Can you read her little onesie?? 😂😂It was a gift from one of my friends and I. Can't. Even.
I always love reading birth stories, don't you? There's always a little drama and excitement, and of course a happy ending.
I personally was really apprehensive about labor. I'm a pretty big wimp and was worried I wouldn't be able to handle it. Plus I have really narrow hips, and had been told by multiple random people that I might have a struggle with delivery. Which really, if you're talking to a stranger, maybe don't ever tell her that. I tried not to think about it too much, but I definitely was worried - especially when I was told at my last ultrasound to expect a 10 pound baby!
So, that takes us to Saturday the 2nd. Around 3 in the morning, I thought I might be having one of those slow trickle water breaking scenarios. I tried to keep sleeping but was getting up repeatedly to check. Around 7am I started feeling contractions, and while they weren't strong right off the bat they were every four minutes lasting a minute or longer. For those of you who haven't had a baby, there's a rule called 4-1-1 for when you should go to the hospital, which is a contraction every four minutes lasting for one minute for at least one hour. Jeff woke up around 8:30 and I told him I had already hit the 4-1-1 rule, and he basically freaked out and leapt out of bed, started packing everything and showering and trying to rush me into the car. I knew things weren't quite ready so I held him off for a while by taking my time showering and eating, but by 10:00 we had called the doctor and gotten the okay to go into the hospital.
At the hospital they checked me in and hooked me up to all of the machines, and the nurse told me she was also convinced my water had broken. But then she ran all of the tests they can do to check, and they all came back negative! I was still having those 4-1-1 contractions but was clearly smiling and laughing through them plus I was only dilated 1cm, so after staying to be observed for an hour we were sent home and told to come back when I felt like I needed pain medication.
I was pretty miserable at being sent back home. I talked about this on Instagram but don't think I mentioned here that I was diagnosed with a PUPPP rash at 39 weeks, which by 41 weeks was completely covering my arms, belly, and legs and was
insanely itchy. Any time I got the least bit warm it would be worse. Basically the only way I could be comfortable was with the ceiling fans on, laying on a sheet on the couch in shorts and a tee shirt with ice packs, and taking a cold shower every couple hours. So that's how I spent Saturday while watching hours of television as my contractions got stronger. They never got to a point where I couldn't talk or breathe through them but I was moaning loudly through each one. At 10:30pm we decided to call the doctor again, and she told us to come back in.
The second go-round we were just crossing our fingers we wouldn't be sent home, and luckily they admitted me right away and almost immediately transferred us to the delivery room even though I was only 2.5cm dilated. I got an epidural right away, which was a little scary (especially since they made Jeff leave the room!) but was incredible once it started working, which is basically immediately. I literally almost tipped off the bed because I didn't realize my legs were numb already! I did shake a bit from the medication but really, that was my only negative side effect. The best part about the epidural was that my belly and legs stopped itching!
After the epidural, they broke my water and said the baby had pooped in the amniotic fluid, which meant the pediatrician team would need to be on hand for delivery as she may have swallowed some of it. They said it wasn't something to worry about and that she would probably take a minute to cry after she came out, but it still made me nervous. At that point Jeff got to come back and put on some calming piano music for me, and the nurses started me on pitocin to speed things along. The piano music really zen-ed me out and I napped for a couple hours on and off as people came in and out of the room. I'm pretty sure Jeff just stared at me the whole time.
Illegal delivery room photo - do we look ready to go?
Around 7am and after a few hours of pitocin, the nurses started getting a little worried. The baby's heartbeat was dropping a little after each contraction, which isn't something they like to see. They started backing me off the pitocin, and laid me on my back to check the dilation. They said I was now 8-9cm dilated, but after they checked me the baby's heartbeat really dropped. I didn't really know what was happening as they immediately had me move onto my hands and knees and start breathing into an oxygen mask, but Jeff said one of the nurses pushed a button and within 30 seconds about 15 people ran into the room ready to wheel me off for an emergency c-section! It was a scary couple of minutes, but the heartbeat did go back up.
They took me completely off the pitocin at this point and my contractions basically stopped, and we were left to rest again as they slowly reintroduced the pitocin. Around 11:30am they said I was 9.5cm and juuuuust about ready to deliver. Of course, then my doctor had to go deliver another baby and perform a c-section, so she didn't come back until 1:30pm, at which point they lifted my leg and Jeff said he could already see the baby's head! Everyone got into place and I got the okay to start pushing.
Our first family photo 💗
This probably isn't what you want to hear, but with the epidural I thought the pushing wasn't terribly hard. They have you push in sets of three and while by the third I definitely wasn't pushing quite as hard, but she still basically shot out of there. After only 35 minutes of pushing, we had a baby girl! She cried right away so didn't have to be taken care of by the pediatric team after all. They passed her to me for some skin to skin time and I immediately started crying. I couldn't believe that we were parents to this perfect little beautiful baby girl. And really, I still can't - I may or may not have cried looking at her again just yesterday. We love you Mia Lynne, and are so lucky to have you in our lives!!
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