This post is extremely long. I LOVE the miracle of birth and just don't want to forget a single detail. I feel beyond blessed my body is capable of such a thing and it never ceases to amaze me.
I feel like I should start this by saying I had been dilated to 3cm and 60%effaced for atleast 2weeks and my dr was scheduled to be on call starting oct 17th. One day after I was due. If I hadn't gone into labor before that he said to go in early on the 17th and he would keep me. My plan was to say I hadn't felt the baby move as much and so they would monitor-call the dr-and he would tell them just to keep me. Sneaky huh? I HATE lying so I was nervous about this!
I woke up feeling fine/normal on my due date oct 17th. (full of aches and pains and swollen as can be, as usual. The last month of this pregnancy I felt like an 80year old lady! Or what I assume one to feel like) I dropped riley off at school, came home for 45min and then took Braden to preschool. Max and I made a run to Walmart. I needed diapers for the new baby and I was going to "sneak" my way into L&D tomorrow. While I was walking around Walmart my back started hurting. Different then a back ache but didn't feel like contractions either. By the time I was standing in the LONG check out line it was hard to stand there because they were hurting pretty good. I called Katie to see if she could watch Max while I went home to take a warm bath and sort out the pain I was feeling. So home i went and took this picture just incase i ended up delivering-I needed my 40week picture!
As I took a warm bath I was convinced I was in labor. Probably "back labor". I called L&D to get their opinion. They said wait an hour and see how I feel then. well it was only getting more intense and it was all I could do to hop in the shower and be at the door when Katie brought max back and Braden from preschool. I called my mom to see if she could come today instead of tomorrow and try to get there in a couple hours. I kept telling myself I just have to get lunch in the boys and then I can put Max down for a nap and a movie on for Braden. But I wasn't even feeling good enough for that. I got a huge bowl of cereal and sat on the couch and few them spoonfuls for lunch-pathetic! I put max down in his crib with promises of my mom and stepdad coming, they should arrive as max was waking up. Braden and I plopped on the couch for a movie/nap. As soon as I layed down my head was pounding and I asked Braden to see if it felt warm. He said yes so I took my temp. 100.3. My head hurt too bad to sleep but laying down for 1.5hrs stopped my back pain/contractions almost all the way. I waited in the porch with Braden for my parents to get there-the movie was over ad he wanted to play outside. My back pain started up BAD as soon as I got up. When my mom came I went upstairs to lay down and call my dr to see what to do. Well he was in surgery but the nurse paged him for me. He said to take a Tylenol and try to make it until he was on call tomorrow! Ha, you'd have to know my dr to get that. He also said if my fever goes up to go to the hospital. So I took a Tylenol and put an ice pack on my head. My fever went up to 101.6 an hour later so I called my dr office and the dr there said to go to the hospital. So josh came home from work, we kissed the boys (Riley was at school) and off we went.
Got to the hospital about 4:30pm thinking they would get my fever under control and send me home. They hooked me up to monitors and took blood to see about my fever. The baby also had a high heart rate consistent with me being dehydrated so they brought in a HUGE cup of water and said I had to drink two of them in 30minutes for that to be effective.
Blood work came back and my white count was very high pointing to some infection going on in me. The on call dr came in (dr Bennett who I LOVE and delivered Braden and max-I felt so happy she would be on call to deliver since my dr wouldn't. )
She said since I obviously had an infection and i was 40weeks there was no reason to send me home. Let's get the baby out while he/she was still healthy.
Sweet! Exciting! And how punctual of me right?! On my due date and all haha.
The nurse checked me and said I was dilated to 3.5cm and the baby's head was high. Boooo! Are you serious?! I was hoping to be atleast at a 5cm... She said that it was normal on baby #4 for the head not to descend until closer to the end.
Well they got me out of triage and into a labor room about 10pm. I was told that things would get going. I made it KNOWN that I wanted to try my hardest to go all natural-no pain meds, no epidural. Everyone was very supportive and they started the pitocin at a slow drip.
Around 1am I was feeling contractions but only mildly uncomfortable. My nurse was very attentive and came in quite often to offer water, fix monitors, re-position me, take me to he bathroom etc. I was told the dr didnt want to break my water too soon since the baby's head was still high it was not safe-the cord could prolapse. So it was just pitocin to get my contractions going.
