Jillian Autumn's Birth Story (Jen9608)

purplestarz · September 2014

Better late than never right? I feel like I’ve been trying to write this out for days but never had the time. Newborns, right?

Short version: Jillian Autumn was born vaginally 9/16/14 at 7:43pm. She was 9lbs, 2 ounces, 21.5 inches long and arrived after 2 hours of pushing.

(Really, Super) Long Version: On Monday 9/15/14 I was one day overdue and had my normal OB appointment. I was expecting to have to schedule an induction date, as my OB wasn’t going to let me go past 41 weeks. However, during my exam she we discovered I was 3 cm dilated and guaranteed me that I would have a baby by Wednesday and felt we didn’t need to schedule an induction.

Later that night around 10:30pm I was lying in bed reading while DH was snoozing away next to me. I got up to use the restroom, and when I stood up and took a couple of steps, I noticed some liquid leaking onto the tile floor, but only maybe a tablespoon worth. From this point forward I spent WAY too much time staring at the floor wondering if my water broke or if I just peed on the floor. Like seriously, I probably stood in the same spot for 5 minutes with my eyes fixated on the floor like it was going to magically tell me it was time to have a baby.

At that point I called the on call OB since I was GBS+ and was worried about infection and all that. He told me to wait and see if it happened again since it wasn’t much fluid. In the back of my mind, I knew it was my water leaking, but stupidly my pride got in the way and I just didn’t want to be THAT person who goes to L&D for peeing herself. I went back to bed, and ended up falling asleep.

I woke up again around 3:00am, and then 6:00am and at that point knew my water was leaking. I woke up DH who was surprisingly calm, and let him know to get ready to go to the hospital. On the way to the hospital I had my first painful contraction. We get there around 7:00am and in triage they finally determined it was my water. Thank god, I was still worried I was just peeing myself!

As I was walking with the nurse to my room I started getting another painful contraction and the pain was radiating in my back. From there, things escalated quickly and I was having contraction after contraction. I knew I wanted an epidural, so DH helped me to the restroom. As I’m sitting there I go through another painful contraction in my back, and I tell DH to call the nurse to get my epi ready. Apparently he accidentally hit the “EMERGENCY” button on the call system, and about 10 people come running into the room while I’m sitting on the can. Whoops!

While I was waiting for my epidural, I kept getting contractions about a minute apart, but the pain was intense. Back labor is NO JOKE. Since my back was hurting so badly, they suspected baby girl was trying to come out sunny side up. Lovely.

After about 10 minutes of waiting, my nurse asked if I wanted some pain medication. Um, YES. So as she’s getting that ready, the anesthesiologist walks in with my epidural. She tells the nurse she will have the epi ready in a few minutes, so the pain meds shouldn’t be necessary. I would have bit her head off but I was distracted by the jackhammer going off in my lower back. Luckily, the nurse agreed to let me have both. So in about a 5 minute time frame I went from EXTREME pain, to a blissful state of mind thanks to the pain meds she put in my IV, then utter and complete relaxation thanks to the epidural. My epi worked great, I never had another painful contraction, only some dull back pain and pressure.

I spent most of the day texting friends and watching TV with DH. I distinctly remember watching “19 kids and counting” and thinking that if that lady could push 19 kids out, I certainly could handle one, right?!

They were planning on letting me labor down for a while since I was progressing so well without the need for Pitocin, but things took a little bit of a scary turn. My temperature was rising drastically, and I could not get warm. They determined I had an infection of some kind, and baby needed to get out. I could not stop shaking and shivering, and nothing could warm me up. They turned up the temp in the room and gave me several blankets. At one point my temperature reached 103.2 degrees, and they were worried about the infection spreading to baby. In hindsight, they did a really good job of not letting me get freaked out, but now I know how big of a deal it really was.

Luckily, after about 2 hours of pushing, Jillian Autumn was born at 9lbs 2 ounces and 21 inches long. No one thought she was going to be that big! My OB was estimating MAYBE 8lbs the day before. DH did an amazing job coaching me, and so did my nurse. She did end up coming out sunny side up which explained the intense back labor. Afterwards I was told I was very fortunate to not need a C-Section due to the combination of my fever, her size, GBS+, and her position.

I had to be on IV antibiotics for the duration of my stay at the hospital, but everything is ok now. Jillian never needed antibiotics either so we are very lucky. I am kicking myself for not going to the hospital earlier, but thankful everything is ok. DH and I are absolutely in love with our baby girl like we never could have imagined was ever possible.

And now the best part…pictures!