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Abigayle Kate’s birth story

It pretty much started the Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend. I woke up that morning with some contractions and they picked up more and more as the morning went on. We had an appointment with the realtor for 9am Saturday morning and had to take Em with us. She was so well behaved, but I was struggling to follow everything with the consistent contractions I was having. By the time we wrapped up everything and signed all the papers for our offer at noon, the contractions were pretty steady around 7-8 minutes apart.

We went home and dropped Jim off and I decided to take Em to the zoo. I figured the walking would either get them going stronger or make them peter out. They stayed pretty consistent between 7 & 10 minutes the entire time we were there, so we headed home for a nap. When I woke up they were still there, but I had promised Em we’d go to the park, so off we went. As I was playing in the sand with her things really just changed. The contractions became more frequent, stronger, and took my breath away. This was around 7pm, so we went home to make dinner, put Em to bed and I took a shower. At this point Jim was up for work and was timing them regularly at 5-6 minutes apart and they were getting stronger and stronger.

We called my mom to come home from the cabin and called my best friend to take Em around 9:00 so we could head in to be checked. I got to the hospital and was checked and he said I was still just a fingertip dialated (same as my appt on Monday). They let me labor a bit and checked me again at 12:30am and found I was 3cm and 60% effaced!!! I was officially admitted. They started my IV, started my meds for being GBS positive, and we settled in for a long evening. At 2am the nurse talked me into a shot of Stadol so I could sleep. I didn’t want to, the pain wasn’t unmanageable, but she told me I needed the sleep for the true labor part. Unfortunately the Stadol did exactly what I was fearing and spaced my contractions out a bit more than the 2-3 minutes they had been. And by 9am they were discharging me calling it false labor (even though I was still contracting 5-7 minutes apart) and sent me home.

I had resigned to the fact that I’d make it to my Tuesday OB appt after all of that. I kept contracting 5-10 minutes apart the rest of Sunday and all day Monday. My in-laws came up to help us pack more of the rental house and I really just put my mind into what had to be done and worked my butt off. The contractions weren’t getting any worse, but weren’t going away. Then when I sat down to relax around 10pm that night it hit me like a ton of bricks. Suddenly I was having very strong, painful contractions that were 3-5 minutes apart. At 1am we called my mom to come out and stay with Em and headed back in to the hospital. I had it in my head I’d wait for my water to break, but then had fears of not making it the 40 minute drive in construction in time to have this baby in the hospital. LOL

We got there and got checked around 2:30am. I was contracting regularly, but was still just 3cm. The contractions kept up all night, but didn’t cause changes in my cervix. So, at 7:30am my OB came in before heading to the clinic. He broke my water and told me that we’d start pitocin if things didn’t pick up in the next couple of hours. But again, my stupid contractions backed off with a change in things and after my water broke my contractions stayed regular but very light. They decided to start pitocin at 9:30am. Every ½ hour the nurse would come in to bump it up a bit and check on me. This continued through the day with minimal change to my cervix. At 11:00 my OB wanted the resident to put in an internal monitor to get a better idea of my contractions. By 5:30pm I’d made it to “almost 5cm” according to my OB and was at a pretty good dose of pitocin, but they couldn’t get my contractions to get any stronger. I did opt for a dose of stadol again to take the edge off the contractions so I could sleep and as soon as that wore off I went for the epidural knowing that with Emilee it helped me relax enough to help the contractions push me past that stuck point with my cervix.

Well, at 7pm the nurse came in and told us that we may be hearing the word c-section pretty soon. We were quickly closing in on the 24 hour mark with my water broken and they don’t like to go past that. So, the nurse took pity and checked me to see if I’d made ANY progress and had some hope. As she was checking me she looked over at Jim and said, “Do you see this face? This is my ‘I can’t find her cervix’ face!” I just figured baby was still high since they all had troubles reaching my cervix with both pregnancies due to the tilt of my uterus and voiced that. She said, “No, I feel a baby, but no cervix. You’re complete and we don’t have a doc around right now!” LOL This happened with Em too. Everyone was in c-sections when I was ready to push.

Since I’d been laying on my side and had the epi I didn’t even feel myself go through transition, but as soon as she checked me and I spent a few minutes on my back everything came at me at once. I got horrible shakes (I got those with Em too) and knew I wanted to push but couldn’t. The only thing I could do was force myself to sleep due to the meds so that my body didn’t shake so bad and automatically make me push. The resident came in when she finished with the c/s she was in and asked me to try a “practice push” HA!! Just a light push. I did and she excitedly says “STOP STOP, okay, we need to get the OB before she starts another section.”

Things went quickly after that! The OB came in while they were breaking down the bed. I was trying soooo hard not to push, but she was coming regardless. LOL The epi was still working, so I couldn’t feel the full contraction, so once we were good to go they’d tell me when they’d start so I could push. Unlike with Em, this time I could feel a great majority of what was going on down there since the epi was running out a bit. I pushed through the first set of 2 pushes, then the second set I felt her head start to crown, but ran out of contraction. OWWWW!!! LOL The resident took pity and poked her in the head lightly and she slipped back in. I just said, “Oh that’s much better!” And they all laughed at me. It was just a bad place to take a break. LOL Anywho… next set of pushes and I felt a pop and she was out with the cord wrapped nicely around her neck once! She was born at 7:56pm weighing 8lb 1oz and 19.7’ long.

Unfortunately after she was out she didn’t cry for a few minutes, she wasn’t moving much, and they rushed her over to the warmer to work on her. We finally heard a good scream so I could let the burning breath out that I’d been holding. But they kept telling the OB that she wasn’t moving her arms and legs. She had good color at first, but that was fading fast. They suctioned her, gave her oxygen and stimulated her and she finally started kicking her legs, but her arms were still very still. I mentioned the pop I felt and the resident said she felt it too, so we figured I’d broken her collar bone. And that the break, coupled with the shock of such a fast delivery accounted for her stillness. They finally got her legs and right arm moving and she pinked back up, but they wanted to take her to the nursery for further evaluation. We got a quick second to hold her and take a pic and off they went. They had her down there for TWO HOURS!!! But when they brought her in, she was clean (they gave her a bath while they had her), pink, yelling, moving everything but the left arm, and except for lots of bruising, she was healthy as can be!

Poor punkin did have a broken collar bone which will quickly heal itself along with a black eye, bruised forehead, bruised fingers, a bruise all the way down her left arm (I think she had it in front of her face when she entered the birth canal which accounts for the break) and a bit swollen in areas due to the fast and bumpy ride down the birth canal. And unfortunately she was also jaundiced by the time we left the hospital and a recheck 2 days later almost got her readmitted for a stay under the bili lights.

But a week and a half later, the yellow is fading, she’s using her left arm more and more – but still yells if you move it too quickly when dressing her – and she’s nursing like a champ! By 1 week old she had gained back 5oz of what she’d lost and grew an inch! She’s going to grow up much too fast!!! But I will say that it was an awesome birth. I didn’t think things could go better than Em’s birth, but this one did. Not even a tiny tear this time. We are truly blessed with our two beautiful girls!

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