I’ve often heard other women describe their labors as “short but intense”, and I’ve been a bit skeptical of how that could be worse than a labor that stops and starts and keeps you awake for three days, but still becomes very intense at the end, which is what several of mine have been like. I think now I understand.

Due to my age, my history of high blood pressure, and Gus’s Down syndrome diagnosis, I was scheduled to be induced on April 26th, when I would have been 38 weeks exactly. But all along, something told me that as soon as I reached 37 weeks, something would trigger a chain of events that would bring him sooner. With both Freya and Milo, I was induced due to high blood pressure, and the stress of knowing that was not helping my blood pressure to behave this time around. In the end, it was not my blood pressure that misbehaved, but a 24-hour urine sample with a bit of protein in it, signaling the early stages of preeclampsia.

Thankfully, the midwife who triaged me that Friday, April 21st, took pity on my situation and asked if I’d like to go home first and come in a few hours later (she shared with me a very amusing cautionary tale about another mom who was sent straight to her induction without going home first: her husband had packed her bag for her and included some rather unhelpful undergarments! But I had my own reasons for wanting to go home first…) That morning, my sister Chelsea had been visiting for what we knew would likely be our last double bump photo. She had stayed with the kids while I had my appointment, and I was able to go home and squeeze her one last time before heading to the hospital at around 5.

If you could see the scribbled prayer requests of the lovely ladies at my Bible study table at our last meeting on April 20th, you would see that I was specifically praying to go into labor on my own and not need to be induced. That very afternoon, (warning, TMI labor details ahead…) I began to have some mild contractions and lose my mucus plug. The next day, during the few hours I had at home in between my appointment and going back to the hospital for my induction, I continued to have some very mild contractions, and my water broke! This was one of so many specific answers to prayer surrounding Gus’s arrival that I know I will not even remember to list them all, but this one felt huge, because it was more than a week earlier than I had ever gone into labor on my own.

Because of my head start on labor, when I arrived for my induction, the team decided to skip the early step I had had with Freya’s and Milo’s inductions (a drug called cytotec used to soften the cervix) and go straight to pitocin to bring on stronger contractions. My nurse started pitocin at about 7:45 pm.

There was no midwife on call on the overnight shift that began shortly after we arrived. That may be part of why this induction was so different from my other two inductions, which lasted 48 and 36 hours. While I was bracing myself for a long, slow labor like my others, my nurse began turning my pitocin up and up and up again. By 10 pm I could tell I wasn’t coping nearly as well as I usually do in early labor. I struggled through the next hour of long, intense contractions two minutes apart, and finally called my nurse in a tearful panic.

I told her this didn’t feel like my other labors, and that I wasn’t coping well at this level of pitocin. Thankfully, she listened to me. She told me she trusted my judgement, because I had done this so many times before. She suggested stopping the pitocin completely for an hour to give me a rest and see what my body would do on its own, and she told me she’d be back at midnight to check on me.

But that rest never came, and neither did my nurse! The contractions spaced out to 3 or 4 minutes apart, but they stayed strong. By midnight I was very ready for my nurse to come back and check on me. I was coping better, but still feeling like I’d need some pain relief if I still had a whole night or more of hard labor ahead of me. We could hear the delivery happening down the hall that kept my nurse from returning at midnight when she said she would (and the sounds coming from that mother were not doing anything to help my state of mind!) At 1AM I finally pushed the button and called for my nurse. A different nurse came and told me the doctor was working her way along and would come check me soon. I felt a little scared, and really wanted someone to stay with me, but there was a lot happening down the hall, so the nurse left me to wait for the doctor.

At 1:15 the doctor finally came. I was 4 almost 5 cm. I asked her to go over my pain options with me. I asked about the morphine-type drug that would help me get some sleep. She explained that it carried a risk to baby if I delivered while it was still in my system, which it would be for about 3-4 hours. I turned to Trevor and said, “Then I want the epidural.” It was not something I had ever said to him while in labor before. I’m not sure what he thought at the time, he told me later that he believed it was God’s direct protection of Gus that I chose not to have the other drug, even though I had had before in a couple of my other labors with no ill effects. I had no idea how close I was to delivering. It would certainly still have been in his little system when he was born, which could have caused him to be born with respiratory issues.

The anaesthesiologist came in a few minutes later to discuss the epidural with me, and I told him I wanted it. By about 1:45 he was back with his supplies and ready to give me some relief. I sat hunched over a pillow while the catheter was placed in my back. While I had been waiting for the anaesthesiologist, and especially while he was placing the epidural, I felt my contractions change. Part of me must have known what was coming, because I remember asking how long it would take the meds to kick in and feeling a bit disheartened when he said fifteen minutes.

My notes state that the catheter was in place at 1:57 AM (about 45 minutes after the doctor told me I was “almost 5 cm”). At this point, as the doctor was beginning to put the drugs into the catheter, while I was still hunched over sitting on the bed, I instinctively tried to push myself up off the bed a bit with my hands. The anaesthesiologist and the nurse both yelled at me not to move or touch my back (I wasn’t trying to!).

At this point I became fully aware of what was happening and started yelling, “he’s coming! I think he’s out!!!” I don’t think anyone believed me at first, but after a few seconds of my freaking out, the nurse told me to lie down and Trevor sort of tipped me on my side. Gus flopped out onto the bed and shocked everyone in the room. His birth time was recorded as 2 AM exactly, and the anaesthesiologist’s name was recorded as the delivering doctor. He was the only person in the room qualified to deliver a baby.

The OB who had checked me less than an hour earlier heard the commotion from the hall and rushed in. The nurse (still not MY nurse) was trying to cut the cord and asked the doctor to pass her the instruments she needed, but since their roles were usually reversed, no one quite seemed to know what to do. Trevor and I were just laughing and crying at the whole situation while the team of NICU doctors looked our little man over. He was perfect!

Meanwhile, the anaesthesiologist, who seemed mildly irritated by the whole situation, commented, “Well, you won’t be needing this” and pulled my catheter back out 🙂

Although his actual birth was probably my easiest (no stitches for the first time ever, and I don’t even think I actually pushed), that couple of hours of crazy contractions that I *thought* would last for the next 12 hours or so were some of the hardest labor, physically and mentally, that I’ve ever experienced. “Short but intense” is definitely a real thing!

The next morning, my midwife Kathleen came to visit. We were both so disappointed that she hadn’t gotten to deliver Gus. She was the one who counseled me through my early worries of low progesterone. She delivered the news of Gus’s extra chromosome when I was in my second trimester. And she knew him by name by the time we were having weekly third trimester visits. By the end, she had become a trusted friend, and I am thankful for the part she played in his birth, even if it wasn’t at the main event.

Most of all, I am thankful for the Lord’s kindness to us in every part of Gus’s arrival and life so far. One more baby. At my age! Pregnant along with my sisters. With another boy. With Down syndrome, and a perfect, healthy heart. He came just barely full term, but left me plenty of time to recover before Trevor’s sister and family came to visit in May. Gus is an absolute joy, and his siblings and mommy and daddy adore him.

“The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed I have a beautiful inheritance.”

Psalm 16:6 ESV