A Birth Story

Are you sitting down? This story is intense. Like kinda crazy intense. I'm not going to sugar coat it, so if you're nervous, don't continue reading. (It's really not that gross.) After our low fluid scare and bed rest adventure, we made it to 39 weeks. My doctor does scheduled inductions from 39 weeks on, so we scheduled an induction for Friday, March 8^th- a day after I turned 39 weeks. You're probably wondering why we would schedule an induction when there was no emergency. Here's why. That next week was Travis' spring break. He had the whole week off. Nothing was happening naturally, so we decided to take matters into our own hands and do the induction process. The doctor explained that inducing is a long process, especially since I was not dilated. He said we'd go in Thursday night and I'd get put on Cervidil. Cervidil helps kick start things a little bit and loosen things up before the actual labor stuff the next day. The doctor then said he'd meet us in the morning to break my water and put me on Petocin. Petocin helps speed things up and gets me to dilate and start having contractions. Anyways, so inducing can be a whole day thing. It sometimes can take longer. It's a long process, but Travis and I were ready for it.

Travis and I pulled up to the hospital on Thursday night (March 7^th) at 10 pm. We had a scheduled induction for Friday morning. It was weird walking into the hospital, hand in hand, knowing when we walked out next it would be with our brand new baby. I don't think I ever fully comprehended what that meant. We were taken to our room that would be the delivery room the next day. I remember thinking, “Wow... I'm going to have a baby in THIS ROOM.” So unreal.

I was given Cervidil at midnight. The nurse told me to sleep and get rest so we can get the hard stuff done on Friday. She also mentioned that Cervidil may cause light cramping. She said it was normal and not to worry. Then she said something that I didn't think much about, but I wish I would have taken it more seriously. She said in rare cases, some women go into full blown labor from the Cervidil. She said it was rare and not to expect that. Oh, FYI. I was hardly even dilated when I started the Cervidil at midnight. She then walked out of the room and I tried to close my eyes. Umm... how do you sleep knowing you're so close to having a baby?! Not even an hour later I started cramping. They were pretty painful cramps. And they got progressively worse by the minute. By 2 o'clock I couldn't stand it anymore. I leaned over to Travis and told him I couldn't continue on. I said, “If these aren't contractions, I'm going to die!” I called my nurse in and told her I thought I was having contractions. She looked at my monitor and told me the machine wasn't picking them up. She said they might just be cramps. Then she told me that maybe they were really small ones and the machine just wasn't picking up on them. Small? Um no. They hurt. So she moved the “contraction detector” (I made up that name...) on my stomach to a different place to see if she could pick up the contractions from another location. And SURPRISE! I was having contractions. And not small ones. They were BIG ones. She gave me some pain meds to help me rest through the contractions. She was still determined to get me to sleep. I was dilated to a 4/5 by then. (Yeah, in two hours I went from a 0 to a 4/5.)

So I was in and out of consciousness for the next hour. It got to the point that my contractions woke me up from sleeping. I could feel them even though I was on heavy pain meds. At around 3 o'clock I thought I was going to die. I had to breathe through each contraction and didn't think I would make it. Travis was sitting beside me rubbing my head. It was sweet. But he was also asking, “Are you okay?” Big mistake. NO I WAS NOT OKAY! Holy crap. I turned evil. That poor nurse and my poor husband. Those contractions turned me into an evil witch. I asked for an epidural at around 3:20 or so. But it was a pretty long process getting everything ready for that. I didn't actually get my epidural until around 4. So while I was experiencing the worst of the contractions waiting for my epidural, the nurse came into the room and left the door open. I heard some nurses out in the hallway laughing. And hearing people experiencing joy while you're experiencing the worse pain in your lifetime was like the worst thing I could imagine. I pretty much yelled at the nurse to make them stop laughing. Haha. See!? I was mean. Travis leaned in and whispered in my ear to be nice. When I wasn't having contractions I was nice. I apologized to my nurse and was all good. Then another contraction would hit and I hated the world again. Haha. It was crazy and I am not proud of my evilness. (Though it may be a little funny...)

So by then I was dilated to a 7/8. Yeah. Super nuts. I got my epidural and a while later I couldn't feel much anymore. At 6, I was dilated to a 10 and fully effaced. So within 6 hours I went from a super tight 0 to a full blown 10. Holy moly. All the nurses and doctors were in awe. Especially since this was my first baby. The on-call doctor wanted to wait a while to deliver the baby to wait for her to work her way down. She was having problems with her heart beat whenever I would have contractions. So the doctor didn't want to put too much pressure on her when I pushed. So she wanted to make it as easy as possible. 

I was given oxygen to help the baby's heartbeat.

I kept telling the nurse I felt like the baby was about to fall out. But she didn't really believe me since I had an epidural. She figured I couldn't really feel it. At 8:00, the doctor came in and had me do a practice push. You should have seen her eyes when she realized how close my baby was to coming. She said, “Okay it's time!” and all the nurses went to work getting everything ready. Three contractions later, little Hailey was born. At 8:07am. She came and they pretty much threw her at me. I was pushing, and all of a sudden she was given to me. It happened so fast. She was crying and when I spoke to her she immediately quieted down and just looked right at me. It was amazing. She totally recognized my voice. Travis and I were in love.

So giving birth really wasn't too tough. Haha. Maybe I'll do it again sometime soon. Somehow I was a lucky one. I'm not sure how it happened but I was able to walk into the hospital comfortably, lay down in my bed and have a baby 8 hours later. We didn't get any sleep that night. But it was super exciting and such an amazing experience. It was time for her to come. She made that known by how quickly everything progressed. She's so beautiful and such a blessing to us.

She's two weeks old now. Isn't that nuts? I can't even remember what life was like before my beautiful daughter. She's everything to us. We love every second of every day (Yes, even the sleepless nights).