The nurse came in at 2am and put me on O2. Said the baby was doing fine but they like to see baby's heart rate go up and down with contractions and his/hers was just staying steady. So the O2 would hopefully "wake up baby". She said she would be in at 4am-2hrs-to check me for dilation so she could report to the nurses coming on at 6. I got some sleep and anxiously awaited to see how dilated I was! Well, she never came. 4am...4:30...5...5:30am hmmm I started getting anxious and frustrated. And HUNGRY. Finally at 7am a new nurse came in to check on me. She said she wasn't my nurse but mine was in helping another patient deliver. She looked over everything and took me off O2, finally! And she bumped up the pitocin and left. She checked on me a few times until my actual nurse Lisa B. came in.
I was frustrated at that point, I'd been there all night, was not feeling any contractions, was hungry. It felt pointless to me being there. So I tried to be nice but told Lisa my frustrations. I was sure I couldn't eat but asked anyway. She looked up my dr's orders and said I could have free range of the clear liquid diet woohoo! Haha she got me chicken broth and the menu. I ordered a fruit slushee she recommended, drank my broth and had a new outlook with a full tummy.
At 10am i met Toni the cert nurse midwife, my dr had talked her up at a previois check up so I was a little familiar and excited to meet her. SHe said she had been texting my dr all morning and he may or may not show up for my delivery. Well, I liked her from the start, so either way I was happy with whoever delivered me. She came back in at 10:45 and checked me-only 3.5cm! She "stretched" me to 4cm-yowza! and broke my water. A bit later I started feeling those contractions! I love labor-everything about it (I've always been lucky enough to hae great experiences) so was thrilled things were going.I was a bit nervous though because i remember feeling and thinking that labor HURTS but I always soon forget the actual pain so I knew it was coming and would probably hurt more then I was anticipating. I finally got to the point where it was quite uncomfortable...i didn't want to labor sitting in bed again so I wasn't shy to try some different positions. I tried standing, ouch, tried on all fours, ouch, tried on my knees laying on bed double ouch. Soon realized, there is no position to decrease the pain. I don't know if it true or was just a mental thing but sitting/reclining in the bed while this baby was working its way out of me just hurt and seemed dumb. How can you sit on something and expect it to come out?! So I resumed standing next to my bed, I had josh raise the bed so I could lean onto it.
Before I started this standing business and was really starting to feel my contractions I asked my friends to send me text messages, inspiring me to stay away from epidural and such. Here is what I got...
That was from my fried Britney and made me crack up....
That was from Crystina and was just how I felt! Hahaha
And also some nice ones that were very helpful as well...
So back to standing next to the bed...the other thing that helped tremendously was squeezing Josh's hand as hard as I could. I don't know why it was helpful, I didn't question it, just sqeezed with every contraction. I also tried visualizing. I found that actual memories were the best to distract me during a contraction. I remember slowly recalling each of my children's face, every detail of it that I could and giving them a sweet kiss. And also imaging each of the things josh and I have hidden away for the kids for Christmas and imagining their faces as they open them Christmas morning.
The last thing that helped was telling myself-outloud even-"you like this, you wanted to feel this-this is AMAZING" before I went into labor i told josh he needs to remind me to enjoy the pain somehow. I was so disappointed after max's birth because it hurt so bad I didn't enjoy it-I just wanted it over with. Which made me so sad! So I was prepared to love the pain this time!
Well needless to say i got to a point of exhausting pain that if I wasn't close to delivering i wanted that epidural. I had the midwife come in and check me. I was at 7-8cm dilated and she said it would be soon, so I looked at Josh and said "DO NOT LET ME get that epidural!" and back to telling myself "you want this, you got this, it's awesome" etc.
From this point on my amazing nurse stayed with me. I was laboring next to the bed and told her that it felt good to push a little during each contraction. She said that was fine and to let her know if and when I had to really push big.
Well I don't remember when I knew I had to push-the real deal-i kept the nurse updated as in "I have to push more but still not all the way-I don't think" but all of a sudden i went from voluntarily pushing to ease the discomfort to pushing harder because it felt better, in a weird way, to my body pushing-hard-on its own, with each contraction. I went quiet. "enjoying" my pain, squeezing josh's hand as he reminded me to breathe. I was full into the throws of labor, my body working as it should. My nurse was so attuned, although i didn't tell her that I couldn't not push and that my pushes were BIG she knew it. She snapped her gloves on and placed one hand under my bum to support it I guess and one hand on my girl parts ;) she had josh press the call light and when it was recieved she very calmly said "please tell Toni she needs to come in right away, she has the uncontrollable urge to push." So Toni, the amazing midwife comes right in with a smile on her face and says "ok after this contraction let's see if you can get on the bed" I looked at her in disbelief and said "I don't think i know how" I mean standing seemed like my only option. I was getting nervous I would deliver just so! By the mercy of God I crawled, rolled or ? something onto that bed.
