Blair's Birth Story

Warning... LONG!

Early Friday December 10^th (1:30 am) I started being woken up by contractions.  I didn’t wake Jason but they were keeping me up the rest of the night.  They were coming about 10 to 20 minutes apart and were painful but not terrible.  At about 5:30 Jason was up with me and we tried walking to see if that stopped or sped them up and they stayed about the same.  I had to stop while walking and sway while holding onto Jason and we actually had a car stop to ask us if I was ok… embarrassing!   We had a doctor’s appointment that morning at 9:20 but while I was getting ready and by the time I got to the doctor, the contractions had stopped. 

Dr. Robinson checked me again and I was only a 1 still.  I was more effaced and was a full 1 cm (last time I was about a half) so I had made some progress since Monday but not really enough.   I was very disappointed because I thought for sure the nights contractions would have done something!  However, my blood pressure was still high and she decided to set me up for an induction anyway on Saturday the 11^th at 5 pm.  We joked about how we wanted the 12/11/10 birthday but a 5 pm induction wasn’t going to get it done in time.  I texted everyone to let them know the news of the induction.  I started having some contractions again when we got in the car and Jason had some errands that he needed to run and we wanted to get some lunch.  I said I was fine to go with and I would just stay in the car.  By the time we got home, I was contracting again but I really wanted to get some sleep since I hadn’t slept the night before.  I thought if I got a nap in, I could still make it to get a pedicure with my mom after she got off work. 

I never got the nap.  I started having contractions all within 10 minutes of each other.  Jason was downstairs fixing the Lexus so he didn’t know I was having so many but finally I went down and told him I needed him to come upstairs to be with me.  He suggested a bath and I figured that would let us know if this was it because the bath would probably slow them down if they were just fakers.  Also, people like to labor in tubs… supposedly to help the pain…. I never had this, the tub did not help the pain and they did not slow down.  I got back in bed and they were coming closer together, we were still skeptical that this was really it… I had JUST been at the doctor!  The hospital called to confirm my induction for the next day and I told them I wasn’t going to make it until then and they confirmed that I should probably come in soon as they were 3-5 minutes apart and lasting over 60 seconds.  We started getting everything ready and we tried to take one last walk but I couldn’t make it so we hopped in the car.  It was hard to drive over there; the car did not help with the pain.

We arrived and got checked into a triage room and they hooked me up to the monitors.  The baby was doing great and my contractions were indeed coming steadily.  Unfortunately they checked me and I was STILL a 1!  I could have cried.  The doctor asked if we wanted to stay anyway since I was going to be induced tomorrow, they might as well start now.  I said yes because I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how I would go home with the pain I was in.  We let the troops know this was it and they moved us up to the wonderfully huge labor and delivery rooms.  I seriously could NOT believe the pain of the contractions… the only thing bearable was to stand and lean on the bed during a contraction; laying down was agonizing.  Mom, Dad and Janae arrived around 8 and I did manage to update my facebook status with the news between a few contractions!  Nicole and Jen arrived around 9, they had driven to Clovis for Jen’s family’s bake day and had to turn around and come back when they heard the news.  They brought the cutest cookies for us to give to our doctors and nurses as a thank you!

 The doctor came in and said that my contractions were slowing and they wanted to start me on some Pitocin.  I wanted to cry because I just couldn’t handle having more pain and I knew that the Pitocin would make them so much worse.  I didn’t want the epidural yet because I wanted to progress (my goal was a 6) so I asked about the other narcotic options even though I had really not wanted to have to do that.  I asked if I could try walking for a while first to try to speed things up.  She checked me and I was 3.5 so I was very happy to make some progress.  Jason and I went for a walk but we only made one lap (that I guess took a LONG time) because it was so painful and I finally asked for the epidural around 10.  That is when she informed me that I had to have a whole bag of fluid first which I would have liked to have known earlier and she started to speed up the fluid which gave me the chills.  The anesthesiologist came in and it was not as bad as I expected but scary to have to sit there through a contraction trying not to move while he is putting a needle in your back!  It started working pretty quickly and completely numbed the right side of my body.  However, the left side was not really working and I was still having pain, although a little better.  They tilted me so that the medication would flow to that side and I started using the push button every 10 minutes to get more medication (even though he said I probably wouldn’t use it… he seriously underestimated my lack of pain tolerance).  At this time I had a new nurse Shannon and she was so awesome, very friendly and helpful.  I finally started to have a little more relief but eventually the anesthesiologist came back to give me a booster shot to make it even better.  I cannot stress enough my love for the epidural.  I told Jason during the early stages that he should know we would be adopting in the future but after I got the epidural I said that I guess I could do it again.  You will notice in the birth pictures the change in me after this stage.   Jason said I was a different person before, in a weird alternate state just trying to get through the pain. 

