Our Crazy Beautiful Birth Story part 2

**Warning: This post may contain content not suitable for the faint of heart…and stomach. Proceed at your own risk. Good luck.**

Yesterday I shared part one of our birth story, so if you missed that then head on over to get caught up. My birth plan was simple; I wanted to labor at home for a while then head to the hospital where I could finish laboring and deliver in a tub.  A simple water birth, no pain meds and as little intervention as possible.  For some reason whenever I get to the hospital in labor, my body locks up and contractions slow or delay (is it performance anxiety?)  It’s almost like clock work, really.  Like a last-ditch effort to stay pregnant permanently.  Truly a birthing blessing I tell ya. But as fate would have it, I was GBS positive and needed penicillin every 4 hours during labor. Joy. This put a kink in my labor at home as long as possible plan.

So when I awoke a little after 1 am with REAL contractions I knew it was baby time.  But in an effort to not get too excited I tried to rest and fall back asleep.  an hour passed and these contractions seemed quite regular, so I did what any thoughtful wife would do, and wake her husband to time those suckers.  Four and a half minutes apart, and they were strong enough that I couldn’t walk or talk through them.  After about 10 minutes of Sam convincing me I wouldn’t want to be stinky at the hospital when we meet our baby girl, I agreed to shower.  Really I didn’t want to move, unless it was in the direction of the hospital, ha!

Though I wanted to head to the hospital because I was already 4cm dilated, needed the medicine, and I tend to labor fast once I hit transition; I didn’t want to rush things.  So we called my midwife to see what she thought and waited at home to hear back from her.  While we waited my sister and her husband arrived from Arkansas.  (After hearing of my progress from my appointment, they decided to make the 7 hr drive down, betting I’d go into labor.  Weren’t they lucky.)  Once my midwife called back, she agreed I should probably head that way and see what was going on.  It was happening, we were going to have a baby!

Holy crap, we were going to have a baby!

 

5 kids.  Sweet Lord.

(Clearly Sam could not go through labor without a Dr. Pepper and Spicy Cheese-its, priorities people.)

Arriving at the hospital was a joke.  There was construction blocking entrances, doors closed for night hours, and about 30 minutes of walking with a bazillion contractions later, we made it to Labor and Delivery.  I seriously think this hospital hides the labor & delivery floor as to ward off birthing mothers.  I almost decided to set up camp in a hallway by a Ficus. Don’t judge.

As I signed in and began registration (even though I pre-registered) I could feel my contractions slow.  Just like that.  My body was locking up like Fort Knox, and going from contractions every 4 1/2 minutes, to 7 minutes, then every 13 minutes.  Really?  It has to be my body’s reaction to all the stupid questions they deem necessary for a laboring woman to answer.  “Level of schooling completed?” Why? Will my va’jay’jay be better equipped to push out a child if I’m packing a PhD? This lull just made me want to go home.  I was tired and if this was false labor I wanted nothing to do with it.  My midwife was nowhere to be found  because she was in another delivery, so the nurse checked to see if I had progressed any.  5cm dilated and 80% effaced. . . so we waited. And passed the time cracking jokes and listening to my sarcastic remarks, it was fun for all.

Around 7:30am after a sitting in a freezing room with 15 min apart contractions, wishing I could head home, my midwife came in.  Seeing the frustration in my face, she wanted to check my progress herself and I was surprised to hear I was now dilated 6cm.  She didn’t want me to go home now because my labor could pick up at any point and I needed to get my meds, so we had two options; get my meds and wait for my contractions to pick up again, or get my meds and then break my water to kick-start things. I opted to rest for an hour, then move to the tub suite, and break my water.

Finally at 10am, still dilated to a 6, we got the show on the road and they broke my water.   Due to hospital protocol I needed to stay laying in bed, monitored for 30 min. to make sure Pippa was okay.  Let me just tell you, contracting in bed is for the birds.  The last thing you want during a contraction is to be stuck in their uncomfortable beds, it just pain sucks.

After that monitoring was finished I told my mom I thought I’d labor a bit walking and then head to the tub. I didn’t want to rush the tub for fear of it slowing my contractions down. We had come too far for that nonsense, ha! But once I stood up I immediately went to the birthing ball where I only lasted for about 2 contractions and then asked for the tub. The nurse asked if I wanted to be checked before heading into the tub and I agreed. Though it was only a two step trek from the ball to the bed, it seemed like a marathon, and as I paused for a contraction, I felt the baby’s head drop. I knew it couldn’t be long and in fact I was now 8 cm dilated. To the tub we went.

If anyone ever asks me if a water birth was great and eased my pain I will answer yes without any hesitation. But I never expected to have such severe back labor this time around. I was trying so hard to push my back up against the wall of the tub in hopes of some relief. Finally I had to get on my hands and knees while Sam pushed on my hips. To me it felt like he was gently applying pressure, but Sam says he was pushing on my back so hard. Yeah, back labor is a biznatch. But Sam-He was amazing.

The room was quiet, there was no screaming, moaning, or even nasty words. Shocker I know. I needed to focus. Focus on the end game, my baby girl. Focus on letting my body do what it needed to do. And finally focus on getting her out. I remember hearing my midwife say, “I just want to see what she’s doing.” in response to what she was going to do. But about that time I started to push and was thinking, “Is she going to grab her?”. It was about that moment that I rotated back and grabbed Pippa myself. All I was thinking was, “If she’s not going to then I guess I will.” Apparently nobody knew I was pushing until they actually saw Pippa. It was so crazy and fast.  Sam made sure to spend about half the time in the hospital dedicated to the subject- “NO one know you were pushing” “We couldn’t tell at all” “Even the midwife thought you had longer to labor” “why didn’t you warn us” “when she came out, we were all like ‘NO WAY’ we couldn’t even tell she was pushing!” And the quotes could go on and on, but I’ll save you the effort and Sam the embarrassment.

What a surreal moment that was. Not only did I carry this baby for 9 months, give birth to her, but I was the first person to touch her. It was just her and me.

 

Truly one of the most amazing moments of my entire life. She’s mine, all mine. Thank you Lord.

 

What seemed like forever to me really only took about an hour. We didn’t even know what hit us it happened so fast.

Pippa Shantel was born at 11:18am weighing 6.2 lbs and 19 in long. But here she is, tiny, perfect, and has my whole heart. Her daddy and I are in love.

My sweet, sweet Pippa.