Adelyn Grace's Birth Story

Adelyn Grace

Born on 11/28/14 10:30 pm

7 lbs 5 oz, 20 inches

I tried to make this as detailed as possible, more for me than anything else. I hope I didn't forget anything, as it's been almost 3 weeks since she was born. 

My last doctor's appointment was the Monday before my due date, November 24th. The doctor checked me and I was still only dilated to 1 cm so they scheduled an induction for November 30th. If she didn't come by then, she was being kicked out. 

The day before my due date, I decided I wanted to do some grocery shopping before baby came so we wouldn't have to leave the house to get food at all once she made her appearance. Walking around the grocery store started giving me some back pain and by the time we got home, I was ready to lay down. At about 9:00 pm that night, I started having some light back contractions. I started timing them before I went to bed, and they were about 10 minutes apart and about a minute long. They weren't that painful, so I went to bed and tried to get some sleep. At about 4:00 am, I  woke up feeling nauseous. I started throwing up every time I had a contraction, which were now at about 8 minutes apart and still about a minute long. After a few hours of this, I decided to call the hospital. I figured I had food poisoning from the Taco Bell we grabbed the night before and if I wasn't pregnant, I would have just toughed it out at home, but I had to think of baby. If I was throwing up that much, chances were I was dehydrated, so the labor/delivery triage told me to come on in. I woke Ken up and told him we needed to go to the hospital. He packed himself a bag really quickly while I cried in the bathroom. He took all of our stuff downstairs and I headed down with a plastic bag in case I needed to throw up in the car.

We got to the hospital at about 8:00 am and they hooked me up to some monitors and an IV (which took three tries to get in since I was so dehydrated) and gave me some Zofran and Pepcid as well as had me do a test for the flu. I thought after an hour or so I was feeling better, so the nurse gave me some water and crackers, which I promptly threw up. So they gave me another dose of Zofran and told me they didn't want to discharge me until I could at least keep water down, otherwise they'd have to admit me and keep me on saline. They gave me an hour and I just felt worse so they put me in a room for 24 hour observation.

I ended up feeling better after another dose of Reglan and Zofran but since I was already admitted, having inconsistent contractions and was scheduled to be induced on Sunday, they decided to keep me and just induce me then. They checked me and I was 2 cm dilated. They hooked me up to all the appropriate machines and let me labor for the rest of the day on my own to see if I progressed. Since I was feeling better, Ken left to go figure out what to do with the dog and to get himself something to eat. He went and picked up his brother and took him to our apartment and got himself the rest of what he needed since he had to pack in such a rush that morning.

When Ken came back, we had nothing else to do but to hang out and watch TV. It was Thanksgiving day, so there was football on all day, which was nice. They gave me some Dilaudid to take the edge off the contractions since I still wasn't progressed enough for an epidural. We had a bit of a scare when baby's heart rate plummeted really suddenly. I was having a particularly bad contraction; I sat up and pulled myself up and Ken asked me what was wrong. I said, "I'm having a really painful one." Suddenly, three nurses came rushing in and made me flip onto my side and immediately put me on oxygen. Baby wasn't handling the contraction well. I flipped back and forth a few times and her heart rate went back up to normal. It was weird and scary but she came out of it ok. My parents showed up to visit at this point and stayed for a little while. It was tough to talk to them with the oxygen mask on my face so they didn't stay too long. 

I hate IVs.

Ken had no problems sleeping. With my Boppy, lol.

I slept on an off all night. By the next morning, I was still only a 2, so they went ahead and started the induction at 7 am. They put a teeny tiny pill on my cervix (Cryotec) to soften it and try to get things going without pitocin. They decided to break my water then too to get things moving. When they broke it, they found meconium in the fluid so they decided to have the respiratory nurses in the delivery room too. After only a couple hours, I had progressed to a 4, which was really surprising to me. I had been having contractions (all in my back btw) but I didn't feel like they were strong enough for me to have advanced so far. But I still immediately asked for the epidural as I knew shit was about to hit the fan and wanted the pain block asap.

