Auden's birth story! (long)

alysonmh · November 2014

Auden was born Monday morning at 8:44 AM at 38 weeks, 8lbs 9oz, 20 inches long.

Saturday night I notice a small amount of bloody show each time I used the restroom in the middle of the night. Sunday morning I woke up feeling pretty normal and slightly disappointed that the bloody show hadn't turned into something more as far as labor coming. I puttered around the house a bit and took a shower which wore me out in my largely pregnant state so I laid down for a nap around 11:00 AM and didn't wake up until 2:00 PM. During my nap I had a couple random contractions that woke me up but nothing out of the ordinary.

At 2:00 PM when I woke up I started noticing the contractions becoming more frequent and were coming at about 9 minutes apart. I've had soooo many bouts of contractions this pregnancy I didn't really think anything of it at first but started timing them due to how uncomfortable they were this time. By 3:00 PM they were 6 minutes apart and by 4:00 PM they were 5 minutes apart and starting to really burn in my lower back. I began rocking/bouncing on my yoga ball to manage the pain and they quickly became stronger in pattern and in strength so I was cautiously optimistic and decided to tell DH that I thought this was the real deal. By 6:00 PM they were 4 minutes apart so DH decided to leave work early and come home. I had been 4.5 cm dilated at my cervical check this week so at 7:00 PM we decided to head to the hospital because we thought there was a good chance things would progress quickly.

Arrived at the hospital at 7:30 PM and was 5 cm, 50% effaced so they decided to admit me. Received my epidural around 10:30 PM and was 6 cm and 80% effaced at that time. The pain relief was nice but the epidural really slowed things down and by 5:00 AM I hadn't made any progress and DS had a few small dips in his heart rate in reaction to it. The doctor on call came in stating "my body wasn't handling labor well and we should move on with a c-section". While the doctor on call was nice she was definitely one of those doctors who had a "lets just get this over with" kind of attitude. We expressed that it was important to us to avoid a C-section if possible and that I had only been in labor for 15 hours so we thought it was way too early to be throwing that suggestion around especially since my water was still intact. We asked that she break my water to get things moving again. She pointed out the few small decels in the baby's heart rate and that she needed to warn us that the water breaking could make them worse and lead us to an emergency c-section. We said that we understood but that we wanted to proceed with breaking my water. We would never do anything to risk LO's health but he had been extremely healthy throughout my entire pregnancy and we had put a lot of thought and research into our birth plan/preferences and felt like this was the right choice of us.

At 6:00 AM the doctor broke my water which immediately improved LO's heart rate greatly and things picked up. Around 8:00 AM I began to transition which caused a lot of shaking and a bout of vomiting but after throwing up I felt much better. The nurse checked me and I was 9 cm, 100% effaced. Unfortunately by this time my epidural had lost a lot of it's affect on my right side so I was feeling quite a bit of the contractions and pressure. The nurse set me up for a few practice pushes around 8:30 AM while the doctor was called over. The doctor arrived at 8:40 AM and I was already crowning, begging to push due to the pressure but she wasn't ready so she directed me to hold off on pushing while everyone rushed around to get ready. At 8:43 AM she gave the go ahead and in one push LO was out, born at 8:44 AM.

We immediately did skin to skin while my placenta was delivered and my 2 2nd degree tears were stitched up. After the placenta was delivered I began to lose a little more blood I should have been so I had to quickly receive 4 rounds of medication through my IV and shots in my thigh to help the bleeding stop while the doctor pressed/massaged on my uterus to stop the bleeding. My belly is pretty bruised from all the pushing but they were able to stop the bleeding quickly enough and all was okay in the end.

DS breastfeed about 45 after delivery and we had almost 2 hours of skin to skin. My daughter (10 years old) slept all night in the waiting room with her grandmother while I was in labor as she refused to leave the hospital because she was afraid she would miss her little brother's arrival. It was such a special moment for us as a family with her there during delivery and I am so thankful that I didn't end up going through with an unnecessary c-section. Recovery is going well and LO is breastfeeding exclusively like a champ. We are so in love with this little guy and so happy is finally here. And now for the cuteness!