Hello Readers!
So the day has come, baby #2 has arrived! I soooo had intentions of writing one final blog while pregnant, but, life had other plans! So everyone loves a good birth story, so here is mine! If birth stories aren't your thang, I suggest you skip this one.
Last weekend, i.e. December 19th & 20th and into the beginning of the week, I was having a lot of contractions, but nothing regular. Sometimes 10 minutes apart, sometimes hours. I felt like labor was close but didn't want to get my hopes up, as I had thought the same thing with my first child and she was a week late. I was also 3 cm dilated already as of Friday December 18th! Another indication labor could be soon. We saw my OB Tuesday the 22nd and all agreed that due to babies bigger size and my dilation, I was a candidate for a scheduled induction December 30th. Okay, cool! 8 days to go, hah. Spoiler alert, baby had other plans.
My week started out normal despite the contractions. I felt an overwhelming desire to finish the artwork I had planned to make for the nursery (our bodies are weird in somehow prepping us to nest like that just in time!). Other than that, I was working full time as normal, and in fact was up late Tuesday night studying for an exam for work scheduled to take the next day (the 23rd).
I slept horribly overnight, partly attributed to my extraordinary hip pain, bathroom trips, back pain, anxiety for my exam the next day, the usual. Amongst the sounds of my husband getting ready for work I was in and out of sleep as I waited for the sounds of my toddler on the baby monitor. Then all the sudden I was jolted awake at 6:50 AM exactly by what truly did feel like a 'pop'. They say thats what to expect when your water breaks, but I wasn't convinced yet. I did feel warm water, and started thinking....oh gosh. I sat up, and yep! Water was breaking! Water broke! Holy moley baby is coming TODAY! I ran to bathroom and texted my husband from the bathroom that it was time! The next hour was a rushed madhouse mixed with calling doctor, getting toddler out of crib and ready without alarming her, feeding her a snack, me eating a breakfast feast before labor, packing last minute things for labor and getting out the door...all while continuing to leak, a lot! Luckily also the contractions hadn't really started yet.
We delivered our toddler to where she needed to go for our labor plan and got to the hospital by about 8:30 AM. Keep in mind, this was so far a completely different experience for me because my first child was a planned induction so things started off much smoother rather than water breaking. So they brought me back to triage and the doctor is all like, "so I hear you think your water broke", and I'm like, geez how many people do you guys get that think they broke it but didn't? But regardless I was like, uh- yep. He needed to confirm it and looked "down there" for about 2 seconds and was like, "Yep I've seen enough!" So admitted I was- you get to go straight pass GO.
We were admitted by about 10 am or so. The beginning was smooth enough, just answering lots of questions (multiple times), me begging them for food (I was ALREADY starving despite my best efforts at a pre-labor feast), and them monitoring baby. Unfortunately however I was not making much dilation progress on my own after that and contractions were infrequent to their liking. So I had to start Pitocin, the fun drug that speeds up labor by telling your uterus to contract. I dreaded this because of the memories of the painful contractions it brought on with my first induction. I wasn't aware of the fact that you still may need Pitocin even if your water breaks on its own, so news to me! They started the pitocin around 12 pm, and I wanted to at least attempt to see what these contractions would feel like this time around even though I knew it was about a 0.0000534% chance I would make it far without an epidural. Sure enough, by about 2 pm I was knocking down the anesthesiologist's door to get that epidural STAT. It went a lot smoother this time because I was able to stay still with ease this time as contractions weren't AS painful YET. Plus I got a fun button that I could bolus more pain meds whenever I wanted- Rollin'!
About 4 pm I thought for sure, boy by now I must be dilated- but nope- my body only went up to 5 cm since getting the epidural. Which, okay, great. Progress. The nurse said once I got over 5 the rest would speed up. Cool. They positioned me in all sorts of weird poses involving peanut shells and throne positions to try and convince baby to move down. I still was begging for food and trying to con anyone and everyone into slipping me some dark chocolate, but to no luck. I never realized how fast I would eat orange gelatin like it was the best food ever in my life. Couldn't say the same thing about chicken broth, though.
At about 5:30 ish, the resident and nurse come in and are basically like "the monitor is showing your contractions are too close together, so we need to place some sort of device "up there" to get a more accurate picture" and I'm like, oh okay yeah whatever you need to do. Well she checks "up there first" and is immediately like- well- nevermind! We are ready to push!
So in the blink of an eye we went from 2 people to 8 people (maybe more, I lost count especially with everyone in a mask). Even though I was at 10 cm, the baby apparently wasn't far down enough yet so I had to still sit up and "wait until I feel pressure" (and also wait for my OB to get there). I am the type of person that does better when prepped as much as possible for what to expect- and all the sudden when there are all these people in your room it just feels really scary!
Basically once my OB arrived and everyone was in position, we did a "practice push" at 6:25 pm, and that suddenly turned into a whirlwind of "Wait, don't push!" because the head was coming out and the OB wasn't ready yet. She finished getting ready with all her gear and we did 3 more pushes and literally by 6:27, he was here!! 6 pushes and 2 minutes! He was 8 lbs, 3 oz and 20 inches ! Big baby for being 38 weeks gestation!
The rest was magical, lots of goo and skin to skin and ALL love. Everything was great with baby boy and we snuggled so much for about 2 hours minus the checks they had to do.
The rest is boring- due to COVID my husband and I were pretty much trapped in our room until discharge. No visitors allowed was hard for us not being able to have our parents come by. Lots of TV was watched and baby snuggles!
Overall what strikes me the most is how similar my two deliveries were. Even though my water broke with this one and I was induced with the other, besides that the timelines were remarkably the same. With my first, I arrived to the hospital at 7, pitocin started by 9, water broke (by them) by 12, epidural by 2, and pushed by 5:40 and she was out by 5:55! Our kids are only about 30 minutes apart, and both born on a Wednesday, and even just one day apart in the month! (my first born on the 22nd of the month!)
We officially came home Christmas Day and have been in a sleepless but also still magical time as a family. Look forward soon to my next blog of our newborn week 1 adventures!
Thank you everyone for reading!
With Love,
The New Motherboard
