We were scheduled to check into the hospital on Wednesday, January 16th at 5pm to start induction if she didn't come before then. Of course no one really wants to be induced, but with the somewhat high blood pressure I'd been having and the unpredictability of it, my midwives decided it was the best course of action to have the baby come out sooner than later and 39 weeks is when they felt was best to induce. I was fine with it because ultimately I just wanted myself and Cora to be safe and healthy. I had had an appointment on Monday, January 14th where I was 3 cm dilated and 80% effaced and my midwife, Cassie, striped my membranes to see if that would start labor earlier. I had read stories of stripping membranes not doing anything and then my sister-in-law told me that both her kids were born the day after getting her membranes stripped. I'm not sure if it was that or if things were just ready to go anyways, but labor started two days later on its own!
I had been planning for my last day of work to be Wednesday, January 16th before going to the hospital that evening, however, I woke up at about 1:30am that morning feeling the contractions a bit stronger than I had the past several weeks. I got up and walked around and had some water and they were really feeling quite a bit more painful than in the past. I figured if it was labor then a couple Tylenol wouldn't help anyways, so I took two to see if I could go back to sleep. At about 2:45am I was still awake and they were getting more painful. I decided to wake Neil up. We snacked on some food and Neil timed the contractions, which were anywhere from 5-7 minutes apart and lasting 20-45 seconds in the beginning. They were getting more painful though, kind of like I was wearing a belt that was stabbing into me from all sides. A little before 4am I decided to call Cassie. She said it sounded like labor was starting and that I should take a hot bath and think about coming to the hospital closer to when she goes on rounds at 7am, but that we have time and to just relax.
The bath felt great and I was still timing the contractions closer to 5 minutes apart at that point. Neil went back to sleep for the hour or so that I was in the bath, then he showered and we slowly finalized everything to go to the hospital.
Here's a picture of my belly right before we left for the hospital.
I had been really nervous about having painful contractions for the hour drive in the car to the hospital and while it wasn't fun, it wasn't quite as bad as I'd imagined either. Neil had country music playing on the radio and he helped me breathe through each contraction. He had put my pillow behind my head and I had the seat leaned back. There were no other cars on the road at this time of day, which was nice and we checked into the hospital right around 7:30am. When we walked into Labor and Delivery the nurses behind the counter were like, "You made it!". I guess that Cassie had told them we were on our way, but it was really nice to feel like they were waiting for us to arrive and welcoming us.
We got checked into our room, where we spent the next 18 hours or so. There were two nurses assigned to us, Kelsey and Connie, who were on shift 7am-7pm, so they were with us almost the entire time. The room was really quite nice, with a big bathroom and bathtub and a black leather couch for Neil to lie on, etc. Neil brought all of our stuff in and put it on the couch. I got changed into a hospital gown and lied down on the hospital bed. Kelsey put an IV in the back of my left hand in case it was needed later, but it was not attached to anything yet. Not long after I was settled Cassie came in to check how far dilated I was. It turns out I was only 3.5 cm, which was a little disappointing since I'd been at 3 cm on Monday. These painful contractions weren't really doing anything yet?! I had really liked the bath at home, so they said I could get in the bath again. I also was starting to feel really hungry since the egg and toast I had eaten at about 6am. Unfortunately they don't let you eat anything solid after you're checked into the hospital, only popsicles or ice chips. Luckily Cassie said I could have some toast, which they brought me. I also did go through a few grape flavored popsicles, which tasted delicious. Neil had me drinking water often throughout the day from the plastic mug with a straw that the hospital gives you to use and then take home. Neil got one too! A hospital souvenir.
Cassie wanted me up walking around to get labor moving along. From 10am to 11am Neil and I walked the halls of the hospital, stopping to pause when I had contractions. The nurses had shown us some ways of Neil holding me up while standing to relieve pressure and get through the contractions, but honestly it made my lower half and into my butt hurt worse. For me it felt best to just be rocking back and forth and breathing deeply.
