Lily Marie's Birth Story
Lily Marie - born Aug 29 at 9:58pm, 7lbs, 12oz, 20 and 1/8" long.
Birth story under the cut.
I had been having contractions for a good month - they’d get stronger and they’d peter out. They’d start in my back and radiate to my abdomen but they were never consistent enough.
On August 29, (one day before our estimated due date) it was no different. I had quite a few GOOD contractions throughout the day so I just made sure I was hydrated and continued on with my daily work. I was working from home for the past couple weeks due to my BP issues. Rob came home early that day too and was working beside me on the couch.
We went to go pick up Hannah at daycare around 5:30 and were figuring out if we should go eat Mexican food or not. We picked up the munchkin and decided not to go out and eat and save some money. Around 6:15ish, we were turning into our neighborhood and I felt a weird “pop!” I said, “Woah!” and Rob responded with, “What!?” and I explained to him I felt something really weird and I told him it was like if she had been foot down and kicked me and her bone popped or something like that. I made a comment, “Wow, you’d think my water just broke but there’s no leaking!” So we got out of the car at our house and I felt a small gush. Rob and Hannah stayed outside and played while I went into the bathroom. I took off my pants and there was a lot of discharge and a lot of wetness. I got up and decided not to put on a liner or pad so that I could tell if it was wet or not. I walked next door and saw Rob and Hannah talking to our neighbor. I made a joke, “I think my water broke...” Our neighbor said, “Oh yay!” and Rob said, “Really?” I said, “I don’t know… let’s just see. I thought this happened last time too. If contractions start, then we’ll figure it out.” So, we decided to hang out outside for a while talking to our neighbor. I had quite a few contractions and noticed that I leaked when I had these contractions. After a number of these contractions, Rob called my mom and told her “Come on, Peggy, It’s time!” (She was planning on making the 2.5 hour drive the next morning, anyways). Our neighbor was going to be available to stay at the house until my mom got there in case we had to leave or not.
I jumped in the shower, we fed Hannah, Rob did a few last minute things, and I called my doula. On the phone with my doula, I had about 7-8 contractions but could talk through them all. Our neighbor who we had been talking to earlier came over to hang out with Hannah for a bit while we finished getting stuff ready. I had some good contractions and knew this was it. They were coming about every 4-5 minutes and lasted about 2 minutes long. I was starting to hum and moan through them. I couldn’t talk to anyone or be bothered with anything.
The most important thing to me that night was that we got to put Hannah to bed. I actually was praying through one of my contractions, “Please God, I want to put my little girl to bed. If I can do nothing else, please let me put her to bed.” Well, we got to put her to bed and my contractions actually stopped for the time we were in there until right at the end of her last book (we read 3 together every night). We told her Lily was coming soon and she was as excited as a 2.5 year old could be!
I needed to sit on the toilet big time and needed to go to the bathroom. This whole time, Rob’s saying, “Honey, we need to go…” I grabbed my laptop and decided to open up www.contractionmaster.com and time these contractions. While on the toilet, at 8:52pm, I made a LJ entry that I was in labor. (Obviously this was during one of my contraction breaks!) I had another contraction and decided to get up and as soon as I got up, I had another contraction from the bathroom to the bed and then grabbed a cup nearby and threw up. Rob came in again and said, “Honey, walk… we need to go now.” This frustrated me because I couldn’t walk and I didn’t want to be told what to do. I knew I was in transition at that point and knew we needed to go. Rob called our doula and told her we were headed to the hospital. I got up and had another strong contraction in the kitchen and then another one getting into the car. We left at 9:05pm with a bowl for when I got sick (Rob’s note: complete with lid!) in my lap.
9:14PM on Atlantic Blvd
Rob: “Hey, at least we’re getting out on a Friday night!”
Me: “…”
Rob: “Right, no jokes.”
Me: “…”
Rob: *whistles*
Me: “Blarghhhhhhhh”
Rob: “… Soooo… you got that lid for the bowl?”
I have NO idea how many contractions I had. I threw up again, I had hard contractions, the car ride was miserable. I paged our doctor, my OB was not on call but the other OB in her practice was. She called back and Rob’s phone was off so he had to call her back. She heard me in the background and headed in. I told Rob to make sure she knew I was shaking, and throwing up and moaning through them.
We got to the hospital at 9:40pm and I couldn’t get out of the car as I had a contraction as soon as Rob pulled up. As that one passed, we walked in and got on the elevator to go up to L&D. I had another in the elevator on the way up and then another one as soon as I sat down in the wheelchair, which was waiting for me upon exit. The lady driving me wanted me to put my feet on the plates and I wanted to attack her for touching me and telling me what to do. I just didn’t see what the big deal was about where my friggen feet were! In my opinion, EVERYONE needed to know that I was in transition and needed to take my word for it. I was very annoyed with ANYONE that wanted me to follow their little “procedures” because dammit, I knew what was going on with my body and they needed to believe me.
