bed.

On top of that my whole body started aching, and I started to feel like I was getting a fever. I took a bath, got out of the bath and that didn’t help with anything. After that I could feel I actually was burning up, and had a fever of 102.3 I believe. I took Tylenol and laid in bed thinking about what on earth could be happening. I don’t have a cold and was thinking of whether or not to call the hospital or not. It was Sunday night and I remember being the most concerned about making hubby go with me. If it wasn’t a big deal he would spend all night in the hospital with me and then have to wake up at 6 to go to work. After thinking it over I called the hospital.

At that point, the fever dropped immediately after the Tylenol and I even felt silly calling. But the hospital told me since I have a fever and being 39 weeks already that I should come in anyway just in case. We packed everything with us this time. Because when we went to the hospital back at 18 weeks for the kidney infection we thought we would come back that same night and didn’t bring anything with us and stayed there for about 4 days I believe. So this time we took everything- just in case I would stay or even have to stay to have the baby we took everything. But both of us for some reason had this feeling that the fact that we were actually prepared that nothing would happen this time.

Anyway, getting to the hospital we were under Dr. Graham’s care, the doctor that I really liked last time we were there during my kidney infection. His first guess to what was going on was that I was having another kidney infection again. He said I was prone to another one more likely since I already had one. So they took my blood and urine. Urine came back clear, but my blood showed a high white blood cell count basically showing that there is some sort of infection in my body. He said it would be very difficult to figure out what is exactly going on, it could be a variety of things, but he said it was definitely pregnancy related and that the cure at this point was to get baby out. They didn’t even really offer the option of an induction but more so said IT HAS to be done at this point.

I was happy that finally I was going to have our baby but was very nervous about ending up in a C-section. That was the one thing I wanted to avoid. And I told him my concern, and knowing I was only 1cm dilated and a lot of women who aren’t ready most likely won’t progress and therefore will have a C-section. He told me that is not the case and said that he does not expect me to have a c section and he himself wants to avoid one, but I should not think that it will not happen because you never know what to expect. I mean at this point what was I going to do? I had some sort of infection going on and baby had to come out!

I did ask him about Cervadil though. A friend of mine mentioned it to me a few weeks prior, that sometimes it is more effective to start Cervadil before Pitocin because it can help open up and soften the cervix a little more. Dr. Graham agreed with me and instead of starting me on Pitocin right away we tried the Cervadil first. It was just inserted and kept in there for 12 hours. So it they started me on it at midnight Sunday onto Monday. That started contractions for me, and closer to the 12 hours my water broke. But when they checked me at noon on Monday I was still only 1cm dilated. So they started the Pitocin. Contractions slowly started to get more frequent and a little stronger. I don’t exactly remember when they got pretty bad, but when they did that is when I started screaming. It was BAD!  So for 8 hours of screaming (from 12 -8pm) they checked me and I was only 2cm dilated. At that point I remember I was SO sure I was so close to pushing and that I did such a good job without needing or asking for an epidural! But when they told me I was only 2cm I knew I wouldn’t be able to make it through another 8 cm. So I caved in.

The midwife came in who was on duty ( Michele Rhude) and asked “ Oh, you’re feeling crampy?” I remember thinking to myself this is much more than crampy! I wouldn’t be screaming if I was just feeling crampy for goodness sake! Anyway, she recommended giving me some sort of other pain relief meds that would be given via IV to me and see if that works first. At that point I didn’t care; I wanted something to help because I was just beyond exhausted from the pain and from screaming.

Well, whatever they gave me, I literally passed out 2 mins later! I remember vaguely starting to fade away and told Zhenya “I am about to be knocked out- don’t ask me any serious questions, I can’t answer them.” LOL I passed out for 1.5 hours at 9:30 pm, woke up feeling very drowsy still but feeling those intense contractions again- screaming. So they started prepping me for an epidural. This was something, since they had to give me the whole talk about all the side effects and with me screaming every 5 minutes they had to do it with pauses. Also sticking the needle in me I had to be perfectly still and it was impossible to do when I was having painful contractions.

