Welcome to the World Baby Girl

As of March 25, 2017, our family of three became a family of four. Baby girl (P) joined the outside world at 6:53 p.m. She weighed 6 pounds and measured 19 inches long. Her head was 32.5 cm, half a centimeter bigger than E's.

Birth Story

Despite having a scheduled induction for March 25, P was almost born on the 23rd. I am apparently incapable of having an uneventful OB appointment. My mom flew in on the 22nd, so she had E and hubs went with me to my NST appointment. Baby girl failed it spectacularly. Every time I contracted, her heart rate decelerated. My midwife said it was 50/50 whether I had a baby that day or not. 

I was a hot mess. This was my limit. We were scheduled to take family photos that very evening. I was so upset that we might not be able to take them. I'm not sure why this was the event that pushed me over the edge. I guess all of the issues coalesced and peaked at this moment. I was not ready to have the baby. I wasn't fully prepared for Saturday; I was not ready at all for Thursday. 

My midwife called my OB, and I was sent to L&D for more monitoring. P started to behave, and, after five hours of monitoring, L&D let me go home. As I mentioned in my last blog post, we did get our family photos done by Jackie Jane Studios. I absolutely love them. Here is my favorite:

The day before the induction, I called the charge nurse at the suggestion of my doula and OB. I asked about their wireless fetal monitor and if I could request it. I also asked that they charge it so it wouldn't run out of juice during labor. My OB told me to mention I wanted another unmedicated labor and to request a nurse who prefers that kind of labor. 

I set my alarm for 6:00 a.m. on the 25th and called the charge nurse to see when I should arrive for the induction. She told me to arrive between 7:30-8:00. I couldn't sleep anymore, so I got up to eat and get ready to go. At 7:00, the nurse called me back and told me they had a lot of people come in and they weren't sure if they would be staying or not. She told me to call back at 8:00, and hopefully they could get me in by 9:00. I was already anxious (knowing when you're going to have a baby is the weird), so this just added to my nervous energy. I ate some breakfast and called back at 8:00. They told me to come in at 9:00. 

I said goodbye to E and my mom. Hubs and I checked in, but that took a lot longer than I expected. My nurse checked me and said I was a solid 4 cm dilated, 70-80% effaced, and P was at -3/-2 station. I gave my nurse a goodie bag at this point with a thank you note. I filled the bag with candy, cookies, and crackers with various filling (cheese, peanut butter, etc.). The thank you note thanked my nurse and OB for the care they were about to provide. I also apologized for any mean things I may say during labor, haha. This is an obvious bribe, but it works really well. The nurses don't get normal lunch breaks, so easy to grab snacks are always popular.

The nurse hooked me up to a wireless monitor (this is money, every pregnant woman should investigate if her hospital has a wireless monitor) and set my heplock. My OB stripped my membranes at 11:30 a.m. I got a breast pump at noon and used it for five minutes on, five minutes off until 1:15 p.m. That got rid of my irritability contractions and started up some stronger contractions. However, it was not causing regular contractions. The nurse checked me again and I dilated to 5cm and baby girl dropped to -2/-1 station. Progress, but I was not in active labor yet. 

At 1:30 p.m., my nurse hooked up my IV and started Pitocin at a 1. She put it on the slowest drip possible because I was concerned about the constant IV drip. My concern was if I had multiple bags of saline pumped into me, it would artificially bloat baby P. When she dropped the water weight, it would seem as if she was losing absurd amounts of weight. My nurse was phenomenal and worked with my requests. We quickly bumped the Pitocin up to a 2 then a 3. The 3 established active labor. By 3:00p.m. I was contracting every 2-3 minutes and they were noticeably different in character. Before, the contractions just felt like tightening. With Pitocin at a 3, they felt a little bit crampy like right before starting a period. This was the point where my nurse said we had labor started now. 

We called my doula and let her know now would be a good time to arrive. She arrived around 3:45. I could still talk through contractions with no issue, but they were uncomfortable. We turned the Pitocin up to a 4 because I was still sitting at 5cmdilated. By 4:30, I no longer talked during contractions. I could if I had to respond to a question, but I preferred not to. I was also no longer sitting on my birthing ball, I wanted to stand. My doula suggested I get on hands and knees. We lowered the bed and put my birthing ball in the bed. I draped over and rocked slightly back and forth. Hubs did hip squeezes and counter pressure on my lower back while my doula rubbed a pressure point in the center of my feet with an oil. I also had a citrus-scented essential oil on a hand towel near my face. 

