Tiny's birth story

So brand new. Only a few hours old.

I will start this with a disclaimer... this story may be a work in progress for a while as this little one is only three weeks old and we are still in the nursing all day long stage, so bear with me :)

July 15th

Had an appointment with the midwife. She reminded me that I was now 41 weeks and that they could not

'allow' me to go past 42 weeks. My c-section is scheduled for July 22nd, the very latest they'll let me go. Up to this point I've declined cervical checks, but the midwife offers to sweep my membranes in hopes I'll go into labor. She and I agree that with the clock ticking and no signs of labor it's worth a try. Unfortunately I've not dilated at all and she in unable to sweep the membranes. Midwife highly recommends acupuncture and anything (ANYTHING) else that might get labor started. I leave feeling rather depressed.

July 16th

First acupuncture appointment. Got dizzy,  but overall wasn't too bad. Did a lot of walking.

July 19th

Still no signs of labor. Start the morning with a 10am acupuncture appointment followed by an 11am ultrasound, followed by an NST followed by a midwife appointment. Acupuncture goes well, she has me lay on my side this time so I don't get dizzy and she hooks electrodes to the needles in my back. Ultrasound techs try to scare me by taking half of forever obviously looking for something but not telling me what and then telling me the Dr will talk to me about my results upstairs... in reality there was nothing wrong, they were just being impatient. NST goes well, midwife (different one) is pleased with everything except the fact that there's still no signs of labor. She asks how serious I am about getting my VBAC. Serious. She offers to check to see if she can sweep the membranes, and this time she is able to do it. She talks to me about other options to get labor going. We can't use any sort of chemical induction because of the increased risk of uterine rupture, but she's willing to try manual methods. We agree to wait overnight to see if sweeping the membranes works... it doesn't

July 20th

I start my day with another NST (that goes great), followed by the placement of a cook cervical catheter (if you're brave you can see what that is here), followed by a meeting with the OB scheduled to do my c-section (who is so not optimistic btw). After that fun (insert eye roll here), I had another acupuncture appointment. That night I was crampy and cranky!I slept maybe 3 hours?

July 21st

We arrive at labor and delivery at 7:30am to have the catheter removed and hopefully have my water broken. I'm still not showing signs of labor but at this paint I have 24 hours before I'm scheduled to be in surgery prep and 24 hours is how long they would give me to go in to labor once my water is broken anyway so it's worth a shot. Unfortunately L&D is both busy and under staffed so my water is not broken until 10am. My midwife had talked to the Dr on call who said I could go home once they'd monitored the baby for 20 minutes (to make sure having the water broken didn't piss her off I guess). The nurse came back in about 30 minutes later and we asked about leaving and she said 'oh no, you're having contractions, you're not going anywhere'. My contractions weren't very strong yet but they were about 2 minutes apart. They sent me to walk the halls for a while. After about half an hour they sent me back to the triage room to have the midwife check on me and try to get me a room. Once I got to my room they started a hep lock but allowed me to stay off the IV and drink my 'recharge' sports drink and eat jello (oh yucky yuck). I was allowed to move around except that I had monitors hooked up that made it very difficult to move and I kept leaking amniotic fluid. I was uncomfortable but not miserable yet. Around 4pm I started to really feel my contractions, it was starting to hurt. The nurse checked me and said I was right around 5cm and would be going through 'transition'. She said this part would be harder, but it would happen faster.

...

I slept on and off in between nurse checks and what not until about 3:30 when they came to check on me. I was fully dilated but they told me to rest another hour, I'd need it for pushing. At 4:30 a nurse came in who I affectionately dubbed the 'birth nazi' because she came in and checked me right away, had me push a couple times and then started getting things ready for delivery all while telling me I was going to have an easy time and that I was doing great and just bustling around and then she'd have me push a few times and then rest. She had the midwives in around 5am and they got me a big mirror so I could see what I was doing and we started pushing. The team I had was so amazing, they had me switching positions every couple pushes and trying all sorts of things. At some point I decided the pushing was really starting to hurt and I was done, I wanted my baby OUT. I pushed as hard as I could as long as I could and all of the sudden one of the midwives was saying 'stop pushing!" and everyone was running around putting gloves on and getting towels out- I guess they thought I still had a while :) after that it was basically three more pushes, two for the head and one for the shoulders. I'll never forget the feeling of my baby sliding out, or the wonderful warm feeling when they set her on my stomach. They waited until the cord stopped pulsing to cut it and I got to see the placenta and nurse my baby before they weighed her. She was born at 6:24am, a beautiful 9lbs 21" with a 14.5" head (yes, I had some tearing, lol). I am so incredibly grateful for the amazing team of midwives and nurses and my husband, because of them I got my VBAC!

I'm exhausted, the bug is in shock, tiny's passed out, hehe