mace & bri: navy's birth story

I had a such a great experience delivering our little Navy--and wanted to write it down so that i would remember it.

The week of my due date my doctor was pretty hopeful I would go into labor. At my appointment on Tuesday (my due date was Thursday) I was still dilated to a 3 and 90% effaced (like I had been for 2 weeks.) He kept saying how my body was completely ready to go into labor- so he stripped my membranes and sent me on my way saying, "I wouldn't be surprised if I see you tonight." (way to get my hopes up doc.)

Since he was so optimistic-of course that got is excited and we thought we'd have a babe within the next couple of days. But my due date came and went...and we just kept trying to be patient. (trying being the key word there)

My doctor was going out of town the next week-which was a huge bummer because I really wanted him to deliver her. I just kept praying she would come before Sunday (he was leaving Monday) but-once again, Sunday came and went and still no baby.

On Monday I was scheduled to meet with my doctor's partner who would for sure be the one to deliver her that week. I knew she was going to come for sure because we had to have her before February 1st because of insurance reasons. That meant if she didn't come on her own we would have to set an induction date for later in the week. I met with this new doctor and really liked him (thank goodness.) He checked me and once again I was 3cm dilated and 90% effaced. Just like my doctor he kept commenting on how surprised he was at how ready I was to go into labor (apparently that's not so common with first time moms.) "Wow-you are ready to go, I'm surprised this baby hasn't come yet." He asked me when I wanted to get induced and told me we could do it that day since I was ready. Both my doctor and this guy said they usually won't induce first time mom's unless they have to for safety reasons-but once again--I was so ready that they would for me. I really wanted to go into labor on my own-and even though I was completely ready to meet my babe-I told him I wanted to wait as long as possible. So we set the induction for as late as we could--Thursday morning. He said he wouldn't be surprised it I went into labor before then-but since I wasn't having contractions I very well could not. I had my membranes stripped AGAIN and then had to get a stress test to make sure everything was okay in there. They monitored her for a while and she looked great. The doc also noticed I was having regular contractions (but I wasn't feeling them at all.)

Nothing happened Monday or Tuesday, so Tuesday night I mentally accepted that I was going to have to get induced. This girl was not coming on her own. I was super frustrated-but I decided to just embrace it and not worry about it. Apparently that is how she was supposed to come.

I woke up Wednesday morning at about 4 am. Actually I'm not sure I had ever been fully asleep that night because I'd had an upset stomach and was super restless/uncomfortable the whole night. But 4 is when I first started feeling contractions. I started timing them and they were about 45-60 seconds and 10 minutes apart for about an hour. Then around 5:00 they started coming every 5 minutes. I decided to get up and get in the tub. I wasn't planning to wake Brian up for a while (because I knew he wouldn't be able to go back to sleep)-but he woke up when I got out of bed and I told him what was going on. Of course he thought we should go to the hospital ASAP-but I told him I wanted to sit in the tub for a while and make sure I was really in labor. He called the hospital & they told him we should come in. But I still took my sweet time getting ready...

By the time we were ready to leave my contractions had picked up to about 2-3 minutes apart lasting about 60-90 seconds. I had Brian give me a blessing & out the door we went.

We got to the hospital around 7:00 and they hooked me up to monitor me for about an hour to see if I was progressing. An hour and some killer contractions later I hadn't progressed at all. My contractions had slowed down quite a bit and I was sooo frustrated. My doctor was in the hospital so she went to grab him and ask what he wanted me to do.

Dr Young walked in my room-took one look at me and said "Do you want to have a baby today?" He knew I didn't really want to get induced-and explained to me that I could labor at home (maybe all day-which didn't sound super appealing to me since the contractions were already pretty painful) He thought that since I was just going to be coming back in the morning to get induced anyway that we might as well get the show started. He also said that he thought just a little bit of pitocin would really get me going since i was so "ready." (i was seriously sick of hearing how ready my body was for labor by this point.) I trusted his judgement and so stay we did. (I also really didn't want to go back home for Brian's sake--poor guy did not want to wait another day.)

We got all settled into our labor and delivery room around 8:15 and they gave me pitocin right away. OUCH. After an hour and a half of some pretty intense contractions I got told I was still at a 3. That's when i realized how slow this was probably going to be--so I decided I wanted an epidural. I was having a really hard time relaxing during each contraction (in fact I would go into the fetal position & practically tense up my whole body-ha which I know is a major no no) and I knew I wasn't going to progress at all if I couldn't relax.

The anesthesiologist came in around 10:00 to give me the epidural. He left and 20 minutes later I was still feeling EVERYTHING. So we called him back in to see what was going on. He knew the epidural was in right and working because my legs were going numb-so he just changed the dose a little to hopefully give me relief. Long story short-this happened three times!! I felt like a total wimp because I was still in so much pain and hadn't gotten any relief at all. Finally around 11:30 and another upped dose from the anesthesiologist I started feeling better. My nurse Allie (who we loved) checked me at this point and told me I was dilated to a 4-so we decided to get comfortable because apparently we were in this for the long haul. I started getting a little droopy eyed and thought I would take a good little nap before I had to deliver a baby. That's when Allie said "Dr young is going to come in and break your water in just a few minutes to get you going a little more."

So he came in around 12:00 to break my water and said "Well-you're ready to go!" We were all super confused since I was just barely at a four. "You're a ten! In fact you're beyond a ten-so let's push this baby out." (did you know you can dilate beyond a ten? yeah...learn something new everyday) I could hardly believe it. After everyone got everything all set up we were ready to push. My mom walked in right then. (perfect timing) I had told her I would love for her to be there and she had been out running errands around provo when Brian texted her and told her I was ready to push. We couldn't get ahold of her because her phone had died--but luckily she had read that text seconds before her phone died-so she headed to the hospital.

I'm not sure what time I started pushing-but I only pushed through three contractions. My nurse had me push three times during each contraction while she counted to 10. I couldn't quite push for the whole 10 seconds--I felt like I was going to pass out, so we did 8 seconds instead.

Our sweet little babe came out at 1:01 pm. Brian cut the cord and we watched as the doctor cleared her nose and mouth and juggled her around to make sure all was well. She looked perfect to me. (She didn't even have any gross gunk on her like you always imagine.) They took her over to weight and measure her and let the pediatrician do his thing. I still hadn't really got a great look at her face so Bri kept looking at me and saying "she's so cute!"

Bri and my mom went over to take pictures and then Brian got to hold her while I got all stitched up. Finally (after what seemed like forever) they gave her to me and I was in love. It's weird how they look nothing like you've been imagining for 9 months-but at the same time you just feel like you already know them.

I'm oh so grateful to have had a smooth delivery. Even though I prayed over and over again that I wouldn't have to get induced-everything went better than I could have imagined it and I know that she came just how she was supposed to come. I'm so grateful everything went well and she made it safe and sound.