April 26-27, 2011 Oliver Andrew Floyd- Birth Story

Ok, here we go:

So, my due date came and went (April 20) and I was totally cool with waiting to see if my body would go into labor on its own. As long as the baby was ok.

At the last several prenatal appointments my blood pressure was higher and higher and I did a 24 hour urine catch that determined I had too much protein. Even though I was eating right and lots of protein. So I was scheduled for a Foley Induction on Tuesday April 26.

Since labor didn't start on its own by the 26th, Jordan and I headed to the hospital while Aislin stayed home with my mom. We arrived a little before 11am and the Foley was placed shortly thereafter. Here I am waiting for the CNM to arrive and place the Foley.

I can't even tell you how anxious, excited, scared, and nervous I was.

(I'm bummed I never got around to making myself a couple of cute hospital gowns, ah well, maybe next time.)

We did have a great view out of our room though. And Jordan even had a nice pull out couch to snooze on.

Within an hour I was starting to feel some small contractions and within 2 hours I felt the Foley come through the cervix. I didn't know what it was at that point so I told the nurse I felt a weird feeling and she checked the Foley and it had come out, so she pulled it the rest of the way out. The midwife was amazed that it worked so fast. I was now dilated to 5cm. (I was barely a 1 when I arrived) Once that was done, I decided to go ahead and let the midwife break my water since she said I would most likely need pitocin to keep my labor going. I

couldn't really feel the contractions too much at this point. I figured if I went ahead and had my water broken, it would speed up the process and I wouldn't need pitocin, or at least not much.

I agreed to some pitocin since my water had been broken and I was now on the 24 hour clock to have my baby. (stupid hospital rules) I did really well with the contractions at first and Jordan was an amazing coach. He talked me through my contractions and empowered me constantly. My mom brought Aislin up around 6pm to visit us. I was having regular contractions at this point and they were getting stronger. I had to concentrate to get through them. I was making a moan humming noise to cope and during one of them, I looked over at Aislin and she looked worried. So I told her I was singing to the baby. She seemed okay then. But it got to the point that I needed them to leave so I could concentrate better and because I didn't want Aislin to worry about me. She's such an empathetic kid, that she would stress too much.

Because of the pitocin, the contractions were very strong and seemingly constant. At several points I decided that I couldn't take it anymore and it had been hours without any progress. My cervix was not budging past a 5. Jordan was vigilant and talked me out of an epidural several times. At one point the nurse did offer me some temporary pain relief with some Fentynol through the IV. She said it would work fast and not last too long. She was right. I had relief almost immediately, but it only lasted 15 minutes. It almost wasn't worth it.

After 8 hours of labor I finally caved and absolutely couldn't take any more. Since the contractions were coming on top of each other (Literally. If you watched the monitor you could see them peak and begin to go down, then start going back up.) and I still hadn't made any

progress. I did try using a birthing ball and I wanted to walk around to see if that would help things along, but because I was attempting a VBAC I had to be connected to the monitors constantly. I could only disconnect to go to the bathroom. Which I did frequently to try to help things along. While on the ball the monitor kept moving and would lose the baby's heart rate, so I had to give that up after many attempts. I would have had the mobile monitor to use, but someone else had it and they only had one in the hospital. I can't even believe that they only had one. Ridiculous. Then another intervention was introduced when they put the internal fetal monitor in. The midwife knew how much I wanted a VBAC, so she knew that we had to make sure and get good read outs of the baby's heart rate.... so it was just another way to keep the hospital at bay. As much as I didn't want to do it, I knew it helped my

chances of success.

The point being that I ended up getting an epidural. Once I decided I wanted it, I wanted it then and there. I didn't want to go through another contraction. The anesthesiologist was with another patient at the time though, so I had to wait like 5 minutes. Longest 5 minutes of my life. I was in so much pain by the time he walked in that I had to use a barf bag.

It took a couple of attempts to get the epidural in place and that twinge is unbelievable. I felt it on the right side 3 times and then finally on the left. I was told to not jump, but it is such a reflex.

