birth story part two | my story

Now that we have a beautiful, healthy baby at home with us, time to share the birth story! It did not go off quite like I had planned, but in the end came together perfectly. However, there was a moment in my meltdown where I imagined having to write my blog post in a “when birth plans go wrong” style. But praise the Lord for His plan, His timing, and a lesson on patience along the way ;)

We arrived for our induction on her due date, July 23^rd. we left our house at 5:00 and made it to the hospital in time for our 6:00am time slot. Cody and I both said once we pulled into Lubbock “did you feel like that drive was super fast?!”, guess both of our minds were all over the place! I got to the hospital, walked down the hallway to my room while saying hi to all my coworkers and got the IV placed and Pitocin started.

I had for some reason had in my head for weeks “I’m going to go into labor early” and “she’s going to be a little baby”, boy was I wrong! I also had told myself that I of course wanted a vaginal delivery but was open to a C-section under the conditions of 1) crazy long induction with no change 2) her heart rate is non-reassuring 3) any other concern, I would rather have a controlled C-section before it became an emergency. I wasn’t fearful of a c-section, but wanted to avoid it if possible. I did not have a “birth plan” but had certain ideas of how I wanted things to go… not doing interventions unless necessary, epidural upon request, other than that just allow my body to labor.

Anyways, back to room 11.. I had been dilated to a 3 for a few days and that’s the same I was when I arrived at the hospital but every.single.person who checked my cervix exclaimed, “she is SO low!” which was great to hear because I know that her being low would help in the end. So we started a day long of Pitocin and back labor. It hurt, but not miserable. I never asked for pain medicine, just had Cody squeeze my back or massage during contractions. I had anesthesia lined up for the epidural, but I really wanted to have made some progress before that because I knew once that happened I was bed bound. My doctor also came to see me and offered to break my water but again, I wanted to see some change. I was an awful patient and watched the monitor with her heart rate too much for my own good, analyzing every leap and bound.. or lack thereof. And basically, her heart rate was not beautiful on the monitor which made me worry, another reason I didn’t want to hurry and take her “pool” of water away and stress her out. I trusted my nurse and tried to enjoy the moment like any other (non labor and delivery nurse) would. Myself, Cody, his parents/sister, and my parents spent the day listening to comedies and talking.

At 6pm, after a full 12 hours of Pitocin, a room full of visitors, constant back labor and basically no change, I was on the brink of a meltdown. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.. I was 40 weeks, already dilated to a 3 and her head was so low (I’ve had other patients start pushing where her head was comfortably sitting), this was supposed to be easy! But I, and my nurses and doula, were convinced that she was faced the wrong way, which explains the back labor and contraction pattern. We tried turning my on my side and all sorts of tricks, no change. Alongside my doctor, we decided to stop the medicine, eat dinner, take a walk and then restart Pitocin and I was on board (12 hours of no food was a struggle for this girl!). So we did just that and restarted Pitocin a few hours later.  At some point that evening with just Cody and my parents in the room and I was sitting on a bouncy ball, I had my meltdown. All day everyone I knew was texting the family we had in the room for updates, and every text/phone call that came in to ask how I was doing was announced to me, and every time “no change”. I felt like a failure. Obviously I know that it was not my fault, but it sure feels that way when so many people are waiting on YOU! So combination of this with the rest of the day, I was exhausted. I just knew with her heart rate and my lack of progress that we would have a c-section in the morning. My mind went everywhere- this would affect further births from here on out, I would be stuck in bed for 24 hours, we wouldn’t have birth pictures, and so on and so forth. Cody asked for a moment with just us and we prayed. My nurse and doula came in and we talked and then my doctor came to see me, we decided to stop Pitocin for good for the night and rest and restart everything in the morning. I had visitors and texts and so much encouragement in this time, I am so so thankful for! I got some rest but she wasn’t as active in the hospital as she had been, so I preferred to stay on the monitor just to reassure me that she was okay.  Again, terrible patient right here.

