Oh Baby!: Eli's Birth Story

To preface this, it's going to be a long story. Kudos if you make it to the end. Also, though it seems traumatic and scary, I can honestly say I felt peace and reassurance throughout the active labour experience and complications that followed thanks to our revelation in the temple back in May and the various priesthood blessings I've had over the last few weeks.

In my last post I thought I was leaking amniotic fluid, but that was just the start. I had a membrane sweep on the morning of Wednesday June 24th. It was painful and I was only 1.5cm dilated, baby at -3 station (so not engaged at all). Thursday at around 5am I started having contractions. I knew this was a common side effect of the sweep so I just decided to wait it out and not get too excited. They were quite painful but irregular so we just went with it. When I went to put Avery to sleep that night they almost stopped completely, so I went to bed. They started again Friday morning and kept going. By 5pm I was in a lot of pain (we had walked a lot that day to try and speed things along) so we decided to go get checked at the hospital just in case. They said I was 4cm, baby at -2 station but the cervix was really thin, so once active labour started that it would go quickly. They sent me home.

2 more days of contractions later and I started vomiting and visiting the washroom very frequently. The contractions kept going even when I would lie down, so I thought they were real again. Once again, sent home. Still at 4cm, zero progress since Friday. At this point I wanted to curl up in a ball and stay there. I felt like my body was failing me and I was ready to give up. My OB scheduled an induction for Saturday the 4th, but assured me I would have the baby before then. I didn't believe her and resigned myself to another 5 days of misery.

Avery cuddling with the belly

Canada Day. I felt awful, and was having pain (not new) but it just felt like I was constipated. I kept having cramps that didn't tighten my belly so I assumed that's what it was. They were bad enough to wake me up all night so in the morning at around 9, I put Avery down for a nap and sent Jon for some prune juice (lol). 2 minutes after Avery fell asleep I decided to try and visit the bathroom again. I only peed a little and when I reached for the toilet paper this giant forceful gush "fell" out of me. It was like a faucet was turned on full blast for 2-3 seconds. I checked the toilet bowl and it was clear. I wasn't ready to believe that it was my water, but I texted Jon and called my mom just in case. I hopped in the shower and contractions started when the hot water hit me. They were bad, but not much moreso than the ones I'd had all week. I was negative for GBS so we didn't have to go to the hospital right away.

Around 11:30am I was in enough pain that I was tentatively convinced it was the real thing so we headed off to the hospital. They checked me at triage and said my water was broken and I almost cried out of relief. I wasn't going to be sent home. I was 6cm, in active labour and baby still at -2 station. They said there still was a bulge of water so they thought my hind waters were broken but fore waters still in tact.

Originally I had planned to try a natural unmedicated birth this time around, but my body was so wrecked from having been in labour for a week that I was already exhausted and in a lot of pain. I knew that because I was 6cm and baby still wasn't engaged that the likelihood of having my labour "augmented" with pitocin was fairly high. So I opted to get the epidural about an hour after we were checked in. Thankfully the anesthesiologist was much better this time, didn't miss my spine on the first attempt and finished putting it in within three contractions (last time it took at least twice that long). He also kept the dose fairly low, which I was very happy about. Last time I couldn't even move my legs, but this time I could lift my legs off the bed and flip onto my side all by myself. It was wonderful. And I still felt no pain, just some pressure with the larger contractions.

The OB on call then came in to chat with me and introduce herself. She seemed very nice and it felt good to let her know about the possibility of dystocia happening. She was very confident and happy. I felt good about the whole thing. She told me she was working until 8pm so she would likely be the one to deliver my baby. At 2:30pm they broke the rest of my waters and there was meconium in them. I knew that wasn't a good sign, so we then had to watch for signs of fetal distress and immediately start the pitocin to speed things up, as I'd only progressed 1cm in 2 hours and baby was still at -2. They also told me that a NICU team would be in the room when he was born just in case he wasn't breathing or had aspirated any of the meconium. By 4pm I was at 8cm. 6pm fully dilated but baby was still high. They checked his head position and it was off center so that's why he wasn't coming down. They had me go on my hands and knees over the back of the bed for half an hour to try and shift him naturally before trying to turn him manually, as his heartrate dipped when they tried to move his head.

At this point my heart rate and baby's heart rate were so close together that they had to put a probe on his head to read his heart rate rather than use the dopplar. 6:45pm I was checked again and baby was at -1 station, so minor progress. At 7:15pm his heart rate started dipping really low (into the 80s) during contractions and I started having some gushes of fluid. The doctor decided to turn his head manually as a last resort. She tried to turn his head but he kept turning back, so she turned his head and had me push hard through two contractions to get his head to stay down and engaged. It worked. He was finally engaged, but his heart rate was still dipping badly. She told me that we would let him calm down a bit from the procedure and then try to push. She also said that we were racing the clock and that once I started pushing we needed to get him out quickly and that the chance of emergency C section was still on the table. That was all the motivation I needed.

My crying for joy while doing skin-to-skin

Around 7:55pm I started feeling like I needed to push. I told the nurse and she said she would call the doctor and then we could go for it. I started pushing at 8pm and by the end of the second contraction I could feel baby's head with my hand. It was so surreal! My nurse pushed the emergency button to get doctor there immediately. She barely got there and got her gloves on in time to catch him coming out at 8:04. They were in the middle of the shift change so I got both OBs to help. The umbilical cord was around his neck so they said that was the reason he couldn't descend on his own. The dips in heartrate were because the cord was being compressed during contractions.

I couldn't believe how quickly I pushed him out and I cried for joy when I heard him cry and felt him land on the table. I felt so exultant. We did it, we did it fast, and he didn't get stuck! The second OB stitched me up and told me I had a second degree tear but it looked good. Eli was getting checked over by the NICU team and within minutes they asked if I wanted skin to skin with him. I of course said yes as I didn't get that chance with Avery. I felt so blessed. He was fine. I was astonished when they told me that he weight 9lbs 13oz and that his head was 38cm! I thought Avery's was big at 36.5!

After that, we had some complications. We thought I may have dislocated my pubic bone and I was sent for xray. It wasn't dislocated but I had some SPD which was understandable given the situation. They put me on dilaudid for the pain and I could still barely walk the 4 feet from my bed to the bathroom. Eli kept choking on mucous that didn't have time to be squeezed from his lungs during his quick delivery so they made us stay another night to keep an eye on him and his stats. I noticed that when I went to burp him after nursing that if I rubbed his back he would flinch away from my hand and cry so I thought maybe he had a pulled muscle or something and mentioned it to the pediatrician the next day. He did some basic tests and you could plainly see that he wasn't using his left arm and wouldn't lift it to his face, so they ordered an xray. They found a small break in his collar bone and told us we had to modify how we did everything with him until it was healed. I was a bit shocked that an entire NICU team had looked him over, the pediatrician had already looked him over once, and multiple nurses had been with him and checking him and yet I was the one to notice something was wrong. Thankfully we found it while still at the hospital and not weeks later at home. This way he can heal properly and not be in so much pain.

It was an eventful few days but we were finally discharged and sent home. I can walk without assistance now, but not without pain yet. I declined taking a prescription for more narcotics as I was feeling a lot better, so I'm in pain but managing. I don't know how I would have done it without Jon being home full time and without my family here to take Avery for the 3 days we were gone. We have several follow ups this week with physio for me and my pelvis, orthopedics for Eli, and our family doctor, so it's going to be a bit busy. We're just glad to be home and that he's finally here!