This is the birth story of my second child. You can read more about our 2nd pregnancy announcement, see week by week pregnancy updates and even read the birth story of my first born!
I knew the day was coming and the weeks leading up to the ‘big day’ I did everything I could think of to help encourage the baby to be born. You know, loads of housework, painting our new kitchen cabinet doors, running loads of errands, walking around the neighborhood with Liam and you-know-what. I even started having menstrual-like cramps every night while I was trying to sleep for five days prior to the day. But, alas an induction was inevitable…again.
After a terrible night’s sleep, I woke up at 5:30am on February 5th, 2015 to take a refreshing shower to start this exciting day. My mom came over to stay with Liam and by 6:45am, we were on the road to the hospital.
7:01am We headed straight to the maternity ward to get checked in. They had me get into my gown and answer some last minute registration questions. Meanwhile, the anesthesiologist came in to ask if I would be wanting an epidural. I told him I was not opposed to the idea, especially since I had one (unknowingly) with the birth of Liam and it was delightful! No pain whatsoever, not even pressure.
7:30 – 8:00am I warned the nurses as soon as they were preparing the IV that I was going to be terribly hard to hook up to the IV. After numerous attempts at finding a vein, several minutes of digging around in my arm, (multiple times I was close to passing out…even Logan was feeling faintly) they finally got me hooked up on my hand. Needless to say, it was a rough way to start the day.
8:30am The Pitocin starts to flow! Eep! Every 15 minutes, the nurses came in to increase the amount of Pitocin being administered. They told me that this would be the case until contractions picked up.
8:45am Within just 15 minutes, my contractions were about 5 minutes apart and pretty manageable.
9:53am By now, contractions were up to 3 minutes apart, slightly painful, but still manageable, so my OB came to break my water. I had never had my water broken before and didn’t know what to expect. To tell you the truth, I was a little frightened and didn’t know how common it was. My OB assured me that it was a common procedure and there was nothing to be worried about. It was a quick pain (nothing like the pain of the IV placement!) and the water was broken. At this point, I was around 80% effaced and 2.5cm dilated.
Almost immediately, contractions became more intense and there was constant pressure. Again, every 15 minutes the nurses came in to increase Pitocin amounts and checked every time to see if I was ready for an epidural. I was constantly having a debate with myself over seeming like a whimp and getting an epidural or sticking it out a bit longer and being brave. After saying it out loud, both of the nurses quickly said, ‘If you’re planning on getting an epidural anyway, you may as well get it now and have less pain!’. My husband agreed with the nurses and was in full support of doing whatever I wanted.
10:30am I requested an epidural.
10:37am The epidural is administered. Since I was half asleep for the administration of my epidural with Liam, I had no idea what to expect here. It wasn’t painful, just shocking and surprising when I felt the needles and sometimes sudden pain down my back when it was being administered. Of course, this was all while dealing with strong contractions. Fun stuff.
11:37am I was starting to feel some relief from pain, but was still feeling contractions. The catheter was put in place and I was measuring 3.5cm dilated. The nurses then got me to lay on my right side for 30 minutes.
12:00pm I was having a lot more relief from the pain at this point, to the point where I thought about closing my eyes for a little nap when everyone left the room the next time.
12:28pm Laying on my back, the nurses checked me again and I had reached 6cm dilated and 90% effaced. Then, they helped me turn to lay on my left side. At this point my legs were numb.
12:45pm Within minutes of turning to my left side, I was suddenly feeling pain. It was a lot of pain that went from strong pressure at my pelvis to full-on painful contractions, way worse than what I was experiencing before the epidural. So much for that nap! The nurses decided to check me just in case and I had already progressed to 8cm in just 15 minutes! Whaaat?? At this point all I could do was breathe through the INSANE contractions and try to ignore all the commotion that was now going on in the room. I just kept closing my eyes and taking deep breathes, trying to remember that the pain would be over soon. This was completely and utterly NOT how it was the first time I got an epidural with Liam’s birth. I don’t know what in the world happened because the epidural seemed to have stopped working. All that was left was residual numbness in my legs…I felt everything else. Nurses were texting my OB updates, nurses were prepping a delivery table and my delivery nurses pushed my epidural button 3-4 times to help my pain…with no avail. The contractions were every minute and quite painful. Totally opposite that of my first epidural! Ouch!
12:55pm The nurse checked me again when I told them I was feeling immense pain and I was pretty sure I felt the head. Sure enough, I was measuring 10cm and +2. The nurses called my doctor for delivery.
1:05pm My husband was texting our family that we were starting, all while holding my hand through the pain.
1:08pm Doctor arrived with not a minute to spare! I immediately started pushing at the first sign of my next contraction. I pushed through a total of two contractions (about 4-5 total 10 second pushes) and…
1:13pm I delivered a baby boy! Hayden Blaise Edwards was born.
The hospital is a ‘Baby Friendly’ hospital and wants skin to skin contact with the mother as soon as the baby is born. I got to hold him for a few seconds on my chest, but he wasn’t breathing like he should, so they took him over to the baby unit in the room and got him breathing. They said it doesn’t happen often, but when it does the health of the baby is priority, of course! They went ahead and weighed and measured him and he was:
8lbs 7oz and measured 20.5 inches long!
While the nurses were working on Hayden, I delivered the placenta (which was also not very fun sans epidural). Then, Hayden and I were reunited once again. He took a while to latch on and was quite sleepy…and still is to this day (3 weeks old).
I was so fortunate to not tear during this delivery like I had with Liam, making my recovery a lot smoother than my first delivery. So, I guess that’s my ‘reward’ for going through a painful delivery? I’ll take it.
Overall thoughts from Hayden’s birth:
- I’m still in shock about how quickly the delivery went. From the time I began induction to delivering Hayden it was less than 5 hours, whereas with my induction to delivery time with Liam was 14 hours.
- I didn’t ever expect that the epidural wouldn’t work and I’m still unsure why it stopped working.
- I feel like I’m a stronger person having experienced the pain. I think it’s a right of passage thing in my brain or something. Plus, I didn’t have even close to normal contractions in my delivery with Liam, so it’s nice to say I’ve experienced it.
- I’m equally as happy at how quickly I have already forgotten the pain.
- I miss being pregnant, but I’m incredibly thankful to be able to walk and sleep ‘normally’ again.
- I still can’t believe he’s here!