At about noon
Cassie came in to check me again and I was still 3.5 cm. Really?! She decided
it would be best to break my water to get things moving along. I was nervous
for the contractions to get more intense and painful, but at the same time I didn't
want to be in labor forever. The nurses were like, "Now you can't leave
the hospital and will be having your baby soon!" Afterwards the
contractions definitely got closer together and more intense. I think I maybe
got in the bath again for a while. Then I tried several different
positions...sitting on the yoga ball with my head resting on the bed, leaning
against/hanging on Neil, leaning on the bed, etc. None really helped me with
the pain very much. I pretty much kept my eyes closed from this point on until
Cora was born. I don't know if it was the lights (which were dim anyways) or if
that just helped me focus, but I didn't really see what was going on around me for the
rest of the day. Each contraction brought on not only searing pain around my back and abdomen, but severe pain shooting down my outer thighs. Neil and one of the nurses were rubbing them and using tennis balls to massage me. Nothing really seemed to help at all though.
At one point between tears I said to Neil that I just wanted to be at home in my bed snuggling with Rooney. I guess that was my safe place. The other day Neil joked that at the time he was thinking, "That does sound nice! In fact, I'm outta here and going home to snuggle with Rooney!" Of course he didn't do that, but boy did that sound much nicer than what we were going through at the time.
Around 2:30pm Cassie came back in to check me. I was only at 5 cm. I couldn't believe that I was only half way there and was in so much pain and had been at the hospital for 7 hours already, not to mention the painful contractions I'd been having for 6 hours before that at home. There was no way I was going to make it. At that point I asked for an epidural. I didn't really know how it was going to play out, but I knew that I needed something to help me. Part of me felt like Cassie was disappointed in me for not doing it completely naturally, even though she told me that she supported me with whatever I wanted. And looking back, I'm really glad I did it the way I did and I think Cassie was too.
The next 2 hours were pretty much a blur to me while we waited for the anesthesiologist to arrive to put in the epidural. I just remember dreading the next contraction and knowing that they would just keep coming and coming until the baby was born. The nurse, Kelsey, who had put the IV port in my left hand at the beginning of the day, started hooking me up to fluids and getting me ready for the epidural. Apparently the IV in my left hand didn't work though, so she had to take it out and put in a new one on my left wrist. Then that one didn't work either. I think at this point Cassie came to try and put one in my right hand, which didn't work, and then finally got the one in my right wrist to work. Four pokes later, through many contractions, they finally had it working. I guess my veins just weren't cooperating or something. I just remember that I was sitting on the edge of the bed (with my eyes closed) and had to stay as still as I could through each contraction while they were putting the needles in my hand, which was not easy. I also felt a bit like I was going to throw up and kept asking to make sure that there was a trash can nearby in case. I hate throwing up (who doesn't) and that had been one thing (along with pooping on the table) that I had been dreading would happen to me. Of course, when you're there and in that much pain you end up not caring at all.
It was around 4:30pm that the anesthesiologist arrived. She was a young, outdoorsy, fit looking woman and didn't really look like a doctor to me, but I didn't care at all. She told me what to do and said that my positioning was perfect and that my back was really good for putting in an epidural, which made me feel better, although maybe she says that to everyone. She told me to tell her when I was having a contraction, which seemed like almost constantly to me. I barely felt a thing and she got the epidural in fairly quick, but I think there was something about blood coming back in the tube or something because there was a blood vessel nicked or something. She wanted to take it out and do it again. And again blood was coming back, so finally the third time she was satisfied with the placement. Things just did not want to work properly for me today!
Oh, I forgot to mention that they were monitoring my blood pressure the entire time since it had been elevated before labor, but after the epidural was put in I just had the cuff on my arm the whole time and every once in a while it would inflate and take my blood pressure. If the numbers were elevated at all (over 140/90) a beeping would start and not go off until a nurse came and reset it. Neil said that it kept reading at something like 125 or 130 over 91 and since it was over 90 the alarm went off. So the nurses weren't really concerned, but the beeping was pretty annoying. And the whole time they also had the fetal heart monitor on my belly, along with the monitor for the contractions. Cora's heartbeat was occasionally dropping during contractions, so they were monitoring it very closely. I just remember that I was lying in the bed after the epidural had fully kicked in and I constantly heard the baby's heartbeat on the monitor. Every time it dropped or changed at all, I got nervous and couldn't stop paying attention to it, so I finally asked the nurses if they could just turn the volume down so I didn't focus on it the whole time. I think I did end up sleeping on and off for a bit and Neil tried to get some rest on the couch as well.
