Hannah Katherine's Story 

On my due date, September 1st, 2005, I felt especially calm and energetic at the same time. I was also full of anticipation with the baby’s arrival so near. I tried to keep busy while staying close to home. I went to the mall and bought a last minute nursing bra. I cleaned the house. I cooked dinner for my husband, Ryan. Later in the evening, I did my pelvic rocks as I usually tried to do each night before bed. I couldn’t fall asleep, so I stayed up to watch a movie until about 1 in the morning. I thought to myself, “It would be too predictable if the baby came on the exact due date. I’ll probably go into labor a week late like a lot of women do with their first baby.”

To my complete surprise, the due day was nearer than I thought!

My water broke in bed at 4 in the morning, just 4 hours after my official due date. I awoke suddenly and said, “Honey, my water broke!” Ryan, woke up and reacted very calmly. He had been preparing for this day for a long time. The practice labor drills we did during our classes with Teresa gave us both a good idea of what we should do. I assured him that it would be a little while before the contractions would begin and that we should go back to sleep. I didn’t want to call Lisa, our midwife, right away if there weren’t any contractions. I knew she’d appreciate having a full night’s sleep before the day we had ahead of us. (Little did I know at the time what a long day that would be!) At about 6 am I began to feel the contractions. They weren’t too strong in the beginning, but quickly became stronger. By 6:30, I was feeling the pain of each contraction as they became more intense and came closer together. I rocked myself on the bed through each contraction. The movement helped me to cope with the pain.

It was time to call Lisa. I knew that at the rate the contractions were becoming more intense that it wouldn’t be long before I would need to be close to the hospital. Our house is approximately 50 minutes from Hackettstown Community Hospital.

When I got on the phone with Lisa, she told me to have Ryan time the contractions and call her when they became less than 5 minutes apart. We called her again by 7:15 when my contractions were coming on stronger. We had a long ride ahead of us especially with morning rush hour, so we told Lisa that we were preparing to pack up the car and get on the road.

The pain was real bad as we drove through the country back roads and over the mountain from Hillsborough to Hackettstown. I kept rocking myself in the passenger seat and yelled into a towel. I encouraged Ryan to drive in the shoulder and go through red lights to get us to the hospital faster.

We arrived at the hospital at about 8:30. After checking in and getting into a wheelchair, a nurse escorted us to the labor room. Lisa was already there filling up the tub. I went to sit on the bed where I could continue rocking. At this point, the contractions were about a minute or two apart. I tried to use the visualization and positive self-talk techniques from “Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth.” I kept telling myself that this was good pain I was having because it was necessary to bring our long-awaited baby into the world. Once filled, Lisa told me to get into the tub. Ryan came with me and stayed beside the tub as I continued to have the contractions in the water. The warm water immediately soothed me. I felt more relaxed and my body felt lighter. At this point, the contractions were a minute apart. Lisa checked to see how much my cervix had dilated. It was already open 7 centimeters! “Wow!” she said. “This baby is going to come by lunch time!”

I was very excited when I heard that. I couldn’t wait to meet our precious little baby!

Well, 10 am rolled around and although the contractions were stronger and right on top of one another, I still did not feel the urge to push. I took each contraction with stride. It really helped to open up my mouth and moan the way Ina May suggested. By having my mouth open, my whole body seemed to be more relaxed and not tense.

The entire morning was spent in the tub. Ryan, my mother and Lisa stayed beside me feeding me ice chips and saying encouraging words. It was taking a long time for anything to happen, but Lisa assured me that progress was being made. By noon, my cervix was 10 cm dilated and I began pushing. Lisa put her hand in and could feel the baby’s head at the opening of the cervix. We all thought that the baby would arrive in a matter of an hour or two.

1 pm rolled around and I was exhausted from enduring the non-stop heavy contractions and pushing with all my strength. Lisa asked me if I wanted to get out of the tub and try pushing outside the water. At that point, I was so exhausted. I asked if I could rest. Lisa said that I could. Next thing I knew, the nurse was giving me something to help me sleep intravenously while I lied in the bed. It took a very short time for me to fall into a deep slumber.

When I awoke at around 4 pm, I could hear Lisa saying, “Okay, Susan. You slept long enough. It’s time to push again.” I still felt drowsy because of the sleep medicine, so it took me some time to regroup and get back in position.

We decided I would push right there in the bed instead of going back to the tub. I tried sitting and pushing in the birthing chair, but the baby’s head would not drop. The head would descend just enough to be seen, but then as soon as I would take a breath from a push the baby would pop back up into my uterus again. After the birth chair, I tried lying with my stomach on the birth ball. Again, the baby’s head came down with each push and crept back up with each breath.

Next, with Lisa and Ryan supporting me one on either side, I pushed again with all of my strength in a squatting position. Lisa felt the baby’s head, but after a while asked me to try another position. I lied down on my back, opened my legs with my feet up in the stirrups. Lisa coached me from the foot of the bed. She signaled to me when I should push and for how long. I tried to hold each push for as long as possible. My mother, Ryan and Lisa----all could see the baby’s head full of black hair in the birth canal. This made me want to push harder since I felt that the baby needed one big push to get out of the position it was locked in. After a while of this, I was getting very tired and upset. I began crying because it seemed I was running out of positions to push in.

At 5:30 pm, Lisa interrupted my pushing and said the baby’s heart rate was showing distress on the monitor. She said that we did all we could do. This baby had turned out to be a little “quarterback” and my birth canal was too narrow for the baby to pass through. She would have to call in a surgeon to perform a C-section.

When the baby’s heart rate leveled, I asked if I could push one last time before the doctor came. Lisa said that I could. So, that is exactly what I did. I pushed and I pushed until the doctor walked in the room at 7:30 pm.

At that point, Lisa said, “Susan, you did everything you could possibly do. Your baby is just a big baby. The baby comes only so far down, but never makes it all the way to the crowning position. All of the pushing you’re doing is putting a lot of stress on your baby. We can’t continue or the baby’s life will be in danger. There was no way for us to know that the baby wasn’t going to come out the natural way until we tried. At least you’ll always know how hard you tried to have this baby naturally.”

It was then that I knew in my heart that the only alternative was to have the baby by way of Cesarean. I was at peace with the decision. I let go of wanting a water birth or natural delivery. I just wanted to have a healthy baby!

At 8:12 pm on September 2nd, 2005, our baby girl Hannah Katherine DiParisi was born in the operating room. I’ll never forget that glorious moment. Ryan announced that she was a girl and we both cried and laughed tears of joy at the sight of her beautiful face.