WE'VE MOVED

I got sick of fighting Blogger to upload pictures every month. Today it crashed my computer for the last time! (Hopefully, right?) You can now find us over at joshandlynnell.wordpress.com! Come by for the latest family updates.

Cole's birth story in all its gory glory

I'd been having early labor warning signs for over a week. After a cervix check on my due date (3cm), I saw bloody show the next day. I was having "real" contractions (different from BHicks) daily on a sporadic basis. My weight plateaued and I actually started to lose some. My digestive system started to clear itself out. But as the week progressed and I still wasn't officially "in labor" yet, I started to consider induction.

Dr Weary and I had already discussed induction at my due date appointment. I was hesitant to commit, but as we watched the second week of Josh's three weeks of leave dwindle away, it became harder to think about just waiting for what was starting to seem unlikely to come on its own. I talked with Tiffany and prayed for wisdom as my 41 wk appt neared. Josh and I discussed pros and cons. I expressed my distaste for an induction of convenience and my fears around being induced. Josh was supportive of whatever I chose, but said "if he doesn't come this weekend, I should go back to work Monday because I'm just burning leave at this point." Thursday morning God encouraged me and gave me peace with a well-timed devotional in my inbox about making decisions. That afternoon at my appointment we talked details with Dr Weary, asked all my questions, and agreed to induce the next day. We were put on a wait list since they were already booked up for Friday and told they'd call us. I also agreed to have Dr Weary strip my membranes as a last ditch attempt to get things moving. That made me crampy and contractions came a little more regularly, but still no pattern to indicate moving into active labor. 

I woke around 2:30 to the familiar gush of my water breaking. I sent a text to Tiffany and started tracking some serious and regular contractions. Excited to finally have something that looked like active labor, I breathed and praised God through each contraction in the quiet of my recliner. As the night wore on, though, I dozed off and the contractions dissipated again. I woke up feeling physically refreshed from the extra sleep, but extremely discouraged and impatient. I received a call from the hospital that they had a room for us, and to come at our leisure for induction. I contacted Melissa who came at 8:45 for Ash. Then Josh and I took a brisk walk, our last attempt to get labor jump started without pitocin. No luck, so after a shower I was ready to head to the hospital.

By the time we got into the hospital to check in it was 10:40. They were booked up and getting ready to give away our room; apparently they'd been trying to get ahold of us to make sure we were still coming and couldn't reach us. I'm glad we showed up when we did! :) They sent us down to our room where we were met by Nancy, my L&D nurse. She was awesome. I said more than one prayer of gratitude for her. She's been an L&D nurse for 40 years. The younger nurses come to her for advice on everything, she knows her stuff AND has a great personality to boot! When we put on some Firefly to watch (which ended up not getting watched after all), she was enthusiastic; she said "I love this show" and has also seen Dr Horrible's Sing-along Blog. Haha! But I digress....

When we got settled in our room, hooked up to the IV, etc, she checked me and said I was 4cm and about 50% effaced. But when my water had broken, some of it got caught in the lower part of the amniotic sac, so I had what they call a forebag below Cole's head. When Dr. Weary came around 11:45, he said I was already at 5-6cm and he broke the forebag so that Cole's head could fully engage my cervix. We decided to wait an hour and see how much I progressed on my own without Pitocin. By 12:30, Tiffany had shown up. I had some broth and a Popsicle for "lunch". My contractions were starting to come a little more regularly and build in intensity too, but things were still laid back enough for me to suggest putting Firefly on to watch. Josh said it was only maybe 15-20 minutes later that I stopped communicating in more than one word sentences. It all seemed fast to me. I don't know how quickly the contractions were coming or how many of them I had; I didn't have the presence of mind to be tracking any of that. I do know that I took a trip to the bathroom and returned to the bed, and just past the one hour mark (around 1pm) Nancy checked me again. This time she said I was about 7-8cm, and since things were progressing naturally at a good pace, Pitocin wasn't mentioned again.

