Our Awesome Birth Story

Hello All,

It's taken me a while to get this written but Maggie is napping so now is my best chance  :).  I want to start by saying that God blessed me so immensley with the birth of our little girl. He answered every single prayer. I spent months worried about all the things that could go wrong. I wouldn't dilate. Baby wouldn't look good on the monitor. I'd get to complete and baby would be too big for me. You name it, I thought of it. 

WARNING: I'm a labor and delivery nurse and have basically no filter about the details of birth so please read this at your own discretion.  I don't intend to offend anyone it's just so second nature to me I don't realize it.

First, the plan. Tim and I had talked about how (like we could plan) we wanted the labor and birth to go. Plan was to stay home as possible and only go to the hospital at the last moment. We wanted everything natural and barring any unforseen circumstances with baby no drugs or IV. 

So about 4 days before labor started, I began feeling really strange. My appetite diminshed my nausea worsened and I actually had some vomitting which was not normal for me. I began just feeling off. Then Saturday I began having loose stools which can be a good sign. I had told my midwife about it and she thought she would hear from me soon but said this kind of prelabor stuff could go on for days. So I tried not to hold my breath. Appointment was on Saturday. Saturday night I had contractions every 10 minutes throughout the night that would strong enough to awaken me but once I woke up and got going diminished. Sunday morning I awoke and for the first time in this pregnancy I was ready to meet baby. I imagined many more days of this every ten minute contractions and began to get impatient. That morning I prayed and asked God for peace and to just know when baby now known as Maggie, would come when she was ready. 

Sunday wore on. My mother in law called before heading to work and I told her nothing was happening and not to hold her breath. She said she would keep her phone on her just in case. Fast forward until afternoon. Tim had a friend from medical school over and we just hung out with him until about 5:30 when he left. 

Little did I know this would be my final picture being pregnant :)

The last hour Mike, Tim's friend, was here I began having slightly stronger cramps but figured they would peeter off and become nothing. About 7, I began timing them, just for fun. They were 7 minutes apart. We were sitting watching TV when I told Tim, these are really starting to hurt. I had 5 minutes of nesting right here, I wanted the kitchen clean so I washed the four dishes that were in the sink and then went to double check my bag. After repacking my hospital bag, this is where time gets away from me most of the following times are estimates. Shortly after packing my bag the contractions picked up in intensity and added back labor. The back labor was absolutely aweful. I tried to breathe through them and change positions, nothing helped. Strangely enough, when I would have contractions I would get completely flushed, my body would shake and I would feel lightheaded. My first thought was "oh great, if I'm shaking this early in the game I'll never be able to tell when I'm in transition. Anywho, back to the story. Around 8:30pm, I had a contraction where I felt some pressure and asked Tim to check my dilation. He said are you really sure you want to know and I said yes and he said are you really sure and I said yes. He doesn't know for sure but he said it was really thin and maybe 2 or 3 cm and my anterior was less than my posterior cervix. Upon hearing this, I figured baby was not in optimal position. Fast forward a couple hrs, the contractions continued to come every 5 minutes and the back labor was just excruciating. I asked Tim to fill up our bath tub just to see if hot water would help. I got in the tub around 11pm and for 3 whole contractions all was right with the world. I could breathe through contractions and they were totally bareable. I thought, no wonder, water is the midwifes epidural. But after 3 short contractions, the back labor returned full force and it was awful! 

Two hours passed, I had two final contractions in the tub and I was holding Tim saying I can't do this anymore, he was encouraging me saying yes, yes you can and I said no you don't understand, I really can't do this anymore. One final contraction and my body was spontaneously pushing, oops. I told Tim I wanted him to check me again he said he wasn't a professional and we should go to the hospital. I got out of the tub at around 1245, miraculously when I got outta the tub, baby turned and the back labor disappeared, I couldn't believe it the contractions were nothing, I could labor like this for hours! 1250 we called Ramona the midwife and told her we were headed to the hospital. I think we were in the car about 1255 or 1 oclock. Half way to the hospital and 0104 my water broke with a contraction. We got to the hospital and got up to labor and delivery at 0120, my check revealed I was 7-8cm. With every passing contractions, maybe 3 the urge to push got stronger and stronger and my body couldn't help but push. 0132 my midwife was at the bedside, checked me and said I was complete. 0140 I began pushing. I pushed for just short of 2 hours, at 0337 our little girl made her debut!! She was half out when they said look down and grab your baby, my first words were oh my gosh, you're huge and you're a girl!

Everything went perfectly! I did push for a while and because of that had some bleeding but I did not hemorrhage just had more than they like to see. But a bag of pitocin, some cytotec and IM pitocin and I was fine. Ramona my midwife was amazing. I gently pushed baby's head out slowly over like 5 contractions which allowed for gentle stretching and only a first degree tear, thank you God. I prayed for that the whole time. A couple days prior to delivery I asked God to bring her on a weekend night shift so I could be around all the people I used to work with and that is exactly what happened. The first nurse I saw was my old post partum charge nurse Diane. My first L&D nurse was my old charge Courtney. Finally, my friend Jen was able to come in especially for my delivery, I was so immensely blessed with how this went. It could not have gone better if I had planned it myself.

Thank you God for answering all my prayers, even the little insignificant ones. Thank you Jen for coming in for me. Thank you Courtney for being the support I needed to breathe through some contractions and thank you Kerry for taking such good care of our little girl.

Pushing hard!

She's here!!!

Big girl for me!!