This is also when Hubby almost passed out. I was sitting on the edge of the bed my arms around my husband’s neck and me basically screaming in his face and grabbing him very tightly with each contraction. At this point they are in detail describing how I have to poke out my spine so they can insert the needle in between specific bones. Hubby is hearing all this, also seeing the huge needle (he is very queasy around needles, and I am kind of glad I didn’t see it lol) and I am screaming in his face he is just hot and starts feeling very lightheaded. Right after the IV pain med they gave me I was in a dream almost and remember things in pieces. They called another nurse up for back up and put him on a chair and gave him juice, LOL.

Anyway, the epidural was in, and I don’t really remember it hurting as much (going in that is.) I think it was because I had other pain that was bothering me and also I was just so out of it at that point. After the epidural kicked in I passed out for the night. I wake up at 5am because my one side was no longer numb, they told me it works with gravity sometimes to turn over to the other side and it could help- but I couldn’t really move with being numb so I needed help with that, lol. Anyway, they checked me and I was 7cm dilated! For 24 hours I only opened 1cm and all of a sudden after a few hours so much progression. Some people say if you are tense and stressed you won’t get anywhere, but if you are calm the more likely it is that you will progress. I think when my body finally got a break and I actually slept that is when the most progression happened.

Oh, I forgot to mention, the whole time I was at the hospital I didn’t have my fever return even once (until I started pushing.) I was also on antibiotics the whole time I was there. 1- for my infection, and 2- Group B strep. So at about 8:30am on Tuesday they checked me and I was fully open and ready to push. At this point my left side was no longer numb and I could feel pain and contractions, but it was tolerable. Pushing felt silly because it was like I was pushing to poop but nothing was coming out.

After a little bit, the pain and contractions started to get more painful that I started screaming again. This was the peak of pain I was in. I was in so much pain that I was hysterical- I couldn’t even push with the contractions anymore because it was so painful. I was crying, ripping my hairs out, scratching myself, I didn’t know what to do with myself. And everyone was just in my face. I had my husband holding my left leg, a nurse holding my right leg, a midwife and a doctor and another nurse all staring and yelling at me. “This is YOUR baby!” “You need to PUSH” “Listen to me!” “Stop screaming!” “Calm down!” “Look at me!” Just repeating the same stuff over and over again. And the fact was I completely understood that I had to come down, I know it is my baby- my goodness! I know I have to push- but I didn’t have the words or energy to explain to them in how much pain I was in and all I could come out with saying was “ I can’t” and “It hurts!” I was begging for some relief, because I legit couldn’t even push. The midwife kept saying how she doesn’t recommend me to get anything so I can feel the contractions I told her I will push I will do whatever I need to I just need some sort of relief, so they finally agreed and called some nurse to get me something.

At this point, everything started to go wrong. My fever was back again, I was at 103. Baby’s heart rate started dropping, I literally could not fight through myself to push, and baby’s head was right there already. They started prepping a room up for a C-section already. I remember feeling so sad and hopeless at that point, and I remember my husband trying to tell them NO C section. By some miracle- truly a miracle… the nurse came and gave me something in my IV again. And the pain wasn’t as bad, it was still very painful but I was able to push! So I started pushing again with all my might. Baby’s head would come out and then get sucked back in, so they took out the Vacuum. I remember my husband seeing the head and being so excited and trying to encourage me to continue pushing (which I was surprised because he usually gets queasy at these things.) They ended up using a vacuum and giving me an episiotomy but by some miracle our little baby boy came out! 8 lbs 11 ounces, 20 inches of pure joy! Our little Kassiyanchik! 34.5 hours of labor, 2 hours of pushing, born at 10:29 am on June 18!

They ended up then telling me that I had an infection of the amniotic fluid- Corio. Therefore both baby and I will need antibiotics after labor. Poor baby had an IV as well :(

Regardless, we were able to avoid the c section, thank God. I was put on a cathadar and apparently I was so swollen down there one nurse could not find my urethra. She poked around in there- and that was so painful that I was screaming again :/ She had to call another nurse and 2 nurses were poking around to find my urethra as I was screaming from pain. Oh boy.

Anyway, that is all over, but that was my wonderful birth story… main point is our little miracle is finally here and we couldn’t be any happier.