Full disclaimer: This post is about birth, which includes some not so pleasant things. If you're sensitive to that kind of stuff, this isn't the post for you.
I wrote this weeks ago and kept forgetting to post it so here it is FINALLY!
I’m sitting here in the car typing this as baby girl is sleeping in her carseat. Here we are five weeks out and I’m still wrapping my head around this birth. I can’t believe she's here…SHE. I never thought I'd be typing that, I forever thought I was going to be a boy mama. Every time I think back to our birth experience I'm overwhelmed with emotions. It was by far the most powerful birth yet.
I went into this birth with a similar mindset as all my others. No pain meds, little intervention, etc etc. Yet for some reason, I didn’t think it would turn out how I planned. They never do…I planned to do unmedicated births twice before, but always gave in towards the end of labor. I always made excuses as to why I got an epidural, but lets be real…it’s because of fear and it hurt like nothing I’ve ever felt before. So knowing, to an extent, what I was getting into I thought this birth would be no different.
Boy was I wrong. My babies ALWAYS came before their due dates. I used to joke saying, “What’s a due date?!” because I’ve never made it past 39 weeks. I thought for sure this time would be no different. At my 38 week appointment, my midwife decided to check me to see where I was at since she was leaving for Alabama in the next few days. I was about 50% effaced and 1cm. She told me anything could happen but to try and hold that baby in until she got back in a week. I was SO stressed out. I panicked thinking my midwife would miss my birth. Certainly this child would not stay in that long!
I was so confident that she would come early I even scheduled our dogs grooming appointment for that weekend and made sure we had everything washed and ready to go.
That night I remember telling Wes “I don’t feel her as much, she’s slowed down A LOT.” He came over and tried talking to her (she always moved like crazy for him) but he couldn’t really get her to move either. She was a SUPER active baby so when she deviated from her regular routine I noticed pretty quickly.
I called my mom and told her to book her flight for the next week. My mom flew in on October 23rd, one day before my 39 week appointment. Much to my disappointment I hadn’t made any progress since the last week. How in the world could that be?! I was officially the most pregnant I had ever been. I mentioned to my midwife that she wasn’t acting normal, and because of the decreased fetal movement she put in for an induction on November 3rd, which would have put me at 40 weeks and 3 days. I was a ball of nerves. I was so worried that something irrational would happen, like she would die in the womb before my induction. I was constantly doing kick counts and hyper aware of every little hiccup or roll.
I pretty much did everything I could to try and induce labor naturally. I even went as far as buying castor oil, but I couldn’t bring myself to take it. Knowing the risks, it just wasn’t worth it to me. My mom was only out here for a few days and we didn’t have a solid back up plan for the boys if she left, so the count down was on. Well Halloween (my due date) rolled around and still no baby. We walked around, did some trick or treating and hoped it would kickstart some consistent contractions. I was having contractions for the last week but they weren’t increasing in intensity or getting closer together. At that point, I was feeling a bit defeated and just gave up on trying to get her out.
The next day I had my bloody show (I now understand why it's called a bloody show...yikes) and some cramping and thought for sure this was it! But, still the contractions stayed the same. That night they felt slightly more uncomfortable but there was no real pattern to them so I thought nothing of it. I had a hard time sleeping that night. They were getting more painful and seemed closer, although I wasn’t timing anything. I honestly didn’t think I was going into labor. I had so many false labor starts that whole week, that I didn’t get my hopes up.
2:30am rolled around and I just couldn’t take it any longer. I HAD to get out of bed. I labored around the RV for a bit and decided to take a long hot shower. At about 4:30am I woke Wes up and said “I think we need to go to the hospital.” This was not our first trip this week, and I for sure thought they would send us home again. He got out of bed, took a quick shower, and we were at the hospital by 5:00am.
We walked into labor and delivery, signed in, and were quickly brought to triage. I was so anxious, just praying that I had made some sort of progress since our last triage visit the day before. I knew if I wasn’t at least 4cm dilated they would send me home again. The nurse came in and put me on the monitor. At this point I knew the drill. I felt like my contractions were starting to slow down and worried that they would send me home...yet again. The nurse checked me and said I was still only 3cm. I instantly thought to myself, "Well damn it. We're going home again. I don't know how much more of this I can take." I was on the verge of tears.
Finally, my midwife came in and checked me herself. She told the nurses to just put me down as 4cm (she could stretch me to a 4 but I wasn't quite there). She mentioned that baby girl didn't look good on the monitors and told the nurses to admit me (thank God for Marsha). At that point I wasn't super surprised that she didn't look good on the monitors, but there was something in both the nurse's and Marsha's voices that had be suddenly worried.
To be continued...
