Harley's Birth Story

It all began Tuesday night. My parents and my brother and sister-in-law were in town so Garrett and I decided to go have one last dinner together before we became a family of five. I had gone to the doctor the day before and she said it could be anytime. I felt bad Monday night and just felt kind of off all day Tuesday. We were leaving to go to dinner and I noticed that I was having some pretty strong contractions, but I'd been having them for a while so I didn't think anything of it at first. However, I decided we should go ahead and take our bags just in case since we don't live near the hospital.

While we were driving to the restaurant, I started timing the contractions and they were coming about ten minutes apart. Throughout dinner, they started getting closer together and stronger and since I am not one to miss a meal, I tried to enjoy my chicken fried chicken, but by the end I was pretty uncomfortable. By this point, they were coming five minutes apart and not letting up. Since my labor with Hudson was fairly quick, my doctors/midwives and I all agreed that I shouldn't waste any time getting to the hospital this time so we decided to head that way.

We got to the hospital around 9:15 p.m. and met Dr. S in labor and delivery. They put me in a room and started the 900 questions and monitoring. There was no time to answer all of the questions or sign anything when I had Hudson. I never even got a band from admitting with him. Ha!

I was four centimeters, 80% effaced, -2 station at 9:30. They confirmed that I was in fact in labor, just the early stages. The doctor and I fully expected things to pick up and we would have a baby in a few hours. However, little miss had other plans we didn't know about yet. My parents and Christi met us at the hospital.

As the night progressed, the nurses assured me that everything was fine and my contractions had a good strong pattern. As mentioned before, my doctors are pretty hands off so the plan was to just let me labor and wait for things to happen. My mom slept on the couch in my room and Garrett and my dad slept in the lobby. I think I maybe slept an hour all night. I started getting restless at 2 a.m. and listened to music and prayed for hours. I started to think that maybe something could be wrong. Even though I was uncomfortable and having strong contractions, I knew things weren't progressing like they should.

At 5:20 a.m., I knew that sleep was not going to happen and decided to start moving around. I sent a text to my "fight club" as we lovingly refer to our women's development group and told them to start praying for this baby to come soon.

Christi took some pictures of the big day.

Dr. M came in a little before 9 a.m. and much to my discouragement, after laboring all night, I was still only at a 4. She gave me the option of starting a low dose of pitocin or breaking my water. I really wanted to avoid pitocin and the snowball of interventions that usually follows it so I chose to have my water broken.

 
My water broke around 9 a.m. and within the hour my contractions were in full force. I spent the next two hours working through the contractions mostly in the rocking chair and hanging over the back of the hospital bed. My favorite place to be was in the rocking chair. Something about the rocking motion during a contraction was comforting. They had a hard time monitoring her heart rate when I was in the chair though because her head was so low and the band wouldn't stay on. My sweet nurse just held it there to do intermittent monitoring so I could be comfortable.

At 11 a.m. I had progressed to 6 cm, 90% effaced, -2 station. It was progress, but it was s-l-o-w. I tried not to be discouraged or worried and my doctor and the nurses were great.

Between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. I continued to work through the contractions in those positions and moved around as much as possible. I was so glad to not be stuck laying in the bed. I stayed very focused, really working on breathing. The contractions were about two minutes apart and I wanted to stay on top of them.

At 1 p.m. I started feeling a lot of pressure. I was still 6 cm, but 100% effaced and she had dropped to 0 station. Dr. M discovered that she was occiput posterior or "sunny side up". This is why I was not progressing very quickly. The goal was to get her to turn so I got up on all fours and did pelvic tilts for about ten minutes and then did the "superman" position on my right side with my left leg propped up for a few minutes. I had done really well staying positive up until this point, but the lack of sleep and 16 hours of labor were catching up to me. I had felt in control and on top of the contractions, but they were becoming really intense and I wasn't sure how much longer I could do it if I was still only at a 6. I was worried that I wouldn't have anything left to push, but I also did not want an epidural and have to be stuck laying in the bed. I was thinking maybe some vodka would be good just to take the edge off. Ha! I'm kidding. I was in transition and I think many people feel this way during transition. I just had it in my head that I was still at a 6 and had a long way to go. I then went to turn to switch to my left side and had the sudden, uncontrollable urge to push. Dr. M was called back and it was in fact time to push. Baby girl had turned and within 20 minutes I had fully dilated.

At first, they told me to "breathe her down" not pushing too hard to avoid tearing. However, her heart rate started to drop and then they were kindly yelling at me to push! When she turned, the cord had wrapped around her neck. I didn't realize what all was happening, but apparently it was a scary few minutes. I pushed as hard as I could, marking the first time in 17 hours that I became very vocal about the pain I was feeling. Dr. M was quickly trying to get her out, pulling as I was pushing. Somehow, we made it through all of that without a single stitch!

At 1:35 p.m., a beautiful baby girl was laid on my chest. Garrett announced that she was a girl and even though this is what I had thought all along, I still couldn't believe it. She was blue, but cried within a few seconds letting me know everything was okay. They went ahead and took her to the warmer and gave her a little oxygen and she immediately started to turn pink. They thought she wouldn't weigh more than eight pounds, but I was not surprised at all that she was more than that.

They had several medications ready to give me this time since I hemorrhaged with Hudson. They went ahead and hooked the pitocin up to my heplock and gave me a shot in my leg. My doctor and the nurses cleaned me up a little after the placenta was delivered and everything seemed to be fine, but shortly after Dr. M left they had to call her back due to excessive bleeding. A piece of my placenta had detached and was still in the uterus. So, what does one do about that? You really don't want to know, but let's just say I think it was worse than the labor. I was coming up off the bed. Insanely painful. Once that was taken care of, there were no other complications.

Garrett brought her back to me and she nursed for 45 minutes and hasn't slowed down since. We had two names that each of us loved, but after much discussion, we did not decide on her name until later that night.

She is an angel baby. I think God decided to give me a break since I already have two rowdy boys. She is very laid back, rarely cries and sleeps wonderfully. It is amazing what a little sleep can do! My recovery has been the easiest one by far and I have felt great! I am so thankful that I had wonderful doctors and midwives who respected my wishes and a great team of nurses to help me through my long labor. If I had gotten an epidural, I would not have been able to get in the positions they had me in at the end to get her to turn and my labor most likely would have stalled out resulting in a c-section. Most of all, I'm thankful for everyone in that room that made sure she arrived safely especially during those last few minutes. I also want to thank my aunt, Evelyn, who is a doula and although she wasn't in the room with us, she was definitely there in spirit answering many phone calls and texts and encouraging us along the way.

There is so much more I want to say about our precious girl, but I will save it for another time.