Scott's Birth Story

As you all know now Scott was born on February 19, 2011 at 8:35pm! Since I was an avid stalker of people's birth stories during pregnancy I thought I would contribute mine to the blogging world.

Note: I wrote this story in my journal (which is a Google document) and tried to edit it down for the blog.. but it's still incredibly long.

The baby’s due date was February 16, 2011. Nate and I had been looking forward to that day the whole pregnancy but it came and went just like any other day! We went for walks everyday the week leading up to due date. My dad was coming out that Thursday (the 17th) and I was starting to get worried the baby wouldn’t come while he was here!

On Friday morning we had a non-stress test scheduled at the hospital to check the baby. I had been having contractions and when they hooked me up to the monitor they noticed my contractions were pretty regular (like every 5-8 minutes) but not long or strong. After the appointment Nate dropped me off at the apartment. He went to work and Dad came to pick me up to get breakfast at the Original Pancake House. After breakfast we went to La Jolla Shores and went for a walk on the beach. It was so great to spend time talking and hanging out with Dad. I was having more contractions and it was the prefect distraction! Nate came home a little early that afternoon and we all hung out that evening. My contractions were there and definitely more regular but not necessarily that painful. I thought for sure they were on their way to getting more painful because they were coming every 3-5 minutes and lasting for 40-50 seconds. Dad left around 9 that night and I was sure we would be headed into the hospital shortly. Nate and I decided to go to try and go to sleep and thought my contractions would wake me up as the got more painful. I tried to go to sleep but for the life of me could not! My contractions were still regular but not painful so I decided to try and watch TV.

I ended up falling asleep for a few minutes then woke up with more contractions and a bad headache. My blood pressure had been a lot higher earlier that week and my doctor wanted to keep an eye on it. I woke up Nate and we decided to take my blood pressure with a home machine his Mom lent us because of the headache. It was really high (146/102)! So we called over to the hospital and asked what we should do. They said to come in right away.

So around 12:30pm we packed up the remaining things in our hospital bag and went to go check into the hospital. It was so exciting! For some reason I didn’t really think we would be admitted to the hospital because my contractions were still not very painful. I just thought they would check my blood pressure and send us home. The nurses and everyone in the labor and delivery unit were so cheerful and nice as we checked in. They took my blood pressure which was indeed high and did some blood work. I got hooked up to the monitors to chart my contractions and the midwife on call said that she wanted to admit us. Since I was past my due date, my blood pressure was high and I was having regular contractions on my own, the midwife suggested I have some pitocin to augment my labor along.

For some reason I was really thrown off by being admitted to the hospital and hadn’t yet wrapped my mind around the fact we were having actually going to have the baby! Nate and I thought about it and agreed with would probably be better to have the baby out sooner rather than later since he was measuring large at the ultrasound we had earlier that week. I got hooked up to pitocin around 4am and at that time was dilated to 3cm. Then came the waiting game! I tried to go to sleep because I knew we had a long couple hours ahead but couldn’t sleep because I was so excited/nervous. Instead Nate and I played mancala and watched random late night shows/infomericals.

Around 6:45am my water broke on its own. This was a good sign but the water contained meconium. This is common with overdue babies and the nurse told me this just meant they would have two level 2 NICU nurses at the deliver to suck the baby’s lungs out right after birth to prevent him from inhaling the meconium. At 7am the nurses had a shift change and we were assigned a new nurse. I loved her! She immediately came in and fixed all the pilows perfectly on the bed to make me comfortable. Around 7:30 we called my Dad and to tell him no baby yet but asked if he could come over a relieve Nate for a bit so Nate could run home and take a shower/get some food. We only live 5 minutes away from the hospital so it was nice Nate was able to run home. Right before Nate left they checked me and I was still at 3cm. Around 8:30 when my Dad was there my contractions started getting a lot more painful! My nurse said it would probably be better to hold off on the epidural because I wasn’t dilated very much and I agreed because I wasn’t ready to have to lay there all afternoon. Instead they gave me a dose of a narcotic to take the edge off the contractions. It made me so sleepy! I would fall asleep in between each contraction but woke up every 5 minutes or so when the contractions came. Nate came back and I hardly remember my Dad leaving because I was so out of it.

After an hour the narcotic wore off and I started feeling the contractions in full force! I stood up and rocked back and forth with Nate during each one because I knew once I got the epidural it would be in the bed for the rest of labor! The nurse told me the anesthesiologist had just gone in to help with a c-section and would be back in an hour or so - so she offered another dose of the narcotic to hold me over which I glady accepted. I know it’s totally a personal thing but after feeling how painful contractions are I have no idea why someone would want to do a natural birth! They are so much worse than I thought they would be! Maybe because the pitocin made them stronger than normal. Or maybe because I'm a wimp. The second time the narcotic didn’t work as well because my contractions were stronger. But the anesthesiologist came in after about 45 more minutes and I got the epidural around 11am. It was instant relief! I feel asleep for a few hours until they came to check me again.

Around 3pm I was still dilated only to 3cm which was very discouraging. I knew that more than anything I didn’t want a c-section! The nurse/midwife said they had hoped I would have made more progress by then and while they wouldn’t rush it, having a c-section would be a possibility if things didn’t progress over that afternoon/night. This was mostly because my water had broken early that morning and they don’t like baby’s to be in there longer than 24 hours after the water breaking to prevent infection. I was so sad at the possibility of having a c-section! Nate and I said a prayer hoping things would move along faster. I had been on the phone with my Mom all morning and was talking to her about my worries right before they came to check me again at 5pm. I was dilated to a 6! Nate, the midwife, and nurses were all happy and hopeful I had finally started to make progress. I called my Mom back right away to tell her the good news!

2 hours later I was dilated to a 9 ½! I was so surprised and relieved! The nurse said it would be time to start pushing within the hour. They were worried about the baby being very large and I was concerned I might now be able to push him out. I was nervous about pushing and couldn’t believe the time had actually come! I started pushing around 7:45pmand after 50 minutes he was born. That sounds like a long time but they thought it would take at least 2 hours for a first time Mom of my size to push out a 9 pounder so I was glad!

The moment he was born I was overcome with so many emotions. I started bawling because I was so overwhelmed! Both by intense love and intense relief! The first thing I noticed were his little dimples! Neither Nate nor I have dimples so I don't know where he got them. The nurses almost immediately took him over to suck out his lungs and so I didn’t get to hold him right away. Between me getting stitched up (so glad I had the epidural for that part...) and him getting taken care of it felt like so long before he was in my arms again. Luckily Nate got to be with him.

He is a perfect baby! Perfectly healthy and perfectly handsome! I'm pretty sure we've spent the majority of the past 2 weeks just starring at him. Adjusting to being a new Mom is definitely hard. I have less of that "really freaked out" feeling as each day passes. He is wonderful and we love him so much!