Friday morning at 5am, I woke up and took a shower and ate my nurse/co-workers lunch for breakfast, haha, and we restarted the Pitocin. My new nurse came on shift and family arrived and I knew TODAY I WILL meet my daughter, somehow, someway even though I still had a feeling of the worst cases in the back of my mind. I was contracting pretty steadily but still only 3-4cm dilated. My doctor came and broke my water (at this point, it had been 24 hours and no change and this was the next step in getting things moving so I was more than ready!). Being a L&D nurse, I always hear patients freak out when their water breaks about the feeling of it but I’ve always brushed it off. Once she broke mine, I could not stop laughing though. It was the oddest sensation! And the more I laughed, the more poured out. Leave it to myself, my nurse and doctor to take a few minutes to find the humor in this situation ;) almost immediately from breaking water, my contractions (still all in my back) became unbearable. These were those contractions I’ve heard about where you can’t talk though them. I was squeezing cody’s hand and breathing as slow and steady as I could. My doctor also placed an internal contraction monitor and the contractions were hitting the top of the reading so I knew these are actually really strong contractions. Epidural, please. I was also nervous about the epidural with my scoliosis and the dislike of needles but it was actually not bad, super fast and the best. epidural. ever.

 It took about 30 minutes to get any relief which felt like eternity, but once it kicked in, I couldn’t feel a thing. I ate some popsicles, listened to more comedy shows with cody, my parents, his parents and sister all in the room (I’ll never listen to jim gaffigan again without thinking about being in labor) and relaxed. A few hours later I turned onto my side, my nurse and doula placed the peanut ball between my legs (to try to turn her, still showing signs she was facing up instead of down) and I took a great nap. I woke up around 1:00 with major tightness in my belly, not painful, but noticeable contractions were going on… in my stomach! And little evynn’s booty kept pushing up against my ribs. I was excited that the contractions were in my belly (not my back) and her butt was poking up (meaning she was facing down)! It was just cody and I in the room and he was asleep, everyone else went to get lunch. My nurse, Emily,  came in and I explained how I felt and she checked me and said i was complete and +3, aka it’s time. That moment is still so surreal. Here I had been so worried about every possibility ever and once I relaxed my body did it’s thing and changed from a 4-10 in a few hours and I was about to have our baby. We text our parents who told us they hurried and grabbed their food and headed back. The room got set up, Cody turned on worship music,  and I waited for my doctor and photographer as our families hugged our necks.

It was finally delivery time, I was set up for delivery with cody, my doula, my nurse, the baby catching nurse, scrub tech, doctor, and photographer in the room. It was a full room but I didn’t mind. I was so so numb, my leg fell out of the stirrup once and I had no idea, luckily my doctor caught it! I pushed as hard as I could for the 20 minutes, having no idea if it was “good” or not, I couldn’t feel a thing. But apparently it was, my nurse had me reach down to touch her head which was almost halfway out at that point, whoa. This is real. Cody looked nervous, teary eyed and so excited. Poor guy was in a room of women who all knew what to expect and he was still clueless but doing awesome and coaching me through breathing through every contraction. Not a minute after feeling her head I pushed one more time, “head is out!” so I knew to stop pushing. She had a cord around her neck, hence the not so pretty heart rate tracing. Then she was placed on my stomach. This is the moment I lost it, I was holding our baby girl! I couldn’t tell how big she was at that moment but still amazed that a perfectly formed human was inside ME! And is now in my arms! What a miracle of life, praise God! We ended up doing a short delayed cord clamping without realizing, so we cut the cord and placed Evynn on my chest. Delivery itself was so.easy. and now we were to just enjoy our baby girl. The room cleared out, I got comfortable and cody and I spent the next hour ooing and awing over our baby girl and how perfect and sweet she is.

After the hour on my chest for skin to skin and the first attempt at nursing, cody got to hold Evynn for the first time. Emily then came in to assess her and our family paraded in along with my two best friends (who brought goodies for us! Nothing like sour patch kids as the first meal after 12 hours of nothing ;)) the next few hours we enjoyed passing Evynn around and soaking in the surreal moment that just occurred. THIS is what we had hoped, prayed and dreamed of!

It literally took hours to get me out of bed (which I know is frustrating on the nurses end, thanks for being so great Emily!) because my left leg would not budge at all. Eventually my nurse and another nurse helped me get up and into a wheelchair, I went down the hall to show my coworkers my little one then up to our new room with a queen size bed. It still took a few more hours to stand up on my own, but still wouldn’t trade that epidural for anything ;) Our parents left that evening and cody and I bathed Evynn for the first time and enjoyed the first night of sleeplessness, nursing constantly and loving on our baby girl. 

I am so grateful for family, friends, nurses, my doctor, my doula, and other co-workers who made every effort to allow me to have the birth I wanted! and for all the encouragement I received!