Caution….things could get a bit graphic. We did have a natural birth after all.
So by now it’s Thursday, February 23rd and I am 2 days past my due date with no end in sight. My mom is coming in to town Friday so we decided that if baby girl didn’t come on her own within 3 days of her due date we were going to be induced.
I really didn’t want to be induced and wanted everything to start happening on its own but there we were, due date come and gone and still nothing. So we talked with our midwife and she actually gave us the option of a more natural way of being induced, something called a Foley Bulb. We jumped on that idea seeing as soon as we found out we were pregnant we decided we wanted our first child to be born au natural without medications. Crazy? Yeah maybe.
We check into the hospital Thursday night and prepare ourselves for what could be a long night. Instead of an IV with Pitocin, Rachel, our midwife, got us started on this Foley bulb device which is like a little balloon that is inserted into my cervix to help dilate me to at least 4 centimeters or so and bring on active labor after that. It’s supposed to stay in overnight and in the morning we would start the chaos. So it’s been about and hour and it comes out. Of course I panic because that wasn’t supposed to happen so we call our Doula, Dawn who is a friend from church and Rachel who tells us we need to try something else since that wasn’t working. She offered Pitocin again or another sort of mild medication that is temporarily inserted in to the cervix to get things moving along. So we opted for that option and within about 2 hours I started feeling some slight contractions.
Two of us enjoying the calm before the storm!
By now it’s about 10:00 at night and were already both tired so we try to settle in for a some sleep before the fireworks. I get a little sleep off and on trying to sleep in between contractions. They still aren’t too bad at this point, just uncomfortable. Somehow, between contractions and the constant nurse visits throughout the night poking and proding I get a little sleep and before I know it the sun is coming up. It’s around 7am now and things are starting to hurt. We call Dawn to let her know contractions are ramping up so she heads over to the hospital to be with us.
For the next several hours, my contractions just got stronger and closer together. Dawn and Greg were the dream team in all this as I couldn’t have managed the pain without them both there. Being able to feel every little thing was what I chose, though at the time I kept asking myself what the heck was I thinking?! I tried walking around and rotating positions but nothing really took the pain away during a contraction peak. Greg massaged and dawn talked both trying to keep me calm and collected. I was trying to focus on my yoga breathing which seemed like the only thing to ease all the tension through each one.
After a few hours of enduring this, it’s around noon and the contractions became 2 minutes apart so I assume things are about to happen but it stays that way for about 2 hours. Every two minutes I experience such intense pain I can barely see straight. Shortly after enjoying this, the contractions become one on top of another with no break in between. I told Dawn and Greg what was happening and she thought the baby might have moved positions as sometimes it causes constant contractions. Sure enough baby and flipped over and was making it difficult to even bare the pain. We needed her to flip around so she could even be delivered ok so Dawn tried a few different things to get baby girl where she needed to be. Not fun. She had me moving around doing things that killed at the peak of each contraction. Thankfully Dawn is a Godsend and got little miss right where she needed to be.
Then shortly after that, my water broke. This absolutely terrified me. We had figured my water would be broken manually to get things to continue to move so I was not expecting it. I was just standing near the bed breathing through another contraction when it broke. I didn’t realize that is what was happening at the time. I was convinced baby was coming out right then and there and I remember yelling that to Greg and Dawn. “She’s coming, she’s gonna fall out!” It wasn’t a slow subtle leak like most of my girlfriends had told me about but a giant gush that scared me to death. Once Dawn explained it was just my water breaking, I calmed down for maybe 30 seconds until I got the huge desire to push. Then that’s pretty much all I could say was, “I gotta push! I have to push! I can’t not push!” They brought in the nurse and she kept saying you can’t push yet, you need to wait until Rachel gets here and you’re dilated to a 10. What seemed like years passed but it was really about 5 minutes and Rachel got there and checked and yes I was already to a 10 so they gave me the go ahead to push.
So we began pushing. Greg likes to tell our friends I made noises he’s never heard before and probably woke half the hospital with the screaming but after about 25 minutes of that, she was finally here. Wow the feeling of relief was awesome. I wasn’t drugged but felt like I was on a natural high after enduring all that. I didn’t even care that there were about 12 people in the room. Turns out that Ever had her first bowel movement while still inside my tummy and sometimes that can be dangerous to the baby if she ingested any of it in her lungs so they brought in the whole NICU team just in case. Near the end her heart rate was dropping but I didn’t learn any of this until later. Greg was up by my head holding my hand but still able to see the whole thing. So when she came out, he told me she had her cord wrapped around her neck twice hence the dropping heart rate. She didn’t cry right away and so they cut her cord first thing then took her to the little cart next to me so the NICU team could asses her.
That first cry was the most beautiful sound in the world!
My first words were in panic asking if she was ok then I heard her start crying and felt another wave of relief. Once Greg told me she was ok, I was gasping for water. Greg thinks that was hilarious. Only a few minutes after they took her, she was in my arms. I couldn’t believe the hair. Love it. I couldn’t stop staring at her and feeling like I was living in a dream. She was perfect. Healthy, beautiful and ours. I think my favorite moment of the last 48 hours was when Greg first held her and her eyes were wide and beautiful just staring at him. She was calm as could be in her daddy’s arms and they seemed to bond instantly. Smitten with each other already. I felt so much love in that moment for me little family I could barely contain myself.
He is such an amazing Daddy to Ever. She adores him!
Finally getting to hold my sweet baby girl.
It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life but it turned out perfectly and we now have so much joy with our happily Ever after. We are so in love with her and are so grateful we were blessed with a healthy happy beautiful baby! I just LOVE having my own little family. There really is no better feeling in the world.
The Three Lee's