Right before my epidural. 

The wet rag felt very nice.

The anesthesiologist came and started the epidural which I must say, sucked. I hear a lot of people talk about how easy the epidural is; this was not the case for me. She gave me the lidocaine shot, but I swear I could still feel everything. It burned like hell and my left leg kept twitching. I was so tensed up leaning over the pillow the nurse had me hug that I ended up with a pounding headache afterwards. Then, after she thought she had it in, they found blood in the tubing, which meant the catheter had slipped into a vein in my back, so she had to redo it. She did eventually get it in and almost immediately, any pain I had went away, so I was a happy camper. They put a catheter in me to pee since obviously with the epidural I couldn't walk to the bathroom.

So mine and Ken's family starts showing up and everyone is hanging out in the room keeping us company, and I'm laboring away, having strong but inconsistent contractions. They decide to start me on pitocin to regulate them a bit and get things moving a little faster. After a couple hours, things were progressing nicely and I made it to 6 cm. 

This is where things start getting rough. I start feeling the contractions again, but not too badly at first. I can feel pressure in my back, and the contractions aren't too painful, bad enough that I need to focus to breathe through them but not so bad that I feel like anything was wrong. I thought since they were starting to get stronger and closer together I was just starting to feel them a bit more. They gave me a button to push if I needed a little extra of the epidural so I hit it, thinking I just needed a little extra dose. The pain started getting worse and I realized the epidural was starting to wear off. I suddenly felt really claustrophobic having all our family in the room, so I kicked everyone out and called the nurse. Out of nowhere, the pain started hitting me like a ton of bricks. It felt like someone was breaking my right hip in half over and over again. They called the anesthesiologist, but he was in a csection so they told me it could be a while. They checked me and I was at an 8. I was terrified I was going to have to push her out with no epidural and was crying to please get the anesthesiologist as soon as possible. I just laid on my right side and cried and tried to breathe through the pain but it was too much for me. I commend anyone able to go all natural. I got to feel what 8-9 cm contractions every 2 minutes felt like and it was absolutely excruciating. I just remember pulling myself against the bars on the side of the bed and just sobbing.

My amazing delivery nurse, Jewel showed up at this point. She was incredible. So many times during the next three hours I wanted to give up and she was always so supportive and an amazing cheerleader. I'm not sure I could have gotten her out without her. We exchanged info after her shift ended to keep in touch and she even came to check on me the next day in my recovery room. I couldn't have asked for a better woman to help deliver our baby girl.

So the anesthesiologist eventually showed up and gave me a bolus dose of the medication and a new bag and told me it could be 10 minutes for it to start working. 10 minutes felt like a lifetime for it to kick back in, and it finally started working again just in time, as I was 10 cm shortly after.

Jewel prepped me to begin pushing while we waited for the doctor to finish up a csection. She figured I would have progressed enough by the time she got there to get baby out. By this point, I was feeling a LOT of pressure so with each contraction, I did three pushes, 10 seconds each. As she was descending, Jewel noticed she was turned slightly in the wrong direction so she was having some trouble getting past my pubic bone. Jewel said this wouldn't be a problem, but that I'd have to work a little harder to get her to descend completely. She decided to have me take a break from pushing and try to turn her so she was a little easier to get out. She moved me onto my side and told me to stay there for 15 minutes, then to flip onto my other side for 15 minutes. I had no feeling below my waist so Ken had to flip me over and pull my legs over each other for me. Jewel came back in after a half an hour and had me keep pushing. I ended up pushing for close to two hours before I was able to get her far enough down to call the doctor and it was rough. I was feeling so much pressure and was so worn out; I'd barely slept probably a total of 6 hours in the past two days. Jewel told me to take a break through a few of the contractions to rest but they were so intense, I had to push each time I had one, even with the epidural. There was blood coming out of the catheter where I was peeing and Jewel said her head was so close to my bladder that she was bruising it. Ken kept saying, "she's right there! I can see her!" And Jewel kept saying, "great job! Just one or two more pushes!" And I just didn't feel like I was doing anything to get her down. I was so ready to give up and Jewel bribed me with pumpkin pie to get me to keep going. She told me they had a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving in their break room and that I could have pie right after I got her out, while if I ended up having a csection, I'd have to wait 4 hours before I'd get to eat. Ken was giving me ice chips between each contraction which served as both a distraction to what was going on and helped with how thirsty I was. By the time the doctor came in and got everything set up, I was absolutely exhausted and didn't know how I was going to actually get her out. I literally had to muster everything I had to push as hard as I could to get her out, and I think it took a total of three more contractions to get her head out. They tried to get me to feel her head but I wasn't down with that. Just seeing her there, with her head out of me was crazy enough. The doctor didn't really have me push anymore and she just kind of slid the rest of the way out on her own. Adelyn Grace made her debut at 10:30 pm, one day after her due date. It was the most surreal experience having her come out of me. So weird.