Then within seconds I was in blissful relief. I could think again. I could breathe again. Did I mention that I had been sick for about 2 months coming in to this. I had a bad head cold with all the extra mucous that brings. So I was given the Oxygen mask if I needed it.

Once I had the epidural my body began to relax. The midwife checked me an hour later and I finally started to dilate more. I was at a 6. Jordan and I decided to try to get some sleep, so the midwife (and her midwife in training) decided to get some sleep too. I was their only patient so they pretty much hung out with me the whole time. It was awesome. The back up doctor did come in and say hi to me at one point, and he stayed the entire time at the hospital too, even though he didn't have any other patients. He wanted to be there in case I needed a C-section, but was confident that I could do a successful VBAC.

I tried to sleep, but it was difficult because of my cold. And because of the epidural my blood pressure went low (which until just a week before, I didn't know was a common side effect of an epidural.) so I needed to lay on my right side. And if you know much about epidurals, then you know that they work by gravity. So my right leg was so dead, I couldn'

t lift it. Thankfully the epidural still worked on the left side though.

From here on out, I was checked every couple of hours and had dilated another cm every time. Then at 5am I was finally to a 10! Woot! The nurse went to wake up the midwife and I woke Jordan up. Poor guy was so tired. I was too, but my adrenaline was starting to take over as I was getting ready to start the pushing phase.

I was pushing by 5:15am. I pushed in every position you could think of, and I was sucking the Oxygen in, in between. I couldn't feel the contractions at this point and the monitor wasn't able to register them very well, since I was moving around so much, so yet another intervention was placed. The internal contraction monitor. I didn't even know they existed until now. Great. I was starting to feel like a science experiment.

Anything to avoid a repeat C-section, right? Right. So moving on.

Once I started pushing the pitocin was turned off (which it had been turned off once during labor to see if my labor would continue on its own, it didn't.) and I was directed when to push. After a while they took the internal contraction monitor out and I was on my own. The epidural had started to wear off, but I was not in any pain. I honestly felt like I was having an out of body experience. I kid you not, it is still kind of surreal to me. I knew when to push, but I can't really remember feeling any pain or pressure or anything. I just knew. I do remember my right leg was still really numb and I had Jordan holding that side because the midwife in training wasn't holding it very well, so I had her and Jordan switch sides.

I thought I was pushing as hard as I could, until I heard the midwife say something about maybe needing to use the vaccum. Well, I pulled from reserves I didn't know I had and pushed even harder.

After a grand total of 2 hours and 45 minutes later, at 7:59 am, Oliver Andrew Floyd was born. Once his head was out the midwife checked for the umbilical cord and then let Jordan take over to catch his son. He was placed on my belly immediately.

I was so exhausted and elated. I just couldn't believe I had done it. I was amazed at myself. And I couldn't hold back the tears, not that I had the energy to. I felt redeemed from Aislin's birth. I did. I really did it. Wow. It's the most amazing feeling in the world. Jordan called my mom right away and told her to get Aislin up and bring her on down. I really wanted Aislin to be there for the actual birth, but I didn't want to wake her up at 5am.

We wanted to delay cord clamping until it stopped pulsing, but since there was more blood loss than the midwife liked, she asked if it was okay to go ahead and clamp. I was fine with that, because I had already heard my little guy cry and I just knew he would be okay. Jordan cut the cord and Oliver was free.

I was able to hold Oliver for a long time skin to skin before they did the in room newborn exam. Once they did that we found out he weighed 8lbs 4oz.

Then they handed him back to me. I was able to nurse him within an hour of his birth.

My awesome birth team(minus Jordan.) Roberta the CMN on the left. and Marcie the trainee on the right. They totally rocked. Incidentally, I was Roberta's last delivery before she moved to south eastern Utah. I'm glad it was a good one.

Gramma Robin was so excited to hold little Oliver.

Check out that awesome ridge in his head. Gross. I remember Aislin having one too, but Oliver's is just, whoa!

I unfortunately don't have any pictures of Jordan holding Oliver from that day, but I assure you, he was very keen to hold his little buddy. Aislin even got to hold him with Gramma's help.