Baby's Birth Story

The baby finally decided to come, 5 days late. After 3 days of having regular contractions that stayed about 10 minutes apart for several hours at a time, I ignored them on Sunday and started work on my son's Christmas vest. I quit before topstitching, since the contractions were getting to be a bit much to work thru...and since I had already forgotten to put the back ties in, I was afraid of ruining it completely!

I called my mom to come, told my husband that he probably wasn't going to be heading back to church to run youth group and that he should eat dinner quickly, and grabbed the pillows off my bed. I also called and told my doctor I was heading in. As soon as my mom arrived with my sister, we told the kids we were heading to the hospital to get the baby out, and left. Fortunately the weather and traffic cooperated, and I didn't have to deal with too many contractions on the way there.

We walked into the hospital at 6:20 P.M. and the contractions were getting closer to 3 minutes apart. We hung out in the waiting room for 20 minutes or so, while they got triage ready or something. I was concentrating thru the contractions and not really up to talking thru them at that point. Fortunately this time the resident didn't make me try, lol! She checked me and decided I was 5-6 cm and could officially be admitted. They ran their monitoring strip and sent me off to my labor room. I was excited to find out that they had totally re-done the labor "suites" since the last time I had given birth there and that they actually had jacuzzi tubs that were large enough to labor in, so I jumped at the chance to get one.

My labor nurse decided that she didn't need to run another monitoring strip when I got there, so I dealt with the contractions and answered her questions (when did you last eat, when did your contractions start, etc) in between them, while the tech put in my hep lock for the antibiotics for GBS. My husband filled the tub for me, and after asking why they didn't hook me up with the antibiotics right away and being told that they were waiting for them to come up from the pharmacy, I decided that the tub sounded much better than the edge of the bed. The nurse went off to find a birth ball, and probably should have spent her time reading the remainder of my birth plan instead! I got into the tub and was very happy in the warm water. I would have been happier on my hands and knees (lots of back labor), but was trying to keep my hep lock dry!

I went thru transition in the tub in the next 30 minutes and knew that I was complete when I got the overwhelming urge to push! The doctor had just been in and spoken to my husband in the other room and told him to have them call when I got uncomfortable. This was my first hint that the nurse must have been clueless as to how far along I was, lol! I sent my mom for a towel, and my husband paged the nurse to get the doctor. I am fortunate enough to normally have a break between transition and pushing contractions, so I was fairly comfortable moving from the tub back to the bed. I put on my own nursing accessible labor gown and got over to the bed. The doctor confirmed that I was 10 and 100%, so he broke my water (apparently it is against the rules of OSHA for them to be splashed, lol!) and then let me push when I was ready.

My one complaint about delivery is that they didn't put up the squat bar so I couldn't be more upright. I don't know if that would have made pushing any more enjoyable, since she was posterior and determined to come out that way, but I think it would have been easier! It took about 6 minutes to push her out, which seemed like an eternity. I would have much preferred to pant her out, but that only works if you aren't on your back! I was very happy to finally get her out and on my tummy at 8:26 P.M. I was a bit surprised that she was in fact a girl, since I had been very concerned that my daughter (who was sure she was getting a sister) would be disappointed. We hadn't found out the sex beforehand, since I prefer something to look forward to during labor and since it took us until a few days after she was due to come to an agreement on a girl's name!

The antibiotics STILL hadn't arrived, but it wasn't a big deal, since they would have drawn blood cultures on her anyhow since I wouldn't have had penicillin. The doctor stitched me up (my old episitomy tore, which might have been avoided somewhat had the nurse finished reading my birth plan and had hot compresses available!) and everybody left. She stayed on my chest and nursed and was admired for almost an hour before we decided that we should let them weigh her so we could start calling people before it got too late! We debated over the middle name so that we wouldn't have to call everyone twice ;) She weighed in at 7#, 5 oz and was 20 inches long.

We came home just shy of 48 hours later, and she is settling right in! Her big brother and sister love her to death and are dealing pretty well with having to wait for things while mommy feeds the baby!