I also had previously thought that the epidural would eliminate all the pain, but that wasn't necessarily the case. They had me lying to one side in the bed and my knees bent with pillows supporting me all around. They would come in and have me switch sides periodically...actually they wouldn't have ME switch sides, they would switch me by having 3 people, including Neil, half pick me up and move me over. What a funny feeling to not be able to move your legs! In any case, I constantly felt this strange pain/ache in my abdomen on one side or the other depending on which side I was lying on. They told me that there can be a "window" where the epidural doesn't quite get and that's probably what it was. I was envisioning that lying on my side was going to be as comfortable and relaxing as it is at home when I sleep, but it definitely was not.
Also, shortly after getting the epidural I started to notice that my vision was a little funny. I saw a squiggly line up in the upper right of my peripheral vision and when I tried to look at it, it moved further to the right. I also just felt like I couldn't focus as well on people's faces or things around me. I told Cassie about it and she said that vision changes are not normally a side effect of an epidural, so she ordered some blood work to be sent to the lab. At one point while I was half asleep a guy came to take my blood. He said he always loved taking blood from pregnant women because their veins were so big, however, the veins in my elbows apparently did not want to cooperate either! I think he poked both sides and had to dig around in there to get the needle in. Needles were not my friend on this day! Later Cassie told me that one of my liver enzymes was in fact elevated a little bit, so she was really glad that the baby was coming out now instead of later. She didn't think that was contributing to my vision, but I noticed that it was much better by that point anyways.
At some point in here as well Cassie told me she was going home to make sure her kids had dinner, etc. She only lived 2 minutes from the hospital and would be back soon. Of course, I didn't even notice she was gone and probably slept the whole time she was gone anyways.
Later on at one point while in and out of consciousness, Cassie had me get into a "stork" position, which was kind of like putting one knee over your body to stretch your back. This apparently helped steady out the baby's heartbeat. I remember overhearing her talking with the nurses about this legendary nurse who had worked at the hospital until she was 80 or something and how she never had any patient go to a c-section and that she just had all these tricks up her sleeve. Apparently the stork position was one of her favorites.
Around 7pm Cassie came and checked me and I was 9 cm...I'd progressed 4 cm in 2 hours! Yay! Apparently I just needed to relax and the epidural really helped me to do that. I don't ever remember Cassie telling me I was at 10 cm, but I do remember that she was talking about the possibility of using some pitocin because my contractions were not as regular and frequent as she would like going into the pushing phase. Neil told me later that they ended up not using any pitocin after all. I know they turned the epidural down a bit so that I could feel when the contractions were happening and when to push. It was interesting because I would feel a contraction coming on before it would register on the machine that Cassie and the nurses were looking at, but they really just went on my cue. As soon as I said that I felt one coming on and that I felt like pushing, they would say, "Okay, let's do it!" and would help me to push.
This was by far the hardest stage for me and even more painful than the contractions earlier on, even though I had some of the epidural still going. I cannot even imagine doing it without the epidural, even though I know each labor is different and varies person to person, but wow. They had me do several different positions for pushing...on one side, on the other side, on my back, and on hands and knees. I started out on my back and followed their instruction to tuck my chin to my chest, hold my legs behind my knees, and would take 3 big breaths and hold them each for as long as I could while I pushed as hard as I could, just like having a bowel movement. It's something you can't even simulate unless you are actually having a baby. My arms were actually sore the few days afterward from this as well.
After a few of the first pushes I did in fact throw up into a little bucket that someone was holding. Cassie said, "I know you don't want to hear this, Anna, but that throwing up actually produced some great pushes." For some reason I remember the all fours position the most and maybe I was there for the longest, but I have no recollection of time at all. While resting between contractions I would rock forward and put my head on my pillow (the same one I brought from home), then when I felt the urge to push I would rock backwards and use my body momentum to push as hard as I could. Man, it sucked. I would say, "I can't do this anymore!" or "Ouch, it hurts so bad!", and Cassie would say, "You're doing it, Anna!", "You're doing a great job."
