Gwendolyn's birth story (Pepper6)

Pepper6 · June 2014

I typed this out shortly after her birth, but just realized it never posted (damn mobile bump).

Short version: Gwendolyn Claire was born right on her due date on Thursday June 12th at 5:01am weighing 6lbs 5.9oz and 19" long.

Long version: I had mild contractions starting early Wednesday morning and spent most of the day trying to get them to progress. I had a regular OB appointment at 3:30 that afternoon, so she did another membrane so and told me she'd definitely be seeing me at the hospital in a few hours. By 5pm, I knew I was definitely in active labor and we were ready to head to the hospital around 7pm.

I wasn't quite 3cm dilated when we got there, so they had me walk the halls for about an hour. By 10pm, I was finally at 4cm and ready to be admitted. I had the anesthesiologist meet us in my room and got my epidural right away (which was amazing).

By 4am on Thursday morning, I was fully dilated and ready to push. My Dr was on her way up, so the nurse had me start some practice pushes, but then DD's heart rate had a major deceleration and they had to rush in a bunch of nurses to get me repositioned. DH and my mom were freaked out, but oddly enough, I was really calm about it. My Dr finally arrived and calmed everyone's nerves (even the nurses who were already talking about a c section).

DD had "thick meconium"present and was still having some minor decelerations, but I was pushing well (even though I couldn't feel anything, they had to tell me when I was having a contraction) so we kept going. At nearly 5am, my doctor explained that DD was still doing okay at the moment, but wouldn't be for very long, so she was going to use forceps to help get her out faster. After one push with the forceps, DD's head was out, and then with the next contraction, she was born.

Because of the meconium, they had a NICU team there to assess her immediately, so I didn't get to do skin to skin right away, but obviously it was necessary. I had to have a 2nd degree episiotomy because of the forceps, so Dr got me stitched up while they were checking DD and we got skin to skin when we were both all cleared.

While we were waiting to be moved to our postpartum room, one of the nurses told us that DD and another baby girl were both born at exactly the same time (official birth time was 5:01 for both) and DD was 6lbs 5.9oz and the other baby girl was 6lbs 5.6oz and both were exactly 19" long. Lol, crazy coincidence.