Grandma arrived about 11:45 too and we were all in the room enjoying Christmas music and doing pretty good.  They checked me again around midnight and broke my water.  I was a 5.5 and everyone was behind the curtain and cheered for this.  I don’t know when they checked me again but I was 8.5 and then at 5:00 am I was a 10 and ready to push.  There were no doctors available because 5 other people were pushing at the same time so it was just Shannon during the beginning pushing stages to get the baby down further.  I was surprised the pushing didn’t really hurt very badly.  The baby was having some decelerations in her heartbeat and I had to have some oxygen.  At about 6:30 am a doctor arrived and we did not like him.  He yelled in a non-encouraging way “harder!” and stood with his arms crossed impatiently between contractions.  Luckily he had to get to some surgeries and another doctor came in to relieve him soon after.  He said he would stay and didn’t care how long it took and I said, “I care how long it takes!” My contractions had really slowed down but they didn’t want to give me Pitocin because of the baby’s heart rate.  They thought she was stuck in her umbilical cord because she was not coming down.  I had a lot of rest between the contractions though and I think I was falling asleep between; Shannon said I was the best relaxer she had seen and I said that was the first time anyone had ever told me that in my life!  As they started to see the head I agreed to look in the mirror to see for myself and was kind of ticked because everyone kept saying she was “right there and so close” and she was NOT!  I didn’t look in the mirror after that; it was not encouraging me like people say it does!  Finally at 7:27am she came out with her hand by her head (why it was so hard to push her out) and my mom thought she had a growth until she opened it up waving hello!  It was indescribable how I felt when they laid her on my chest for the first time, I just kept saying, “she is so beautiful!”  Jason got to cut the cord and I loved watching him see our baby girl for the first time.  She wasn’t crying (and looking back at the pictures she was really blue) so they took her over to the warmer to suction her and get her crying, it was so amazing to hear her.  I watched as they cleaned her up and weighed her and was so surprised that she was 8 pounds 9 ounces, I didn’t expect so big!  The doctor even said when she came out that she was long and she was 20.75 inches.  Finally she got to come back to me and it was just so incredible how beautiful she was… I didn’t really pay attention to anything happening or any pain after that.

Mom and the sisters left for a while to let Jason and I have alone time and she got a bath and Jason held her for the first time, it was so cute to watch him with her.  She was very eager to feed but we were pretty unsuccessful.  After awhile, mom, dad and grandma came to see her and then her aunties as well. 

We stayed in the room for awhile and then were going to move up to the postpartum room.  My one leg was still totally numb and I had to have others lift it to do anything, it was such a strange feeling.    When I went to sit up to move, I passed out and they had to pull the emergency button.  I had to stay about another hour before I finally got to move to the new room.

We enjoyed out next 36 hours or so together.  Jason stayed the whole time on the uncomfortable pullout sleeper and she did pretty good at sleeping.  We still had a really hard time with feeding but finally got a plan in place before we left on Sunday December 12^th around 8pm to start our new lives as a family of 3!

I feel really lucky; I think I had a wonderful birth experience with no drama or trouble.  It went really quickly to me even though looking back, I was having contractions starting at about 11 a.m. (not including the previous night) to when I had her at 7:27 a.m. so it was a long process.  I didn’t have to have any drugs to help me progress, my epidural was a fabulous success, we were surrounded by love and support, and we ended up with the most beautiful healthy girl.  We couldn’t ask for anything more and are so blessed!