The baby's heartbeat continued to drop during each contraction, but would come back up in between. Neil said Cassie left the room a few times and was talking to some different people. At my 6 week check up appointment with Cassie yesterday I was asking her some about the delivery and she said she had called Dr. Freeman to let her know that if the nurses called her that she needed to get to the hospital right away. But Cassie said that once I started pushing and the fact that things were progressing quickly, she felt much better about the situation. I'm not sure how close I was to going in for a c-section because of the baby's well being, but I'm sure it was thought about at some point.
If you notice I haven't mentioned Neil much here. I know he was standing on the right side of the bed and I know he would help hold my right leg when instructed. And I know he would hold my glasses for me or put them back on when I instructed (I had this funny thing about wearing my glasses...I wanted to be able to see her when she came out, but I didn't want my glasses on the whole time, but I didn't know when she was coming, so they kept coming on and off). Neil later said he was pretty overwhelmed and scared and felt like he couldn't do anything to help. I did hear him say over and over that I was doing a great job and other words of encouragement, which was really nice, but honestly the only voice I could really focus on was Cassie's. I kept waiting for her to say that she could see the head or that I was almost done, but it felt like forever. Several times after a pushing session I would ask, "Is this even doing anything?!" They would reassure me that it was. And at one point I remember Cassie saying that if I keep up like I've been doing then the baby will be here in about 20 minutes. Like I said, I have no recollection of time, so I have no idea if she was born in those 20 minutes or not, but it felt like I was going to be there pushing with this incredible amount of pain and pressure in my butt forever.
It turns out that it was just about an hour and a half of pushing. At 10:11pm Cora was born. She was quiet when she first came out, but was breathing fine, then she let out a few loud wails. I remember looking at Neil and he was crying and smiling and laughing all at the same time. I didn't cry at that point, but took her in my hands when they placed her on my chest with the umbilical cord still connected. Neil had been unsure of how he would be feeling and if he would want to cut the umbilical cord, but he was feeling good and did in fact cut the cord. I vaguely remember the nurses pushing on my stomach and Cassie telling me to push gently to deliver the placenta, but really all I was focused on was Neil and the new little baby on my chest.
The nurses wiped her off a bit and put a little hat on her while she was on my chest. She was quiet and calm. We stayed like that for over an hour. During that time we decided she did look like a Cora and declared her name as Cora Rilee. We also called our parents to let them know that she had arrived. I remember my mom asking how much she weighed and we didn't even know yet! I remember saying that she looked so much smaller than the estimated 7 lbs. I think we also tried breastfeeding a bit and just snuggled there together. Eventually one of the nursery nurses took her to the other side of the room, with Neil right at her side, and gave Cora a little bath in the sink then weighed and measured her. 5 pounds 13 ounces and just barely 19 inches.
Wow, I was so glad that it was over. I remember thinking that I did not need to do that again any time soon! I don't feel like I've forgotten the pain or the experience, but of course now I'm like it wasn't so bad and it was only one day. And of course you do get the most precious little baby out of the whole thing.
The rest of our stay in the hospital really was great too. The nurses were so friendly and helpful. They helped me to shower not too long after delivery...it really was an adjustment walking on my wobbly legs as the epidural wore off! Then they had Cora all wrapped up in a blanket and a super cute little hat that Neil had picked out and he wheeled her to our recovery room while a nurse pushed me in a wheelchair. We stayed until Friday evening before going home, which was great. The hospital meals and snacks were yummy and healthy. Cora was able to stay with us in our room almost the entire time, except once they took her in the night to get weighed and Neil went with her. Then Friday afternoon before we drove home Neil went grocery shopping and I showered, so the nurse took Cora to the nursery. After I was dressed and all ready I suddenly was like, "Where is my baby?!" and went to find someone to let me into the nursery to bring Cora back to the room. When I looked through the window and saw her in the little bed so small and by herself, I teared up. I pointed to her and was like, "That's my baby." It's funny how protective you are and how you instantly feel like you don't want anything to ever happen to your baby.
And that is the story of Cora's birth. Below are some pictures right after she was born. What a precious little thing!
You'll notice that Neil was wearing a long sleeved button up shirt, but then has on a short sleeve black shirt in the photos later. At one point while Cassie was doing her magic of stitching me up and whatever else she was doing, some blood squirted right onto Neil's arm. She was like, "Oh, I'm sorry Neil!" and we all chuckled about it. Neil didn't mind though.
Amazing!! You are incredible Anna!
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