A Gaggle of Thoughts: Simon's birth story

I went in for my 36 week doctor's appointment on Thursday, September 26- my appointment was in the morning and my friend Allison had her 29 week appointment that same day with the same doctor, but in the afternoon. My doctor, Dr. Meritt, was on-call at the hospital, so I either got to wait an hour or come back later in the afternoon. As I had work scheduled for the afternoon, I just chose to wait. When I finally got to see Dr. Meritt, I had many complaints, especially with the PUPPPs (so so much itching!) She basically let me decide if I wanted to be induced or not- that was basically the only way to get rid of the itching- and I would be 37 weeks on Saturday. I decided, very emotionally, that I would stick it out for another week, but would call her if I changed my mind. I really wanted the itching to stop (it was SO bad!), but I knew that it was better to keep my baby boy inside as long as possible. And for me, being induced meant that I would most likely need an epidural though I really wanted to try labor naturally. Once Dr. Meritt walked out of the room, I started bawling- so many emotions! But less than a minute later, Dr. Meritt knocked on my door to see if she could come back in. I finished changing super quick and wiped away my tears. She asked me to sit down and take a deep breath because there was a change in plans. The protein in my urine was high and my blood pressure was higher than usual as well- both pointing to preclampsia. The plan was for me to start being induced on Sunday night at the latest. She needed me to get some blood work right after my appointment and start a 24 hour urine sample. If either showed up high, I would be induced Friday or Saturday instead. So, up I went to the 3rd floor to get my blood work, while making phone calls like crazy to family and to my work. If I was going to have the baby on Sunday at the latest, then I wouldn't have time to see therapy kids on Thursday or Friday. And I would need all of them to start with the substitute therapist 3 weeks early!

On Friday, my blood work came back fine, but I was still working on my 24 hour urine sample. I basically spent the whole day getting work things settled. On Saturday, Nathan and I went around running errands, trying to get everything ready to bring home a baby the following week. Ah! So much to do! By the afternoon, I was debating if I should attend the Women's Conference Broadcast for my church when I got the call. It was from the nurse saying that the protein in my urine was exceptionally high and that I needed to go to the hospital to be induced that evening. Nathan was at the store, but his lovely sister Camberley was there when I got the call. Once I hung up, I started bawling again- so so many emotions! I wasn't ready for this! I thought I had more time to get things together. I wanted to progress in labor naturally. I wasn't dilated at all and only the smallest bit effaced, so I knew it was going to be a long journey to get my baby out. I called Nathan once I calmed down, and he was almost home. For the next hour, we threw together everything we wanted for the hospital, and I ate something light. My good friend Audrey called to see if I wanted to car pool to the church broadcast and instead was amazing and got some things for us to help prep for the baby. Camberley was left with strict instructions to make some cookie dough to bring to the hospital once I had the baby for me to eat. :o) And off Nathan and I went to the hospital.

We got there around 7 pm. I got some meds to help me with being more effaced around 9 pm, and basically I was going to be pumped with the meds all night long to help get things started. It wasn't super comfortable, but we got a pretty good night's sleep.

The next morning, the nurses checked on me at 9 am, 12 hours after we started the meds, to see if I was more effaced or dialeted. Unfortunately, I was only 2 cm dilated and 20% effaced. So they started the pitosin to get labor started, with me knowing it was going to be a long day... they checked me around 11 am and I was only 2.5 cm and 50% effaced. They went ahead and broke my water at the time. I still hadn't progressed much an hour later, and the contractions were getting intense! I knew I wouldn't be able to get through the long day ahead of me without some pain meds, so I requested an epidural around 12:30 pm. About that time my blood pressure was spiking super high, and the nurses were going to give me some meds to help it lower. But since I wanted an epidural, they said that would lower it enough that I wouldn't need any meds. Though I wanted to try a natural labor, I really think getting the epidural was the right call for me in this labor. I was induced, wasn't progressing because it was a lot of pain, and my blood pressure was getting into the dangerous zone. The meds fixed all of these problems- I was in happy medicine land by 1:30 pm and slept for the next couple hours.

Playing bananagrams while the pitosin is doing its thing.

When I woke up, around 6:00 pm, I started feeling like I had to go poop super bad, which is the sign that you're ready to push! I told the nurse how I was feeling, and it took her a bit to get everything ready to just check on how I was progressing. When she did check, I was ready! 10 cm, effaced and everything! The nurse turned off the pitosin and started getting things ready for me to push. I waited for an hour for them to get everything set up while trying to not push. By the time they were ready, I no longer had the need to push feeling and the contractions were gone. Apparently turning off the pitosin made it so I didn't feel the contractions just enough to know when to push. Awesome. So then followed the hardest 2.5 hours of my life. They kept on telling me to push and coaching me on how to do it. I had no motivation to do so, and quickly tired. The nurses kept on telling me that my baby was so close to coming out and I just needed to push a little bit more. Bah! Liars all of them! I might have called them liars at one point... but 2.5 hours is not soon to me! I tried listening to the playlist I made for labor, but that only helped for an hour or two. Nathan tried to help by counting the pushes, but he counted slowly and made me mad. So he was fired from that job and stuck to holding my hand and talking to me while I pushed.

Suddenly, after 2 hours of pushing, I felt a snap, like a rubber band changing suddenly from being tight to being loose. Apparently I tore during all the pushing, but then in just another push or two, my baby popped right out- born at 9:16 pm! They placed him right on top of me, and wow! I was in complete awe and surprise that he was inside of me the whole time and now he was out! Nathan cut his umbilical cord like a champ, and we had our little baby boy with us! We decided that he was our Simon within the first couple hours of life, and he has been such a joy since! We love him so much, and are so grateful to be his parents and that he's in our little family!