They wheeled me into Triage Room A where I had yet another contraction… and honestly, I’m going to stop saying anything about my contractions. I was in transition and they were right on top of one another with hardly a break to breathe. Enough said. J
So anyway, Triage:
Enter Charge Nurse Laura! We told Laura my water broke around 7pm. Laura wanted me to take off my clothes. Umm, no. Laura wanted me to give a urine sample. Oops, I dropped it in the toilet. I told her that between contractions to please give me a chance to take off my own pants because I didn’t want to be “pulled at”. I can’t tell you how many times I said, “Please stop touching me.” I got the pants off, I got the gown on (I don’t know how….), Rob’s in there telling me it’s okay and Laura is telling me to lie down to check me. I am telling her that I cannot and do not want to lie down as it will hurt. I did end up lying down quickly and she quickly checked me and said, “Okay, you’re 8cm, let’s get you into a room!” At that point, I looked at Rob and cheered myself on, saying “I can do this! I can! Tell me I can do this! I’m almost there right?” The nurse and Rob both encouraged me and said “You ARE doing this…” and so forth. They wanted me to be in a wheelchair from Triage A to the LDRP room and I refused because it was so miserable. The last thing I wanted to do was have another contraction while lying down or sitting. So I walked and told them I needed to pee. I walked into the bathroom and had another contraction leaning over the sink. I had a big bed pad between my legs due to my water breaking and it dropped on the floor and I peed all over it. During that contraction, I just remember something changing… I suddenly felt all this pressure in my bottom.
I yelled, “I need to go to the bathroom.”
Someone, “Go ahead sweetie”
Me: “No, I NEED to go to the bathroom. I need to PUSH!”
In the background: “She needs to push, get her to the bed!”
I’m kind of blank right here… I just remember someone helped me to the bedside, I had another contraction and Charge Nurse Laura said, “We need to get you in the bed to monitor the baby.” This is when I got more irritated with this. I said “NO, you can do it manually. I am not lying down.” I had another pushing contraction and it scared me. All I could think was “I’m only 8cm… I’m going to rip my cervix in half… this isn’t right!” I just kept saying, “Oh my God I have to push. “ CN Laura said, “Honey you need to get on the bed - this is not a safe place to deliver this baby over this floor.” Rob agreed with her and helped me get on the bed. CN Laura said, “You can lean over the back of the bed if you need to, just please get over the bed.” So I did and I got on my hands and knees and leaned over the back of the bed and had another pushing contraction and felt her descend into the birth canal. I remember yelling, “I’m pushing!” I remember someone touching me back there and I heard, “Good job (and then in a lower voice) I don’t see anything yet.” A comment was made about my hemorrhoids, they were bad but they were bad PRIOR to birth, so oh well. Then another contraction and I felt her go lower… oh God it hurt but it was such a break from the horrid contractions. I remember actually thinking, “They were right! It does feel good to push. All those women who have had a natural birth were right…. I’m almost there.” I won’t lie… I was scared. (This was all so new to me. I had an epidural with Hannah two years ago and although I could feel my pushing with her… it was NOT the same.) At the same time I’m pushing, I’ve got CN Laura basically hugging me with the heart monitor trying to get Lily’s heartbeat. She couldn’t get it (DUH, I’m pushing her out!) and it annoyed me and she kept saying, “She needs to turn over…. I can’t get the baby’s heartbeat.” Now granted this did worry me but I knew it was because I was PUSHING HER OUT and was almost done.
Next thing you know, everyone’s trying to get me to lie back. I had people’s hands on me trying to turn me and all I could do was scream, “It hurts, it hurts, stop, it hurts to lie down.” Someone said, “She can lie on her side”, so I was halfway on my back, half sitting up, half on my side and I felt the ring of fire. I felt the top of my vagina start to burn and it felt like it was splitting in half. I remember yelling, “What are you doing, that hurts!” And I started to get frantic. I screamed, “IT HURTS” and then I remembered, “Don’t scream, keep it low.” And I screamed low… lol. A calm voice said, “Honey, I’m trying to help support your perineum. You’re doing a good job.” Then all of a sudden, I heard a voice next to me and hands on my forehead trying to get me to relax, “Melissa you’re doing great. She’s almost here!” It was my doula who had just arrived. I heard, “okay, the head is out, you’re almost there.” I screamed, “IT HURTS!” Someone said, “Here come the shoulders! Almost done!” and out came the shoulders and the rest of her just slid on out. I let out the biggest sigh/”Aggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” too because Oh My Goodness it felt SO good to be done.
I said, “Is she okay? Is she okay?” and I heard her cry… I looked at Rob who had tears in his eyes and I welled up with tears and was so happy. After everything we had went through with the ROC High Risk Docs, with the BP issues, with the heparin, with the horrible sickness, the swelling, all of it… she was okay… Thank you God.
