Introducing myself, telling my story, and asking a few ?s

[Teresa_mom2three]

Hi! My name is Teresa. I'm 25 years old, engaged, and I have 3 children. Ryley is 6, Grace is 4, and Ayden is 18 months. I was induced at 40 weeks with my first because my blood pressure was high and my dr thought it best that I go ahead and deliver. My blood pressure was fairly good during my pregnancy with my second child and I went into labor naturally. When I became pregnant with my third child, I really educated myself on having a healthy pregnancy and a natural child birth. This is something I REALLY wanted. My fiance and I took a lamaze class and wrote a great birthplan. We had issues all pregnancy long. The ultrasound tech found a "spot" on his heart and sent us to a specialist an hour away. The "spot" later dissapeared and we had no further issue with that. We did find out that my fluid was low while at the specialist. So, we had to drive back to the specialist a few more times to keep an eye on my fluid. At one point, I thought my fluid was leaking (I was only about 22 weeks along), my midwife checked it with a strip in the office and it came out positive...it looked as though my fluid was leaking. I was immediatly sent to the hospital for further testing....lab tests determined that I was NOT leaking fluid. I was so relieved. I went into preterm labor twice which was stopped by a shot that helped relax muscles which in turn relaxed my contracting uterus. Around the 35nd week of pregnancy, we blood pressure REALLY started to spike. My midwife put me on bedrest at 37 weeks and sent me home with a jug for a 24 hr urine catch. Later that same day, I returned to my midwife with a horrible headache and dizziness. My BP was through the roof. She sent me to labor and delivery and informed me that I would likely be induced. I was on hospital bedrest for a week, and evenutally given magnesium sulfate through IV. I still really wanted to have my baby drug free. The mag definelty ruined those plans. It made me feel like CRAP. I was obviously unable to get out of bed to walk or get in the tub to manage the pain. (I meant to mention that they induced me at 38 weeks). I ended up getting the epidural because the pain of the contractions mixed with the mag was unbearable. My entire birthplan was almost completely down the drain. I delivered Ayden vaginally and was able to breastfeed him immediatly after birth which was in our birth plan. All in all, everything was good....I was just let down that I didn't get to labor and deliver naturally.

So, there is a little background. My fiance and I have recently decided to try for baby number 4, the final baby. Last month, we had no luck. This month, I am waiting to test. My period is due tomorrow. I am just wondering if it is at all possible to have a natural drug free labor and delivery? Can I avoid high blood pressure? Do I have to accept the magnesium if my blood pressure spikes again? I just really want to experience this naturally. I don't want to be induced, or have an epidural. I want to be able to get up and move around freely and even have a water birth. Is this possible?

Thank you all for reading. I look forward to your replies!

-Teresa

[blythe]

Welcome, Theresa! I'm glad you found us but sorry you had to!

I wanted a natural delivery but had bp issues with all three pregnancies. Over the years on these boards I have slowly accepted that healthy mom and healthy baby trumps everything, but I still think your hopes for your birth are important. You are not guaranteed to get PE again, and if you have no bp issues, I hope you get everything you want in your birth plan! If you do have bp issues, you still might get some of your hopes like you did in your last pregnancy.

Magnesium sulfate cuts your risk of seizures in half, so if you need it, it's lifesaving. If your bp issues are mild and you don't have other red flags like headache or bad labs, your doctor *might* not prescribe mag, but women have seized at non-diagnostic levels so some docs are more cautious than others.

Avoiding high blood pressure / PE is what we all want, but so far the research hasn't found much, if anything, to help. There are some studies that show a *slight* benefit to low dose aspirin, so you might ask your doctors their opinions on the research and their recommendations for your individual case. Here is a discussion about low-dose aspirin (LDA) by our Experts
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=40560&p=240214&hilit=aspirin#p240214

In general, we do recommend getting healthy as possible pre-pregnancy, losing weight, taking prenatal vitamins, having your doctor check for any underlying disorders and treating them if appropriate. Just know that even doing everything *right* is no guarantee - so it's not your fault if you don't get the birth you hope for!

My experience - I was induced with all three of my pregnancies and had mag with my first, but not the other two. I managed without an epidural and as long as my bp stayed steady I was allowed to move around. No water birth, no spontaneous labor, continuous monitoring (PE raises the risk of abruptions, so I was fine with that!), and lots of other small compromises to be sure baby and me stayed healthy. I think I was able to be happier with my second two births, though, because I knew what to expect and the safety reasons that some of my hopes weren't possible.

Please keep asking questions, I hope some of that is helpful!

[aundapenner]

I think what is important in these situations is to keep our perspective - having been high-risk before increases the odds of you being at-risk in the future. Which, in turn, most likely means medical intervention is more realistic than a non-medical or natural birth.

I am constantly surprised when I read on these boards that nearly ALL of us - regardless of our age, education, and so on - almost all of us went into pregnancy with the goal of having a natural birth experience.

But the perspective that I choose for my second was to aim for natural, but be realistic that my life is more important than my pride. I did not want that IV in my arm for 3+ weeks, but I knew the reasons for the mag.

I did not want to have 2 c-sections, but I knew that without, my body just wasn't going to deliver.

It's been a long road coming to terms with those things - and after Sofia, I went as natural as I could. I breastfed, cloth diapered, so on and so forth. I learned that I can control only so many things. When they are young, I have say over what they eat and how they dress. I, sadly, have no control over how my body reacts to pregnancy.