A little background:
I was due September 5th. 3 weeks before, I had an appointment, and we did our last ultrasound. They took some measurements and estimated baby's size. She was measuring on the large side, but my doctor wasn't worried about it. We got this cute picture, which made it feel really real! (Also, she STILL eats her arm like that all the time).
I was dilated to a 3 at that point. Based on that, and baby's size, the doctor and the ultrasound tech both said they'd be surprised if I went all the way to my due date. Also, I was born three weeks early, so all of that had me pretty convinced that I would be having this baby sooner than later. I had contractions on and off most nights, so I was sure it'd happen soon. For the next few weeks, I got everything ready, and tried a few things to get labor going:
- Walking - Molly got more walks that month than she's ever had! And I would walk from my work to Brian's most nights, because I got off a little earlier than him. It was about a mile, down hill, but that's plenty when you're 9 months pregnant in August! I actually had a nice old man stop and offer to drive me once, because I probably looked pretty miserable. I told him "No thanks, I'm trying to walk this baby out!" He just laughed.
- Spicy foods - this did give me contractions, but I had already been having them off and on, so not really helpful.
- Pineapple - Smoothies are tasty, but other than that it didn't do much for me...
- Exercise ball - nope
When I was 38.5 weeks, I had another appointment. The doctor was really surprised that nothing had happened yet, and said she'd strip my membranes and see if that worked. I think it gave me more contractions, but nothing new.
My last appointment was at 39.5 weeks, and it was basically just a repeat of the last one. But that's when things finally happened!!
09/12/2016
We have a baby!
I had an appointment on Thursday morning. Before I went in, I was having some contractions, and thinking they were maybe more serious than the ones I had been having, but not getting my hopes up. I went to my appointment. I was still dilated to a 3, I think she said maybe a stretchy 3 to make me feel better. She said we could sweep my membranes again, and if I was having contractions still that evening to come in, because she was on call. She said if I didn’t go into labor we would have an appointment on Tuesday, and talk about if we wanted to induce or what our next step was after that.
I went to work after my appointment. I was having contractions, and they were actually kind of uncomfortable, which was new, but I didn’t want to get excited about it. When I got up and walked around I couldn’t feel them anymore, which was how it had been for weeks, but I was still having them, so that was a good sign. After work, I walked to Brian’s work. It was kind of awkward, because I had to walk through the tailgate party at the football stadium, and I saw a few people I knew. I had been trying really hard to avoid all unnecessary human contact for the last few weeks, because I was huge and scary. Walking through a huge crowd of college students was super fun.
When we were driving home I had some really good contractions, but once we were home and moving around I couldn’t feel them again. I was trying to time them, and they seemed really close together, but I couldn’t tell when they were starting/stopping very well. I didn’t want to go in and not have it be anything, so we waited for a while. I tried more walking and laying down, but the contractions still weren’t stopping, so I finally decided we should go in.
We got to the hospital at 8:45 ish. We should’ve gone to the hospital and scoped it out at some point, we weren’t even sure which building we were supposed to go to! But we made it with plenty of time, so it was fine. I was dilated to a 4, and they admitted me.
I was debating if I wanted to get an epidural. My contractions hurt but weren’t awful, and I thought it might be kind of cool to try it without one. But then another girl showed up at an 8.5 and was screaming and crying, and I decided to get it earlier rather than later. I went to the bathroom and my water started leaking, my doctor came to check and broke it the rest of the way for me. They gave me an IV to get me ready for the epidural, and it took them four tries to get it in. They kept hitting valves? It was the worst. They tried in both arms, my right wrist, and then gave me the choice of putting it in my left hand or trying another vein, so I just let them do it in my hand.
My contractions were getting more intense at this point (they told me they would once my water broke). The anesthesiologist finished up with the girl down the hall and came to give me my epidural. Apparently I was just in for being stuck with a million needles, because he had a hard time getting that in too. He had to try twice, possibly because I have mild scoliosis. He was surprised by how many contractions I had while he was trying to get it in, but he was able to do it without too many problems. It felt pretty weird, but getting it in wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be.
I got sick and threw up at some point after that.
Just a little bit, and it only matters because I made it through almost
my whole pregnancy without doing it!
After that, they just had me lay in bed while I continued dilating. Brian and I watched some TV, and I was able to sleep on and off. Apparently pretty soundly, because I snored enough that Brian had a hard time sleeping (they also had the world's smallest couch for him, so it wasn't 100% my fault!!). They came and checked on me and woke me up periodically. I was fully dilated at around 3:30 AM. They had me prop my legs up for “rest and descend” for an hour after that, first using the stirrups and then using a peanut ball when that was kind of uncomfortable. I had a ton of nurses, it was kind of hard to keep track of everyone. Plus it’s a teaching hospital, so there were a bunch of nurses in training there too. I thought I would be concerned about how many people were there, but you get over it.
When ‘rest and descend’ was done, we started pushing. My epidural was done really well, I was able to move my legs fairly well by myself and I could feel my contractions and the urge to push, which were reasons that I had thought about not getting one, so I was glad. We tried pushing for two hours, and baby would move down a little and then move back up after the contraction, so we made almost no progress and I was very frustrated.
