Happy first Monday in December! How is 2016 almost over already??
I am SO excited to share Stephanie’s birth story with you all today! Stephanie and I have never met, but I would totally consider her one of my online friends, and I feel that if we ever met in person we would get along awesomely! She’s a boy Mom, a foster Mom, has a passion for Africa, lives minimally and is such a great wealth of information. You must take a minute to head on over to her social media pages and give her a FOLLOW!
Blog: Living with Less and Experiencing More
Facebook:
Instagram: @marathonbride
Here is the birth story of her son, Elliott.
August 24th, was my 40 week appointment. I had been dilated some since 35 weeks, but hadn’t progressed. Baby was way low down, but still no other real signs of labor. I would have contractions, and then they would just stop. My doctor recommended being induced sometime that week, possibly the next day. Jason and I talked, and it was decided we would wait until the 28th. Surely baby would come by then. I really didn’t want to go through another induction, Martin’s had been so terrible that I really wanted this baby to just come on its own. I knew the risk of c-section goes up whenever you are induced, and that was the farthest thing from what I wanted. I was thankful that even though Martin took three days of labor to arrive, I was still able to have him vaginally.
Let me say quickly – to you mothers that wanted c-sections, or that feel like c-sections are the way to go, more power to you! My aversion to them is not meant to offend you, or lessen your experience in anyway. This is just my experience and my opinion.
The days passed and baby didn’t come.
I slept surprisingly well the night before our induction. I prayed and prayed for how my heart and my little guys hearts would handle being away from each other for a night or two. This was honestly one of the things I had been dreading the most. While I love my girls night outs, and date nights with Jason, other than those times I don’t leave my littles. So knowing I wouldn’t be the one to put them to bed, and take care of them was hard.
August 28th we were supposed to be at the hospital by 7am to start the induction. We get there around 6:30am and start walking, hoping to start contractions.
7am we check in, and sit in our hospital room for an hour before a nurse comes in to start paperwork and the actual induction process. They started me on a round of Cervadil, a drug made to soften the cervix. I had two rounds of Cervadil with Martin, and I HATED it. When the nurse went to start my IV, she found a vein that was apparently to big, and blood went all over the bed and it was a mess and I was so disgusted. I don’t like needles to begin with, and she seemed a bit frantic while at the same time finding it funny, which just left me confused and wanting a new nurse. She ended up being an ok nurse, and we actually got to speak to her about the Lord some.
So then Cervadil is doing it’s thing and I am allowed to walk around with their cordless monitor to try and get contractions going. The monitor already showed I was having some contractions, they just needed to be stronger. So Jason and I walked the halls, I labored on the birthing ball, I danced, I squated, and I begged this baby to come out.
Contractions continued, and even became really painful. Around 9pm they started me on pitocin, because my contractions were getting stronger on their own and cervadil had done enough of its job. So again we walked, and I huffed and puffed through some painful contractions. Hours went by and they checked me thinking I would be really far along, because the monitor had been showing consistent really strong and close together contractions. I wasn’t even half way there…. I was so frustrated… I labored some more, before getting an epidural. Our hospital starts you on a small epidural, and then you are in charge of pressing a button to release more. So basically you control just how numb you actually want to be. I only pressed the button once, and it turned out they hadn’t even hooked it up to the machine so I basically did nothing, but I had wanted a natural labor anyway. Labor and really bad heartburn continued through the night. I think I maybe got about an hour of sleep by trying to sleep between contractions here and there. By morning I had progressed greatly, and was in a lot of pain. The nurses kept saying my face was very “stoic” so they weren’t able to tell if I was getting close to needing to push or not. I remembered from birthing classes that screaming would only make you frantic and the pain less manageable. I was trying my best to focus, and instead the nurses took it as I wasn’t in pain. Not sure myself, I waited and waited, and finally felt like I couldn’t anymore so I told the nurse she needed to check me. She did and I was complete, and the head was ready to come. She panicked a little, because she had just been on the phone with my doctor who was going to head to the hospital and she had told her not to rush. At this point the nurse tells me not to push, I tell her that isn’t possible, so she says ok just push a tiny bit to get some relief. I do that and she and Jason can immediately see Elliott’s head. They tell me he has hair, and the nurse leaves to go call my doctor and tell her to hurry. I am able to control pushing to some degree at this point, but man was I uncomfortable. I remember telling Jason I was just going to push the baby out and he could catch it. The nurse did not like me at this point. They had a back up doctor, but for whatever reason they didn’t want to use her. After my “little” pushes weren’t little enough for the nurse, she calls the back up doctor in and I begin to actually get to push. A few contractions later and my doctor arrives.
