Pregnancy #1
In my first pregnancy, I knew the “rule” for heading to the hospital is when you have contractions 5 minute apart, lasting 1 minute each, for at least 1 hour. However, my body didn’t have a gradual progression through labor. After about 24 hours of mild, irregular contractions, with one check at the hospital that resulted in being sent home, I very suddenly started having extremely painful contractions very close together. The pain and fear were prolonged by roadwork on the way to the hospital. Then, due to a nurse from my OB group mistakenly communicating with the wrong hospital, our arrival was a surprise. I was sobbing in pain and trying to answer registration questions between strong contractions. I was offered an epidural right away. I told them I hadn’t wanted an epidural, but needed something to help. I wasn’t offered alternatives, so I consented to the epidural. Once I was comfortable and composed, I was told that the anesthesiologist had been about to place another woman’s epidural, but they had him do mine first because of how much pain I was in. I felt so guilty about that. Was this just what labor feels like for everyone, and I cut the line for relief? A few hours later, I had a healthy baby girl. Although thrilled to have my healthy baby, I was disappointed in myself. I thought that I hadn’t been as strong as most other women. I felt embarrassed for causing a scene, and was very hung up on the idea that if I had already been at the hospital receiving support before labor got that intense, I’d have been able to handle it better. I was frustrated that my labor experience mainly consisted of being in the car, scared and in horrible pain, while my husband had to focus on driving.
Pregnancy #2
When I was pregnant again a couple years later, I was determined to make my second birth a better experience. I kept asking at prenatal appointments whether I should gauge when to go to the hospital differently this time, explaining that I never had a typical gradual progression in my first labor. I kept getting told, “it’s your second baby; you’ll know when you’re in labor. They generally let you get admitted a little earlier with your second pregnancy.” In the last couple weeks of pregnancy, I started experiencing episodes of contractions. They were always 7-8 minutes apart, but they would completely stop after an hour. I was told this was prodromal labor, and that I should call if contractions lasted longer than an hour or got stronger. I had an appointment on my due date, and the doctor reiterated this information. I believe he swept membranes while he was checking my cervix, although he didn’t specifically say so. The next evening, after putting my daughter to bed and settling on the couch with my husband, I felt a contraction and started timing. The first couple were like I’d experienced all week- slightly uncomfortable, about 7-8 minutes apart. Suddenly, the next one was extremely painful. This was definitely labor. My husband immediately called his mother to come stay with my daughter, while I called the OB number to talk to a nurse. I was having intense contractions a few minutes apart. When the nurse heard that my contractions had only started about 15 minutes prior, she told me she would check with the doctor on duty, but that I’d likely be asked to wait longer at home. My husband and I planned to drive there regardless, but they did give the all clear to head in. My mother-in-law lives very close and arrived a few minutes later. I was crouching in the kitchen, hugging a door frame. It had only been about 25 minutes since my first contraction, but I was in extreme pain and eager to be at the hospital. I only had to walk about 30 feet to the car, so I waited for a contraction to end and started walking, but I had to stop halfway to crouch down on my front steps for a contraction. I was trying to stay calm, hoping that I was better prepared this time for the brutal car ride, now that I had done it before. We actually live right next to a hospital, but it’s not the one where I was meant to deliver and isn’t affiliated with my OB group. We briefly considered just going there when I had to crouch on my front steps, but my husband and I both thought we should go to our planned hospital that was expecting us, about 25 minutes away. The thought of showing up at a hospital that wasn’t expecting me reminded me of my first birth, and I thought I’d probably spend as much time going through registration as I would be spending in the car to go to the correct hospital. Since this abrupt onset of intense contractions was so similar to my first labor, we thought we had plenty of time. The ride was going to be awful again, but if I could tough it out, I’d then have a smooth check-in at the hospital and be able to focus on getting through labor. The sooner we got there, the sooner I’d have support through the pain.