Also, my contractions were crazy. Watching them on the monitor was really interesting. When I was having contractions before labor, I had a hard time telling when they were starting and stopping, and that’s how they were in labor as well. I would get into a contraction, and then it would stop for a bit but not get down to ‘resting’ state, it’d start going back up at like half way down, and I’d have three or four like that before it did go back down, and then not a very long break before it started again. Also, they were really long. Normally, they try to have you do three distinct pushes each contraction, but we had enough time to do four during each contraction, so we were trying that. The nurses said that it looked like I had been put on pitocin, and if I had been they would be turning it way down because they worried that it would distress the baby. But because I wasn’t on pitocin, and this was how my contractions were naturally, they couldn’t really do anything about it. They tried pushing fluids to slow them, but baby was doing fine (her heart rate was totally stable, except for when they would feel to see where her head was, she would get excited feeling it and move around a little bit more, which I thought was cute!) so it was more for my sake than anything. I was so exhausted that when my contractions would go down, I would fall asleep (like to the point that I would snore some more, with everyone in there trying to help me, so embarrassing). I don’t know how people do it when they labor for longer than that (especially if they don't get an epidural)!!
Anyway, after two hours and no progress, the nurse thought maybe baby was a little crooked and she called the doctor to come see and possibly turn her. The doctor showed up and said that she was in a good position, and that she could let me try pushing for a while longer or she could use the vacuum/suction cup thing to help me, but if we were going to do that we should do it now because I needed to be able to do the majority of the work still. She was worried that if we waited, I’d be too tired for that. I was a little afraid at that point, and worried about the baby, but she said it wouldn't hurt her, and I was so tired that I couldn’t even think about two more hours of pushing, so I agreed to let her do it.
It was like 10 contractions and 20 minutes later, and baby was here! My doctor was reallllly surprised at how big she was. The poor training nurse was trying to put a newborn diaper on her, and was having a really hard time (that was the only newborn diaper she ever wore, we had to give a whole case of them to my sister because she started out big enough to be a size 1). The other nurses reassured her that they are normally a lot easier!! Anyway, they were all taking bets on how big she’d be, and everyone was pretty surprised when it ended up being 10 lbs 11 oz!!
After we got baby out, and the doctor finished stitching me up, they gave the baby to me to hold skin to skin for a while. That was a little weird, because I wanted to look at her, but I couldn’t really sit up well at that point and I couldn’t see her well while she was laying on me. It felt really weird to actually have a baby! I had a really hard time visualizing an actual baby the whole time I was pregnant, and I thought that would go away right away when she was here, but it still took a minute to wrap my head around!
Oh look! There was really a baby in there! |
My mom was there at that point. Actually, she had been at the hospital basically the whole time. She left Vernal when we got admitted and got to the hospital at like midnight or sometime after that. She waited in the lobby for a while, and then they let her come back to the delivery rooms and she sat outside in the hall and didn’t tell us she was there. Brian was in charge of communications, so she wasn’t getting many updates (next time I'll have to be more specific). She said she just waited outside until she saw that the nurses were taking the cart in and then she listened while the doctor was helping me get the baby out. Then after they were finished with everything we told her to come in. I think I was a little fuzzy at this point, I don’t really know what she did while we were in there.
I was in the delivery room for 2 hours after she was born, just holding her and hanging out. They gave me pitocin in my IV to help my uterus shrink back down. They came in every 15 minutes to rub my belly, which was the worst. The nurse that was in charge of me did it WAY harder than everyone else did after that. Not fun. But that’s her job I guess.
They transferred us to the recovery floor. I had my own room, and baby stayed there with me the whole time, except for when they took her to do her hearing test and a few other things. I don't think I left the room the whole time I was there. Brian had another teeny tiny couch to sleep on there, so he stayed with us too. We only stayed one night, because insurance covers 24 hours after delivery, and she was born at 7:27 AM, and I guess getting discharged in the morning is hard, so we just left the night before.
It took us a while to officially decide her name. First of all, there were so many people there that we couldn’t really talk about it in private for a while (we had lots of visitors in and out, plus nurses, plus lactation consultants, plus doctors, plus people bringing food, and I slept a lot when people weren't there). Second of all, I’m indecisive. But we ended up sticking with Juniper Jade, which was what we had pretty much decided once we found out we were having a girl, but hadn't officially settled on. I thought we would be able to decide more easily once we knew what she looked like, but that definitely wasn't the case. We did manage to get it all ironed out before we brought her home, so it all worked out.
That's about everything! Well, not really. There were a million other little things that I feel like we didn't do a great job of documenting. I should've taken a lot more pictures... As always, I'm hoping to improve in that area, but no promises.
****After I posted this, my mom sent me some recordings she did from out in the hall. She got the actual moment that I had the baby!! All I can make out in that one is the doctor counting while I pushed, and then when I actually had her I said "Holy cow!!" (proof that I never swear. Even when I'm birthing a baby). She got a little bit of June's first cry, if I can figure out how I'll post it!
****After I posted this, my mom sent me some recordings she did from out in the hall. She got the actual moment that I had the baby!! All I can make out in that one is the doctor counting while I pushed, and then when I actually had her I said "Holy cow!!" (proof that I never swear. Even when I'm birthing a baby). She got a little bit of June's first cry, if I can figure out how I'll post it!