Lydia's birth story (bridenamedmeg) Long story, short birth!

BrideNamedMeg · March 2014

Short version: Lydia Noelle (or Lydia Elizabeth, still have to make the final decision), was born on Tuesday, March 18 at 11:58pm. She was 19'' and 7lb, 2oz - the smallest of my three babies. She was born at 39 weeks, 2 days just like DD! We planned to have a home birth, like we did with DS, but transferred to the hospital and barely made it in time. My total time in active labor was only about 3 hours which was way shorter than my other two.

Long version: On Tuesday morning, I had an appointment with my midwife. My blood pressure had been high on Sunday and Monday. I was doing things at home to bring it down but my midwife wanted me to go to the hospital to get blood work done to rule out pre-e. The OB she worked with there also recommended a NST which we did.

So Tuesday at 10:00am, I see my midwife. Everything looked good in the office and she made the appointment for me at 2:00 at the hospital. On the drive to my midwife, I noticed I was having contractions every 10ish minutes. Sue (my midwife) checked the position of the baby and said that the baby was definitely head down and was much lower than last week (when I had to have an u/s to confirm that she wasn't breech). So all seemed good and she felt confident I would have the baby soon, she even said she wouldn't be surprised to see me again that night.

In the afternoon, we dropped our big kids off with my sister and went to the hospital. The NST was ok, but long. The baby had a non-responsive strip at first, they had me drink and move around and then they were seeing everything they needed. They could see my contractions on the monitor as well, every 8ish minutes lasting about 30 seconds. Because of the first strip they did a BPP (looked great) and checked the AFI which was on the low side at 5.3. They sent me downstairs for a "full" u/s rather than the little one they bring into the room and that u/s showed my fluid at 6.7 which is in the normal range. Four hours after getting there, we were cleared to go home and I was supposed to come in again on Wednesday for another u/s to check my fluid and possibly another NST.

As we drove back to get the kids I felt my contractions were picking up. By the time we got home around 7:00pm, I was pretty sure I was in labor for real. They had checked me at the hospital and I was 1cm, 20% effaced so I knew things were still early on. I called Sue, she said to keep timing them and call back and an hour with an update unless things got intense faster.

By 8:00 things had picked up more. The contractions were feeling stronger, still very manageable, and were getting closer together. My midwife and her assistant were at my house around 9:00. They listened to the baby's heart, checked my BP - everything looked good. My sister was at the house taking pictures, my mom was there to watch my big kids.

A little before 11:00pm, Sue was listening to the heartbeat during a contraction and wasn't liking the type of decels the baby was having. I had been on my yoga ball so MH could apply counter pressure to my back and Sue had me get on the bed and try some different positions. My left and right side had even lower decels, she had me try on all fours, still no good. On my back was okay but at that point she felt we needed to transfer. We had two hospital options, the one I'd been to that afternoon (about 30 mins. away) or our regional hospital that was 15 minutes away. She felt that since I was already a patient at the first hospital that that would be our best bet. She never did a cervical check, so I don't know how far I had progressed. Just given how I was feeling at the time, I don't think I was that far along. The contractions had been very manageable up until that point and I was still talking fine between them. We were on the road just before 11:30pm.

Not gonna lie...the ride there was really, really tough! My contractions were getting stronger and more frequent in the car, but I thought it was because I was laying on my back and couldn't get the counterpressure to help. When we got nearer to the hospital, my GPS flipped out - there are a lot of new streets in that area so we were making wrong turns, running red lights (good thing it was late!) - it was like the total cliche woman-in-labor movie situation. My water broke in the car, just a little pop though and her head must have kept the rest in. I was starting to push, at one point I could hear my vocalizations changing to more like yelling and I knew it was almost time, but I couldn't believe it. I was so worried about the decels we'd been having, hoping the baby was okay but there was just nothing to be done. I told MH at one point I thought the baby was coming.

When we finally got to the Emergency Room entrance, MH jumped out of the car, ran in and told a security guard that I was having a baby NOW. He grabbed a wheelchair and came out to get me. We left the car there and running, doors open, etc. My sister came in just behind us and moved it, thankfully! Meanwhile, MH and the guard were bringing me up to L&D, at this point I was yelling through each contraction because I was pushing but trying to not push at the same time and feeling a tremendous amount of pressure/pain. We got into the elevator, I told MH to help me take of my underwear, as we did I could see that there's meconium in the water. We got into L&D, there were a few nurses standing around the entrance desk - I made eye contact with one and said "I'm pushing now" - it felt calm, but I might have yelled it

They said ok, right in here...MH wheeled me into the room (which was the one we'd been in earlier for the NST). I got up on the bed, hiked up my skirt as several nurses, the senior resident and a doctor ran in - I had time to take one big breath and yell/push as the head came out - I kept going and her body came right out after. MH looked at the baby and said "it's a girl, she's fine" and she immediately started SCREAMING - it was SO loud! They checked her very briefly, I took off the cardigan I'd been wearing and tank top and they put her right up on my chest. From her color and her cry they were pretty sure she hadn't aspirated any of the meconium. My midwife came in less than a minute later.

The reason for the decels were very clear within moments of her birth. Her cord had two true knots in it...to have one is rare, two is pretty insane. Several of the staff in the room called her a miracle baby and I think the doctor even took a picture of the cord with his cell phone. Looking back, it gives me some anxiety to think that I basically had a ticking time bomb in there for much of my pregnancy (knots usually happen early on when they can still flip around). I'm so thankful that they never tightened enough to cut off her oxygen and that all things considered, her birth went really well. Going through transition in the car was no fun, but as I was pretty sure going to the hospital in this case mean a c-section (which I was totally at peace with) it was a nice surprise to squeak in one more med free birth.

At the hospital, they did some checks on me and the baby everything looked great for both of us. We wanted to go home ASAP and with Sue's advice, we decided to check out of the hospital once we'd had all of our checks and by about 3:30am we were on our way home.

We are both doing great at home. I lost quite a bit of blood, my midwife said it was more than she would have been comfortable with had we been at home, but with some rest I'm feeling a lot better. They didn't need to do pit or anything to make it stop, but they did have someone ready to go with an IV if I had needed it. Despite how fast she came out I had no tearing at all - it's definitely been my easiest recovery.

Getting ready to leave the hospital and head home...

I posted this before, but this is the double knotted cord...