Right after she was born.

My board right after she was born. 

So they knew there was meconium in my waters, so they had the extra team on hand to take care of her. They let my husband cut her umbilical cord and whisked her over to the warmer pretty quick. I didn't get to do skin to skin which I was bummed about, but I knew she needed attention so I was ok with it. She had swallowed a lot of the meconium and despite trying to not have her breathe it in, she did start to cry and did aspirate some of it. There was a lot of it; Jewel said she had never seen so much meconium and such a thick consistency to it. They determined that it had been in there for a couple days because her umbilical cord and nails were stained green. They decided to take her to the NICU to monitor her and try to suction out as much of it as they could. They brought her over so I could hold her for a few seconds before they took her away. Ken went with her when they finished up with me.

I delivered the placenta fairly easily, just a few pushes on my stomach and it came out completely intact. I did have a first degree tear so she stitched me up (I think I got one stitch on the outside and two on the inside). She did a lot of pushing on my stomach to make sure everything was out and Jewel came over and cleaned me up and gave me an ice pack for my "cookie" as the she put it, haha. Ken sent me some pictures of baby girl from the NICU and she was so gorgeous. We figured she would come out with dark hair like me but she's got dirty blonde hair just like Ken. They weighed and measured her and she was 7 lbs 5 oz and 20 inches long.

My husband came back and explained everything that was going on. They had to keep her for observation and give her some antibiotics to keep any lung infection away. They suctioned her and got a lot of the meconium out of her stomach and lungs but needed to keep her for longer to monitor her and make sure she didn't develop an infection and wait for her to break down the meconium that was left in her lungs.

I was able to go see her shortly after her birth with the aid of Jewel, Ken and a wheelchair. It was definitely a trip not being able to walk after the epidural, I literally had no feeling in my legs whatsoever. Ken and Jewel had to lift me out of the bed and into the wheelchair. I was considered a "fall risk" and was out in a special colored gown to make sure everyone knew I wasn't allowed on my feet.

And! Jewel came through and brought me pumpkin pie WITH whipped cream. I hadn't eaten really anything in two days so it was the most delicious thing ever. 

The doctors told me that had I waited until Sunday to get induced like I was supposed to, the outcome would have been a lot different, and even said it's possible I may not have had a baby to take home. Because the meconium had been in there a couple days, she was already sick and would have been a lot sicker had I waited three more days. I'm not a super religious person or anything, but I know there was some higher power up there that was telling my body something was wrong, which I think is why I was throwing up. It was the best decision ever deciding to go to the hospital. The fact that had I waited, she may not be here is terrifying. Things could have ended up so differently. 

She ended up having to stay in the NICU for a total of 13 days, and I will type up that whole experience in another post. It was a rough two weeks but she doesn't seem any worse for wear because of it. :)

I'll try to find some time to post about my baby shower and maternity pictures soon too. :)