After this, things get even hazier. Tiffany's notes for this time say "She is sitting upright in the bed, and just beginning to vocalize a little. Contractions are a good 60-90 seconds long at this point." The contractions were strong and it took all I had to just relax through them. I reached for Josh's hand each time; he was such an emotional comfort to me, and he'd been drinking soda so his hands were cool. I remember being hot with each contraction and then freezing in between them; I just couldn't get comfortable. Nancy left to do something, and said she'd check me again when she got back and give Dr. Weary an update. She even teased, "unless you start grunting, then we'll just tell him to come over here." Around 1:30 Tiffany suggested I take another trip to the bathroom; an empty bladder can ease some of the discomfort of contractions and gives baby a little more room to get into place. She sent Josh in with me and I spent a few contractions in the bathroom. By this time they were coming so fast on top of each other that sometimes I felt like I didn't get a chance to recover before the next one came. This was when things started to feel foreign; I didn't experience this intensity with Ash. Between contractions I was only able to take a couple steps, so it took a while (about 2pm) to get back to the vicinity of my bed. When I got close, I leaned on the cabinet that had all the monitors on it trying to make the last couple steps to get into the bed; it was a comfortable height to put my head in my arms and rest. Tiffany was applying pressure to my lower back while Josh held my hand and stroked my hair and helped apply a cold wash cloth to my neck. I was sweating and feeling intense pain and pressure in my pelvis. The gravity was working with my contractions to bring Cole's head low and I heard myself grunting. It wasn't a voluntary thing; it just happened. I was pushing without meaning to. Nancy came in and said "we need to get her in the bed to check her". Tiffany explained they were trying to get me there and that I was getting push-y. When Nancy heard me on the next contraction, she rushed the getting me into bed. I remember the primal grunt-cry that came out of me, and the force of my body trying to push. Once I was in the bed (about 2:15), she reached down to check me and barely touched me before she was on the phone calling Dr. Weary over. He said they pulled him out of an exam to come quick.

Once I was lying on my back again, gravity released it's pull and the pressure/pain and urge to push subsided some. Also, the fear came rolling in. Scarred by four hours of pushing & the intense pain of crowning last time, I was terrified to start the intentional pushing this time. But Dr Weary was there and everyone was waiting and encouraging me to go ahead, so I did. I can't describe how different this kind of pushing is from the primal urge to push. This time, when I'd have a contraction they'd tell me to push and I'd consciously focus my effort into pushing deep. Standing, I think the mechanics of what my body was doing might have been the same, but it was happening despite me, not because of me. Anyway, so at about 2:20, I started pushing for a few contractions. When Cole started crowning, I could feel the pulling and remember crying out "it hurts". I did scream my throat raw again; I didn't mean to, but when I plugged Cole's head circumference into the chart and it said 97th%, I guess it makes sense. :) From start of pushing to his birth was 10 minutes. He came into our world at 2:30pm, less than four hours after our arrival at the hospital and with no chemical intervention. Blessed with the fast and natural labor I'd prayed for. 

As requested, he was put immediately up on my chest while a nurse rubbed him vigorously with a towel trying to get him to let out a big cry. He wasn't responding like he needed to, so after a couple quick minutes they took him over to the warmer to work on him. Josh went to stand by the warmer while Tiffany & Nancy stayed near me. The postpartum hormone shift gave me extreme shivers so Nancy brought me warm blankets and talked me through some breathing/relaxing exercises to calm the trembling in my body. I remember Josh looking over from across the room and asking if I was ok b/c I was shaking so violently. The warm blankets and some hot tea gradually did their job and my shivers stopped. Cole's vitals continually improved, so around 3pm they wrapped him up and gave him to Josh to carry to the NICU for monitoring. They gave a couple minutes for me to kiss him and take a pic or two before they left. 

I spent some more time in the L&D room. We hand-expressed some colostrum to take to the NICU, I ordered some food to be delivered to my momma-baby room, they monitored my vitals, etc. Finally at 4:30,Tiffany headed out (to her 3rd birth of the day!) and Nancy wheeled me to the NICU to see my little angel. They'd just finished with him and the pediatrician was checking him out. She said he looked great and they'd start working on getting him released to my room. He was sound asleep after all the trauma of his day, so sleepy I couldn't get him to nurse, so I just held him for a while. Then it was time to head to my room and my stomach agreed it was time for me to eat some real food. I wanted to cry that I couldn't take Cole with me. 

I got to my room, met my awesome day nurse Susan and finally ate. Melissa came by to visit for a little while. Finally at about 6:30 they brought Cole to me. Before I could even get situated in the "right" position for nursing, he had latched himself and started feeding. A few minutes later Josh showed up with Ash, so Melissa left to give us a little family time. They stayed a short time and then Josh took Ash home for bed. Ash hadn't realized I was going to have to stay in the hospital till they were leaving, his cries for mommy to come home were heartbreaking. Cole & I spent the night nursing and napping between vitals checks. 

The next day Lindsey came to visit us for a while which was nice. Between her visit, calling my parents, and the visits from pediatrician/OBGYN/hearing test and my nurse, plus my Firefly episodes, the day went pretty quickly for me. Cole's output (diapers) was WAY better than the minimum required, I was recovering extremely well, everything looked good, so they let us go home that day. We ended up getting out of there just in time to grab some fast food and head home for dinner. I had some days in the first few weeks where I kinda missed the hospital, having someone who is paid to cater to your needs, room service to bring plates full of food when you're hungry, no responsibilities or messy house to stress you out. But what a blessing to be home together as a family. I'm so grateful to have had amazing nurses to care for me, to have the natural birth I desired, to have a healthy and strong baby from the experience, for nursing to be going so smoothly this time, to have such a sweet husband and parents to get me through the first month postpartum. God has blessed me richly! Thanks to each of you who prayed me through this one; you are loved and appreciated.