When the Birth Plan Unravels

On my due date, I had an OB appointment scheduled. I was diagnosed with Preeclampsia – my blood pressure was abnormally high and I was scheduled to be induced immediately. We ran home, grabbed my bags, and went to the hospital to get ourselves checked in. 

After we found our way to a room, things started to get really fun. Obviously, I ended up with an IV. I also ended up with both a fetal monitor and a blood pressure monitor – great, because my plan all along was to be restricted by wires and machines. 

As if the aforementioned wasn’t bad enough… let’s bring on the Pitocin. I’m still not exactly sure how much the Pitocin affected the contractions. The OB told me that they would do a fairly good job of simulating natural labor and I obviously had no basis to compare. Here’s the thing, though – after all of that, the nurses thought it would be a good idea for me to lie on my left side – it had something to do with my blood pressure, but keep in mind that by this point, I was going on two days without sleep – more about that later – and in a fair amount of pain. 

Imagine me lying there totally restricted, writhing in pain, and being told to stay on my left side. That’s when I asked for the epidural that I swore I wasn’t going to get. There was absolutely no way that I was going to be able to stay in that position with as much pain as I was in. Want to take a guess how that worked out? It broke. I honestly couldn’t even tell you if any of that medication actually made it into my system – If it did, I didn’t feel it.  

I ended up with an IV pain med towards the very end. At that point, I was completely miserable – exhausted after two days or so of contractions that kept increasing in frequency/intensity and no sleep – and desperate to take the edge off. When it was all said and done, the only thing that worked out the way I had planned was getting immediate skin-to-skin. Breastfeeding ended up being another story entirely – and one for another day. 

My point in telling this story isn’t to criticize the doctors or nurses – not in any way, shape, or form. They did what they felt was necessary to keep the baby and I safe and I’m thankful for that. My point is that you don’t have any control over nature – and naturally, it’s going to run its own course.

At my 39-week appointment, everything was perfect. No one had any reason to believe that things would change so drastically in a matter of seven days. I wasn’t expecting the little guy to make his entrance into this world for a few more weeks, at least. I was hoping it would happen on its own, but it didn’t work out that way. 

Had I not developed Preeclampsia, I possibly could’ve made it through labor and delivery exactly as I intended – then again, maybe not. In the end, though, it doesn’t matter how he came into this world, all that matters is that he’s here – safe and healthy. 

Did you take the time to make a birth plan? Did things work out according to that plan? Leave a comment and tell me about it. 

Written by: Cristi Wuenschel