During the drive, the pain was getting even worse and I started panicking that we wouldn’t make it in time. My husband tried reassuring me, but I kept urging him to drive as fast as he could. About 10 minutes into the drive, halfway to the hospital, my water broke with startling force. My husband was still trying to reassure me, but he started sounding more nervous. We were on the highway, speeding around other cars. The contractions were unbearable now, and I told him I needed to start pushing.
Once I felt more certain we weren’t going to make it to the hospital in time, I realized I had to accept the situation and try to stay calm to make this as safe as possible. Instead of begging my husband to drive faster, I urged him to drive only as fast as he felt he safely could. The route to the hospital is tricky, so we were using GPS on my husband’s phone. I asked him to call 911, but he would get lost without the directions and said we were close enough that it would be faster and safer to keep driving, rather than pulling over on the side of the highway in the dark and waiting for help. I was pushing through contractions, and in between I would ask my husband how close we were to the hospital and remind him to drive “fast but safe.” I pushed my pants down to my knees, reclined my seat as far as I could, and scooted onto the back of the seat to make room on the seat itself for the baby to arrive. We were taking the exit towards the hospital and I felt like I had the baby’s head out, but I was afraid to reach down and feel with my hands to check. We pulled up next to the ER entrance, and I asked my husband to look. The color drained from his face and he told me “everything’s ok,” then ran inside for help. His reaction scared me. He later told me that what he had seen had been the whole top half of the baby’s head crowning.
While he was gone, I had a few more contractions and kept pushing. I felt myself tear, and my baby was out. It was dark in the car, and I was still holding myself up awkwardly on the seat back. I couldn’t see my baby the way I was positioned, and I was afraid to move and accidentally hurt her, so I waited for help to arrive. The car was completely silent. What if the baby wasn’t ok and it was my fault? I felt guilty that I hadn’t been strong enough to refrain from pushing until I was at the hospital. My husband came running back out (he later told me he had only run in as far as the security desk and yelled to a guard that his wife was having a baby in the car). He opened my door and held our baby up off the seat a bit. Seconds later, a team of people rushed out with a stretcher and then four nurses were in the car with me. One picked up the baby, and finally, there was a cry. Through the window, I saw my husband standing nearby looking dazed, still very pale, with his hands and coat covered in blood. There was so much blood all over the car and nurses. They clamped and cut the cord. I asked if the baby was ok (yes, thank goodness) and if I’d had a boy or a girl (girl!). One nurse rushed her inside and had my husband follow. I was brought in on a stretcher a few minutes later, and had to deliver the placenta and get stitched up. My memories of this are a bit of a blur, still coming off an adrenaline rush. The room was loud, and it seemed like there were a lot of people. My daughter was screaming the whole time as they checked her over and asked me questions. Luckily, my daughter was in perfect condition. I still felt guilty; I was GBS positive and supposed to get penicillin during labor to protect her. Not only had we not received the antibiotics, but she’d been born on the seat of a Honda CR-V, after a dangerously fast car ride. The nurses estimated the time of birth for the chart, and it was less than an hour from the time my call log says I called the OB office from home when contractions started. I found out later this is called a “precipitous birth,” which is a birth 3 hours or less from the start of labor.
Postpartum, I had mixed feelings. I felt somewhat proud of myself for getting through it, and validated about my first labor- I now knew my body progresses through labor in a very untypical way, giving me very little warning and no time to adjust (I believe the epidural in my first birth was the only reason it hadn’t been precipitous). But I also grieved the experience I’d missed. I had envisioned being in the safety of the hospital by the time things got tough, trying out various coping techniques taught in birthing class, with my husband’s support. I was also frustrated that all my preparations had been in vain, and that I hadn’t been able to make my medical team understand ahead of time my concerns about when to head to the hospital. I kept wondering if I could have done something differently. I criticized myself about how I hadn’t been the first one to pick up my daughter and check her when she was born. I was so shocked and worried about doing more harm than good that I waited a minute until help came. I wanted to talk about it all, but I found people were mostly interested in hearing about the wild ride, without the gory details.
