E’s Birth Story

I was officially due Friday, February 10th. However, I was barely having any contractions that week, so I had a feeling she wouldn’t be here on my time.

I went and had a pedicure instead.

We walked the weekend away. We went to IKEA, and I took several baths. Church was fun. “You’re still pregnant?” Nope. I’m not. Grumble.

Monday came, still nothing (barely dilated). I had a doctor’s appointment for a non-stress test. We went in, she did fine. The doctor said we could come in Tuesday night and be induced and have a baby Wednesday. I was anti-induction, but I caved. I was miserable. Everything hurt. I had a hard time moving. I was ready.

And, on the way home, I regretted it.

Tuesday morning (the 14th), the doctor’s office called and told me my platelets were high enough to go forward with the induction. I told the nurse I changed my mind. She said she’d call the hospital and let them know. I scheduled an appointment with the doctor for later that week.

Throughout the day on the 14th I just had a feeling. Some of that feeling was contractions that were pretty painful, so I had a very low key day. I just laid down on the couch and rested. I fell asleep a couple times, but the contractions woke me up. Throughout the day, there was some “plug” loss, too.

Towards the afternoon (about 3pm) I called Mr. Serious and asked him to make his way home and to get the girls from school. The contractions were about 4 minutes apart but bearable. I wanted to make sure I stayed hydrated. He got the girls, and we all had dinner (I didn’t want to be hungry).

I sent a text to our awesome friend that was going to watch the girls for us. We gave them a bath, I took a bath and we got them all ready for bed and packed up in the car. I also called the doctor and let them know this was it and we were on the way.

The girls got dropped off and we were on our way to the hospital. We got there around 8:30pm and it was packed. It took until about 9pm to get us into a room where Rita, our nurse greeted us.

First thing on the list, check the platelets. Remember, they have to be over 100,000. They went ahead and started some fluids, too (praying the platelets were high enough for the epidural). We filled out all of the paperwork and I breathed through the contractions.

Platelet count came back! 103,000. It couldn’t have been much closer. The anesthesiologist came in and got my epidural started at 11pm. It went pretty well and gave me some relief. They told me to sleep and relax. Ha!

I was checked and only at 2cm. The midwife said we’d start pitocin around 3am if I didn’t progress anymore (even with good contractions).

Around 2am, my water broke on it’s own, so they decided to go ahead and start the pitocin.

Around 4am, I said I had pressure and was really wanting to push (it was hurting quite a bit…apparently, my epidural blocked my uterus, but um, yeah, not the girly parts). They checked me and i was only 7cm. While the nurse was checking me, my water really broke the rest of the way (like huge big gush).

That was frustrating. I really, really wanted to push.

So, I waited. Every contraction brought the urge to push more and more.

This continued until around 7am. The nurse checked me again and said I was still only 8cm, but her head was right there.

She went ahead and called the midwife. She said, well, there’s still some cervix, and you are stuck at 8cm, but her head is right there. I start thinking “oh no, c-section.” I remained calm and asked what that meant. She said “you push through it.” Umm..I’m sorry, I push through my cervix? Sounds painful, right?

Remember how I said that the epidural didn’t block beyond my uterus. RING OF FIRE is a serious understatement. I pushed with all my might and they were quite impressed. The midwife kept asking how big our first two girls were (7lbs, 8 oz and 7lbs, 2oz). She said, this isn’t a 7lb baby!

The midwife also had to give her a turn as she wasn’t face down. That really hurt, too!

Lots of pushing later, and one giant needle to place some sort of special block inside of me to help with the pain of my giant baby coming out.

After some pushing, she finally got her head out and she was hanging out up to her eyebrows. The midwife called for another nurse urgently (seriously, stop scaring me). I later asked and she told me she was concerned little E’s shoulders were going to get stuck because she was so big. Fortunately, she didn’t.

A couple pushes later and at 8:39am my 8lb, 10oz girl arrived into this world. No scream right away, but her mouth was open ready for food.

My placenta had seriously attached itself to my uterus and the midwife had to go in and remove it. Also not fun. And, it looked really icky, too. Like a chewed up organ. It did was it was supposed to do for our sweet girl, but it was definitely ready to not work anymore.

There was a student nurse in the room and she got to see so many different things than normal (the extra block with the needle, the turning of the baby, the giant baby and the icky placenta). We keep things interesting.

That’s one proud (and might I add well-rested daddy).

She was born Wednesday, February 15th. What really wasn’t fun is my platelets dropped to 70,000-something so I couldn’t have ibuprofen. Those after birth contractions really get worse every time and I couldn’t take it. It was terrible. The acetaminophen products didn’t do anything except give me a hard time keeping my eyes open.

By that night, I was ready to leave. When the pediatrician and midwife came around the next morning, I asked them to start the discharge process. Thankfully, they were fine with us leaving right after the 24 hour mark. Everything was process, and we left as soon as lunch was served. We hit the road, got our big kids from school and haven’t stopped since!

Thank you all for your prayers, well wishes, and happy thoughts during this pregnancy and time. We are over-the-moon thrilled and over-joyed with our little girl.