She was placed on my waist/ stomach (I was still kind of on my side… I think I was afraid to move) and I had all the clarity in the world. CN Laura was doing something with my cord and all of a sudden it was clamped. I remember saying, “What’s the rush? Why are you doing that?” CN Laura said something about how short my cord was. Daddy cut the cord and we moved her up a little bit. I held her for a little bit and said hi to my doula… laughed with the nurses and Rob and also, I was in shock. All of the above happened in 18 minutes from arrival into the parking lot to delivery. I was high from the birth. Then they took the baby over to the little area to get her measurements/weight. Rob was with Lily and my doula was with me (which was awesome to have someone with me holding my hand). I was trembling and still afraid to move. They announced 7lbs, 12oz and 20 1/8 inches long - I don’t remember her head circumference. She was crying and it was such a great sound. The calm voice I remembered from earlier was this sweet nurse who had the most calming voice. Turns out, she was the one that delivered Lily. They asked about the eye ointment and Vitamin K shot and Hep B. We declined the Hep B, asked for Vitamin K (since I was on heparin) to be delayed and also the ointment to be delayed.
Next thing you know, there’s CN Laura down in my girly parts tugging on my cord. My doula and I were like, “Please stop doing that. There’s no hurry.” She’d go do something else and then come back and do it again. We told her to stop a few times very firmly. I hated her plain and simple. Come to find out, she was one of the nurses from another hospital in town and was pretty set in her ways. Ugh… she is the reason I am so glad I stayed home for as long as I did. The rest of the nurses were amazing… saying things like, “Now THAT’s the way to do it!” and so on… My usual doctor wasn’t on call but her partner was and she walked in the room and said something along the lines of “I’m here to deliver the placenta!” It was very funny. The room was very chatty and everyone was buzzing about smiling. Someone tried to put a BP cuff on me and it was so rough and uncomfortable. At the same time, they had brought Lily back to me and I wanted to nurse her. I couldn’t hold Lily because of the BP cuff, so Rob and my doula took it off me and one of the nurses said, “She needs to have it taken every 15 minutes.” Rob said, “Then I’ll put it back on her every 15 minutes.” My doula said, “You can do it manually”. They left us alone pretty much after that.
I had delivered the placenta with no problems and after looking at it, the doctor said that it was time for Lily to be born because although it looked great, there was some calcification. I wanted to see it but wasn’t thinking clearly enough at the time to ask. She then examined me and determined I had no tears at all. AMAZING. Now, don’t get me wrong… my rear hurt like no other because of the hemorrhoids but oh well, I didn’t tear!!! I had torn a little bit with Hannah so I was thankful to not have to deal with that pain again.
After all that, I don’t remember much more except that the after contractions hurt just as much as my contractions in the car. Lily nursed IMMEDIATLEY for 35 minutes and had a perfect latch. It was such a beautiful sight. My doula left around midnight and Rob left around 1 to be at home with Hannah when she woke up. CN Laura was in and out all night pushing on my stomach. This made me hate her even more. There was concern about my bleeding and where my uterus was. I couldn’t pee at all and they wanted to give me PIT in my leg. I didn’t want it. I kept trying to get up and pee and ended up almost passing out a few times. I got into the shower to rinse off and almost passed out again. I did end up agreeing to the catheter which wasn’t a big deal at all. It went in, drained my bladder and then went out. It was a huge relief and the contractions started to die down a bit. I never had the PIT because the bleeding wasn’t too bad anymore after I went to the bathroom. I was finally able to go to the bathroom by myself later that morning.
The doctor came to check on us the next morning and I told her about CN Laura pulling on my cord. I told her about the “short cord” comment she made and she said, “That’s weird, it was one of the longest cords I’ve ever seen. I will talk to her about that, as that didn’t need to be done.” This made me hate her even more. The doctor said that Lily reminded her of a c-section baby because of the perfectly round head and all the fluid in her lungs. She wasn’t in the birth canal long enough to get all the fluid squeezed out of her, so we had a semi-rough night of her coughing up mucus.
An actual board certified LC came to visit and just sat and chatted with me while we were there because everything was fine as far as nursing was concerned. Our pediatrician came to visit and everything was fine. No signs of jaundice, nothing wrong, and everything perfect. I told everyone we wanted to leave early so the pediatrician gave us the all clear for the 24 hour mark. Lily now weighed 7lbs, 7oz. Since she was born so late, I decided to leave Sunday morning vs. Saturday night. I felt wonderful and just wanted to get home to my family.
All in all, it was an amazing natural hospital birth. I am so glad I stayed home as long as I did. I’m so glad we didn’t give birth in the car. I’m so glad about all of it. The recovery has been amazing. I still am taking it easy and not lifting anything heavy, etc and all but I am STILL on a high from the birth. I cannot wait to do it again and am actually sad that it’s over. Part of me actually feels like mourning the fact that I’m not going to do it again for x number of years when and if we’re blessed to have another.
Lily is an amazing little baby. She nurses like a champ, sleeps like a champ and is just very mellow. Baby #2 is so much easier on mommy and daddy. At her 1 week checkup today (actually 6 days old), she now weighs 7lbs 10oz and the pediatrician usually schedules another visit around 2 weeks. She told us she's so perfect that she didn't want to see us until 2 months.
The interesting part is dealing with two children now vs. just one. Hannah has her little moments but overall has been a dream. I am still having BP issues and am looking to take care of that.
So here we are... a family of four and happy as can be.