Pregnancy #3
Part of the discussion about whether to have another baby involved how to plan for another precipitous delivery. I got pregnant in January 2020, then of course, the pandemic hit the US, adding another layer of anxiety. I constantly brought up birth planning with my midwife. On my way to an ultrasound, I drove through an intersection near the hospital. I remembered driving through there while birthing my daughter, and instantly my heart rate was up and I was anxious. I had tons of contractions in the third trimester, and would get scared, thinking at any point, these light contractions may just turn into active labor and I’d give birth wherever I was. My husband was also nervous any time I felt a little crampy, frequently asking me if we needed to go to the hospital. My midwife was amazing and empathetic to my anxiety throughout the pregnancy. She took the time to listen to my concerns and reassure me and discuss plans for birth. Still, any time contractions started, I didn’t know whether it was going to be a short bout of Braxton Hicks, or if I would be giving birth within the hour.
Together with the midwife, we decided on a scheduled induction to ensure I’d deliver in the hospital. We didn’t have any babysitters because of covid, so we planned for my husband to stay with the kids and I would go to the hospital alone. Induction was booked for exactly 39 weeks, but I got bumped for two more days because of more urgent cases, which further increased my anxiety. Also, my amazing midwife that we’d been hoping to be scheduled with was going to be unavailable, but she assured me she had thoroughly briefed all the other midwives on my case.
When my husband dropped me off, I panicked during the drive because I felt like I was close to going into labor on my own and worried I wouldn’t get there in time. When I arrived, I was 2cm dilated and having very mild contractions like I’d been having in recent days. After getting my first dose of Misoprostol, I was left to try to sleep before the next dose. Instead, shortly after the nurse left, I called her back in because I’d had two strong contractions. When they came back to my room, the midwife offered to get a bath filled for me to make me more comfortable, and I realized they didn’t understand how close to delivery I was. I was having another contraction before I could really say much. They spoke to each other at the foot of my bed about what course of action to take. I was now completely discouraged. I thought I’d done everything to make sure this delivery would be better. I wanted someone to keep me calm and remind me that I could get through this. It felt like I was laboring alone again, despite the good intentions of my team, because I couldn’t communicate my needs well at this stage. I started crying between contractions that I couldn’t do it and wanted pain meds. They offered an epidural, but I knew there was no time. The midwife checked my cervix and sounded surprised when she announced I was 8cm. I told them I had to push. They quickly set up and hurried to get nitrous oxide for me. A few minutes later, my son was born. It had only been about 45 minutes since I’d called the nurse into the room, and it felt like a chaotic blur.
The Effect of Precipitous Deliveries
A weird effect of precipitous delivery is the shock of going from pregnancy to holding your child seemingly a moment later. I don’t remember the golden hour, except that I think I heard a woman in another room celebrate a birth with her partner, and I had called my husband to let him know we’d had our son. I felt sad that I hadn’t been as mentally present as I’d wanted to be, and hadn’t had a chance to FaceTime my husband for the birth like we planned. Again, I felt like I’d failed to make things go smoother. I was GBS positive again, and even with a scheduled induction, my baby hadn’t received adequate protection because my penicillin wasn’t started early enough. We needed to stay an extra night at the hospital, during a pandemic and without my husband, so my son could be monitored. Luckily, I had a few really good nurses postpartum who took my son to the nurses’ station for a few hours two of the nights, so I could get a little sleep. I don’t blame my L&D team, because I know my labors are highly unusual, but I also don’t think I could have advocated for myself any more than I had, and was confused at their surprise when my labor went so quickly. I think there needs to be more effort in the L&D community to trust that women know their bodies and to understand that mother nature doesn’t read the textbooks and doesn’t always follow the “rules.”
The Author
My name is Sarah, and I’m a stay-at-home mom to three in the Boston area. I enjoy coffee, painting, home improvement, and all things creative.
