Birth Story

Well, it's been 8 weeks since Isaac was born, and I haven't posted his birth story yet. I want to do it more for myself to remember than anything. Here it goes...


On Saturday, July 11th, James and I went to a bbq at our friends Cat & Joe's house. After we ate, the boys went outside and started a fire in the fire pit while Cat and I cut up some fruit, meat, and cheese for my shower that Cat was throwing for me the next day. Then we went and sat around the fire for a while. My feet were pretty swollen, and had been for weeks. Cat motioned for me to put my foot up on her lap, so I did. She started giving me a foot rub, pointing out that she was purposly rubbing the pressure points that are supposed to induce labor. Yeah right. Her husband said "Hey now, we don't want any babies right now." We all laughed and she put my foot down. Soon we decided that we should go home because we were all starting to get tired. It was midnight.

In the middle of the night, I woke up for a routine trip to the bathroom. I looked at my clock, it was 4:00 am. I was so comfortable, I didn't want to get up, but alas, I had to go. So I hoisted myself off the edge of the bed, and... uh-oh. I wet my pants, or so I thought. I ran to the bathroom and it wasn't until then that I realized that my water may have broken. Nah, we still had two weeks to go. Besides, most first time moms go past their due dates. There's no way I'd be lucky enough to go into labor two weeks early. But at our last doctor appointment, the Dr specifically said that some women come to L&D thinking their water broke, but they really just urinated, and not to be embarassed if that happened. So I woke James and told him what was going on. He said I probably peed, but if I wanted to go in we could. I decided it probably was nothing snd tried to go back to sleep.

After about an hour, I started feeling crampy, like I had a few days earlier. Then around 7am, I went to the bathroom again and found that I had lost my mucous plug. I woke James up and told him it I thought we should go in, just to be sure that it wasn't my water. So we both took a shower and went to the hospital.

We arrived at the hospital at 9am. By then I could tell that I was having contractions. Once the doctor confirmed that my water had broken with one of those testing strip thingies, I thought I better call my mom and let her know I wasn't going to make it to my baby shower. Then I called Cat and told her that her massage had worked! Also, my dad and brother were at the lake, so I called them to tell them I was in labor, and they packed up to head home.

They checked me and I was only dilated to two. After about three hours, they checked me again and I was still only dilated to two, so they started me on Pitocin. Then my contractions started getting really painful, and eventually they were coming only 30 seconds apart! A few more hours, they checked me again, three cm. The nurse knew I wanted an epidural, but said I couldn't have it until I was dilated to four, so we decided on Stadol for the time being. Another few hours passed, three and a half cm. At that point, I think the nurse felt bad for me and let me have my epidural. So the anesthesiologist came up and had me sign all the paperwork and then did her thing. The epidural worked perfectly... on the right half of my body. On the left, I could still feel every contraction. Crap. They kept checking me, and it was always the same old story. Four cm.

At about 10pm, they started giving me antibiotics because my water had been broken for so long. They had me moving around to different positions, and they couldn't keep the thing that monitered the contractions or the thing that monitored the babies hearbeat on me, so they put those two things on me internally. Around 11pm, they checked me one last time, and I was still only dilated to four. About a half hour later, the doctor came in and said "You know, 20% of women have their babies via c-section..." He said some more stuff after that, but I don't think I heard much of it. I really didn't want to have a c-section. It wasn't so important to me how baby got here as long as he was safe and healthy, but I didn't want the recovery required of a c-section. Then the OB/GYN that was going to do my c-section came in and talked to me about it. She told me the reasons why they thought I should have one, and the risks, etc... We talked about anesthesia, and they asked me "How comfortable are you with your epidural?" I told them that I could still feel the entire left side of my body, and that they were going to have to give me something else for the surgery. Then they all left the room and left me with my family. James, my mom, dad, and brother were all there. I cried and said I was scared, which made my mom cry. I am so glad I had such an amazing support system with me the whole time.

At midnight, they wheeled me into the OR. They gave James a pair of scrubs to wear, but he couldn't join me until later. They gave me a spinal instead of another epidural, and it completely numbed me from my chest down. I could barely feel my arms. I started to feel nauseous, so they brought me something to throw up in, but I could only gag because my heaving muscles were numb. James came in while I was gagging. They started working on me and soon told me I'd feel some pressure. I didn't. Then I heard it - the most beautiful sound I've ever heard in my life - the sound of my son crying.

Isaac James was born on July 13th, 2009 at 12:39am. He weighed 6lbs, 13 oz and measured 20 inches. The doctor held him up over the curtain so James and I could see him. I was so groggy, all I noticed was his dark hair and cone shaped head. Apparently his head was jammed into my cervix crooked, so the contractions were just jackhammering him against an opening that was not big enough to let him out. They took him over to the cart to clean him off and James went and cut the umbilicle cord. I remember looking over there and counting his fingers and toes. Haha!

They stitched me up (which took longer than expected because of some excess bleeding) and took me to the recovery room, where I spent the lonelies half hour of my life. I had just had a baby. My husband and family were all in the nursery getting to know him, and here I was, all by myself, numb from the chest down. Finally, James came in just in time to see me get sick all over my hospital gown. Then a nurse brought Isaac in to nurse. I was so groggy, numb, and exhausted from 20 hours of labor and surgery, that I hardly remember the next few hours. I know that the nurse pretty much did all the work. She held Isaac, and held my breast while he nursed. I simply couldn't do it. I think I even fell asleep while he was nursing.

Recovery was rough. I had some good nurses who made me get up and walk around. We stayed at the hospital for four more days and finally went home with our beautiful baby boy.