I can’t believe I’m finally sitting down to write Nathan’s birth story. It has been almost one month since he has come into our lives! Life has been absolutely crazy with a newborn, but that’s another story for another post.
Beware this post is extremely long, but I want to remember every single thing and I also love reading birth stories!
At 35 weeks I started to get twice weekly NST’s and ultrasounds to keep an eye on baby due to my thyroid problems. My doctor had already mentioned that most likely I would be induced around 39 weeks just to be safe so when the time came I definitely wasn’t surprised by the news of induction (he did the same thing for my sister because of the same thyroid issues). At my last appointment on January 4th we set the date to induce on January 8th – but I had to call the day of and see if they had room for me in labor and delivery.
I started getting a lot of anxiety the night we were supposed to call (we had to stay up until midnight to call and see if we should come in or not) so as you can imagine my anxiety was at an all time high. I called at midnight and they didn’t have room yet but they said to get some sleep and they’d call me when they did. Well not much sleep was had because once I had it in my mind we were going it was hard to sleep. After getting a couple of hours of sleep I got a call around 6:00 am asking us to be there by 7:45 – so I rushed to wake up joe and get myself ready so we could head out. We also never have rain here in California but of course on this day it was storming so that added to my nerves as well.
We kissed Pep and headed out, little did he know that we’d be bringing home a baby a few days later.
Once we made it to the hospital we got checked it, met our first nurse, and started my IV for pitocin. Since I was already 75% effaced and 2cm dilated coming into the induction we were able to jump right to pitocin which I was thankful for.
By 10:00am I was starting to feel mild cramping, nothing super painful just uncomfortable. I was able to have jello and Gatorade which actually helped a lot considering I hadn’t eaten anything of substance since the night before. By this time my mom had joined us and honestly it seemed like the day just flew by. We didn’t do much of anything – just a lot of waiting around for contractions to get stronger.
At some point that afternoon (who knows what time because everything was such a blur) they upped my pitocin and had to lower it again because it was making my contractions too close together. I also could really only lay on one side during labor because the baby’s heart rate was getting too high when I was on my back or in other positions. This was especially painful because my hips were already killing me. That’s the bad thing about induction is you can’t move around much at all.
At 4:00pm my doctor stoped by to check me and to break my water. By this point I was only 2.5cm dilated.
My contractions were getting pretty painful by late afternoon and I opted for some pain medication so I could hold out on the epidural for a little longer, plus the anesthesiologist was in an emergency csection so I couldn’t get it for at least another hour or so. Honestly the pain medication gave me a huge head rush and masked the pain for maybe 15-30 minutes before doing nothing. I needed pain medication though because every time I’d have a contraction my blood pressure would spike pretty high and my nurse was starting to get concerned.
Finally I was able to get the epidural which they said would probably help with my blood pressure spikes since it tends to actually lower blood pressure. I’m not gonna lie it was painful but it also took longer than normal from what the anesthesiologist said because I had some alignment issues I guess. After getting the epidural my sister joined us, not that I remember because I was out of it at this point.
Within one hour of getting the epidural I was 4 centimeters and then an hour after that I was 6 centimeters, so the epidural didn’t slow down progress at all for me! I was in so much pain though (a different kind of pain than before) I was shaking uncontrollably and was wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into – I was terrified of pushing.
By midnight I was at a ten and was able to do some practice pushes. They didn’t do enough for me to keep pushing so my nurse had me “labor down” which involved a huge peanut ball between my legs for I’m not kidding you….almost three hours. I was told to rest but was still shaking non stop and felt so much pressure there was no resting.
Finally, by 2:30am I was able to start actually pushing. I’m pretty sure I was on another planet because pushing was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Once the baby was just about to come out, we had to stop and wait for the on call doctor to come “catch” the baby. I was really bummed that my own doctor didn’t deliver my baby because he’s been there every step of the way helping me actually have a successful pregnancy.
Once the doctor got there and it seemed like a million other people entered the room I knew it was all on me to get this baby out. Honestly I was terrified this woman was going to cut me (literally) if I didn’t, she was pretty stone cold and obviously didn’t want to be there longer than she had to. Thank God for amazing nurses who coached me and Joe, my mom, and sister who kept giving me positive affirmations the entire time – because honestly I wanted to give up. I just kept my eyes closed and focused as hard as I could and at 4:19 am my sweet angel baby Nathan was born. We all cried. It was the hardest and most powerful thing I’ve ever done. I couldn’t believe I had actually done that, and that he was finally here.
I know why they put your baby on your chest for skin to skin right after birth, and it’s so you don’t focus on the stitches going on down below because let me tell ya, if I didn’t have my baby in my arms I would have been throwing a fit. My placenta wouldn’t detach, so for 30 minutes I had the doctor literally waiting and having me push to try and get it out before having to forcibly remove it (exactly as painful as it sounds) she literally said to me “hold onto your baby” and yanked that sucker out. So sorry for the TMI – but this is a birth story after all.
Nathan was 8 pounds 14 ounces, 19.5 inches long and the sweetest thing I’ve ever held in my life.
I am so thankful that I had the most kind and sweet L&D nurses, it was exactly what I needed. They held my hand through the pain and seriously made my experience so much better just by being easy on me.