They didn't have time to break down the bed so Toni just sat on it with me near my feet...made it feel so much more natural not be be up in the stirrups and the dr right by me :) as soon as I was up on the bed, the midwife, the nurse and josh all said "we can see the head!" oh wow!!!! That is crazy! Guess i did almost have this baby standing up! My contractions were back to back at that point because of the pitocin even though it has been turned down. So my awesome nurse said "let's just turn that off completely" THANK YOU! I LOVE YOU! I think I had one contraction as I was getting on the bed and trying to get on my back, and the next one resulted in "the ring of fire" which made me cry out because I was not expecting for the baby to be crowning already! It was so fast! So with that contraction and push it felt like the baby's head was right in the middle, no longer inside and not quite out so I told the midwife "take it out or push it in. Take it OUT or push it IN!" haha i always say funny things when I'm in pain! Always up for a laugh...
It took them a second to realize that I didn't know what they all knew...the head was out! That one push on the bed did it! So once she told me I had a sigh of relief.
UNTIL the midwife saw that my baby's hand was up by the shoulder so the midwife had to hold the baby's hand and put her hand in me to push the baby's hand/arm back down away from the shoulder so i
could deliver the shoulders. Ya that felt good! Not. But believe it or not I was still loving every painful second of this and wouldn't trade it for anything! The midwife asked if i wanted to pull the baby out-"sure, yes! But i can't reach good enough, dont let her fall!" so at 12:50pm I held under my baby's arm pits and pulled HER to my chest. AMAZING!!!!
Then, in walks my dr! Ha. So I look at him and say "I wait alll they way until the day you are on call, and you miss it!!!" I was teasing him and he felt awful! He stuck around for a few to make sure
I was ok and then took off to handle the paper work side of things "so I feel like I did something"
Josh got to cut the cord and they took her to asses her quickly before handing her back to me. My placenta took a LONG time to detach, the midwife patiently sat by me and worked it out and then made sure it didn't leave any behind in my uterus. Times like that the epidural would be nice haha. Once it was out the midwife exclaimed she had never seen anything like it. Well over 1/3 of my placenta was covered with a huge blood clot (so of course i asked to see!) she said the entire part that had the clot wasn't connected to me...scary! I am
Forever grateful for the fever I had that ultimately sent me to the hospital. Who knows what would've happened if I waited longer to deliver...
Well our baby girl scored an 8/8 but had a high heart rate still and a low but increasing fever. So after awhile the baby nurse came back in and had her go to
NICU just to get blood drawn to check what was going on then straight back to my arms.
After an hour or so I was transfered ro a post partum room and stayed for 2days enjoying peace and quiet with my baby GIRL! And a few visitors here and there.
Right after delivery she wanted to EAT! She was sad when I made her stop to take this picture.
Josh, baby girl fisher and Dr.Toursarkissian (dr.T) who missed the delivery! We were never able to get a picture with Toni the midwife, she got called out on an emergency.
One happy momma with her new baby girl.
7lbs 14oz 19.5 inches
Picking her name was a HARD decision. We had it narrowed down to Elizabeth "Lizzy" Marie or Reese Marie. We love both names. I thought once i saw her I would just know. Ha, no such luck! Josh said as soon as her head came out he just though "Lizzy" I asked if it felt like Heavenky inspiration and he said no, which made the decision harder! How easy it would've been to say "God told us her name should be Elizabeth" right?! But josh said the decision was up to me. I took the full 48hrs in the hospital to pick Reese Marie. It was a stressful decision. It's her name she will hold throughout her lifetime, not something i take lightly! I think the hold up for me was that I REALLY wanted to use the name
Elizabeth. It's a family name, it's a nice beautiful long name with nicknames (I LOVE names like that and not a single one of my kids have one) I could see myself calling after my little girl "Lizzy" but she honestly just "felt" and looked like a Reese to me. So Reese Marie (my mothers middle name) it is.
I enjoyed my time alone with her in the hospital. I definitely didn't need to stay for two days. I felt FANTASTIC after birth. All that hurt were some contractions while nursing and my back! After baby #4 my abs are shot and couldn't support my back (thats what I assume atleast). But it was time alone I wouldn't get once I came home and had 3other busy bodies around, dishes to be done, laundry etc.
I am so grateful for such a successful delivery of a healthy baby, and a girl at that. Josh wants this to be our last baby so I was grateful i got one more girl to even the score. (I'm not fully convinced she will be our last but I'm soaking up each day just incase).
I feel beyond blessed for all that has occurred in my life and I hope that I don't take them for granted.