This is where everything comes to a screeching and painful hault.
I continue pushing for the next 3.5 hours without any success. I tried pushing in just about every position you can. I got in a crawling position, I tried getting up one either sides, so may different things. While I didn’t enjoy the pain, I was thankful I didn’t have an epidural preventing me from moving around. They determined the baby was sunny side up, so we did several things to try and change that, but still baby just wouldn’t budge. At almost four hours, my doctor warned me that it was hospital policy to not let someone push for longer than four hours. Elliott’s heart rate had been dropping quite a bit during contractions, and they had called the NICU nurses in just in case. Throughout my four hours of pushing, I had asked several times for a break when I no longer felt the need to push. It was like my body new Elliott was in distress and I needed to stop. My doctor however disagreed and kept telling me to push. Toward the end of the four hours my doctor said she would try the vacuum, but she didn’t think it would help. She said we would try for three contractions, and if baby wasn’t here by then, we would have to immediately go to c-section. With an oxygen mask covering my face, tears streamed down my face for those last few failed attempts to push Elliott out. I could hear Jason praying, and the doctor telling the nurse the urgency of the situation and I felt so helpless and afraid. I wish I could say that I immediately began going over verses of scripture in my head, but I didn’t. My first instincts were fear, disappointment, and pain. As I was wheeled away from Jason to get prepped, I heard the song “great is thy faithfulness” play in my head. It’s always been my song, and it was in those scary moments. I prayed, and prayed, and prayed. Then they begin the epidural process to numb me, and they pumped it in so fast and so much of it, that my whole body shivered, add that to my already anxious self at the moment and I couldn’t even keep my teeth from chattering. The anesthesiologist was the sweetest guy, and tried his best to comfort and warm me with extra blankets and even warm air blowing on me. They didn’t let Jason come in until they were ready to actually perform the surgery. Jason came in, and I think we held hands. I was so freezing, and so exhausted, that I don’t remember very much of what else happened. It was like my body literally just gave up, and couldn’t do anything else. When Jason announced to me it that baby was an Elliott, I remember thinking how does he know? what is he talking about? and then I mumbled something to him. I was so exhausted and overwhelmed I could hardly speak. Which if you know me, then you know that never happens. They brought Elliott to where I could see him for a split second and then he and Jason had to leave. It felt like forever that I lay on that bed shivering, while they put me back together. When I was back in the delivery room, I was still so tired and cold I could hardly speak. After a little while of warming up, and little bit of warm tea, they finally brought Elliott to me so I could hold him and nurse him. All my fears disappeared as my 6lb 12 ounce bundle of wonderful healthy little boy was placed on my chest. I couldn’t believe how adorable he was, and that the nightmare to get him here was finally over. He nursed like a champ, and I admired his full head of dark hair, and was finally able to talk to Jason. My heart cried out in thanks to the Lord, that in the end, despite the terrible way it all happened, our little boy was here. He didn’t end up needing anytime in the NICU, and he was a healthy birth weight and height. The reason Elliott never made it out naturally, turned out to be because he had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck twice. Each time he was coming down the birth canal, his heart rate was dropping due to loss of oxygen as he was basically choking.
A couple hours later we were moved to the recovery room, where we stayed until Tuesday morning. Elliott had to spend two nights under a bilirubin lamp, because they thought he “might” develop jaundice and wanted to not take any chances. I had terrible nurses the first two days I was in recovery, but by my last day I had couple of good ones. At first I didn’t want to see my incision scar, but when I finally decided to look my first reaction was that I felt brave. To women who birth babies either by c-section, epidural, or completely natural – I give you all high fives! There is no “easy” way to bring life into this world, you are brave! I gave out all my goodie bags to the nurses, and they were all very appreciative of them.
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Thanks for sharing, Stephanie!
If you want to have your birth story published on The Glorious Mundane, please email me at thegloriousmundane@gmail.com.
Just a couple things- it does not matter what type of birth you have had!! Unmedicated, epidural, c-section, birth in the car… I still want to publish it! You never know what Mom out there needs to read your story to be encouraged/prepared for hers!
It also does not matter if you have already published it on your own blog. The only thing I need is for you to email it to me separately. I will NOT copy a story from your blog and publish it on mine, even if you give me permission to do so.
As always, you can visit the entire collection of birth stories by clicking here.