At 5:30, my OB came back to the hospital (she was on call). The nurse was about to call her in because she felt things were picking up when my OB walked into the room. Apparently, the OBs can see the fetal monitor strip from their home computers. Pretty neat. She checked me, and I was 7cm dilated and baby girl was at +1 station. She asked if I wanted her to break my water at this point, but I asked her to come back in a little bit to check again. I felt certain breaking my water would send my labor into hyperdrive and I didn't want to blast through the last 3cm. At this point, my hands started shaking. Endorphin release, huzzah! My nurse turned the Pitocin down to a 2 because my contractions were coming in on top of each other. 

I could tell transition was just getting started. I could no longer be hands and knees. I stood at the foot of the bed and leaned over the ball while swaying. Hubs and my doula alternated applying counter pressure. I started making my goat noises (labor is beautiful, right?), which indicate transition is in full swing for me. I warned my doula ahead of time that my sarcasm gets intense when I'm in pain. I did not, however, think to forewarn the OB.

My OB came back at 6:15 p.m. to check me. I was in the middle of a contraction and not up to talking. When it ended someone commented to the OB that the contraction was over to which I responded, "adios, butthole." My OB lost it and was cracking up, "What did she just say?" and the nurse (or maybe my doula? I forget, I was in a lot of pain) responded, "I think she just called the contraction a butthole."

I was 8.5cm dilated at this point, so we decided to break my water. My OB got everything ready and broke my water at 6:48 p.m. I felt a tiny trickle of water (low fluid levels, boo) and I could also feel a contraction gearing up. I cannot labor on my back. I don't know of many women who want to labor unmedicated while flat on their back. This was the only contraction that got away from me. This may not be the case for all women, but, for me, if a contraction gets going and I'm not mentally prepared, I cannot catch up to it. It's something that is happening to me rather than me working through it. I felt frantic and told hubs to get me out of the bed. He lifted me up, but my legs couldn't support me anymore. Hubs basically held me up through that contractions and then my doula suggested I get into bed to prepare for pushing. 

I climbed into the bed and draped my arms over the head of the bed like I did with E. This would allow me to rest between pushes. That was my thought process anyway. I announced to the room at large that I felt pushy and I felt a burning sensation. I realize now this is the "ring of fire" part of labor. Hubs told me after the fact that he could see the baby's hair, so she was crowning. The OBand nurses were clearing away the pads and towels from breaking my water when another contraction hit, I felt an overwhelming urge to push. I couldn't verbalize this, so I opted to shout "Pushy, pushy, pushy!" instead.

Hubs told me to push if I needed to. I didn't think the OB was behind me, but I figured E took me 20 minutes of pushing to birth. Surely, one push wouldn't be an issue. 

Wrong. One push and her head was out. Hubs announced, "Um...there's a head." My OB came rushing over and told me not to push. She checked to see if there was a cord around P's neck. There wasn't, so she told me to push when I felt ready. The next contraction rolled in, and, with another push, she was born at 6:53 p.m. True labor lasted about four hours (my labor with E was 9 hours). Only five minutes passed from breaking my water to holding our sweet baby. She started crying immediately. This was music to my ears. We were worried about her lungs, but she put those fears to rest immediately. 

I had no tearing, which is great. I had a "skid mark" as my OB called it. I had the same thing with E (in the same place, no less). I didn't require stitches either time, which makes me one happy momma. 

I got to do skin to skin and delayed cord clamping. We weren't sure this would be possible with P being premature. I didn't get to do the first check with her on me, though. They started getting worried because, even though she was crying, she was still purple. At some point, a whole slew of people came into the room. In addition to my nurse and OB, there was a pediatric team and a NICU team. One of them tried to take P from me. I curled around her and told the person "She's still attached." Hubs got to cut the cord. The OB and nurse both proclaimed it was a "juicy" cord, haha. 

They took P and she got an 8 out of 10 for both her one minute and five minute APGAR scores. She just would not turn pink. Finally, at 7 minutes, her color started to change. Hubs was with her and the doctors and got to see her color change. One by one, the NICU and pediatric team doctors left. This was great news because it meant she did not need immediate NICU attention.

Despite needing to induce early, I managed to achieve most of the things I wanted for labor and delivery. The wireless monitor was amazing. Even though I had to have constant fetal monitoring, it wasn't irritating because there were no wires. I had another unmedicated birth and got to labor/push in whatever positions felt most comfortable to me.

My nurse was really sweet and impressed with my labor. I remember saying at one point, "We should film this and show it to high schoolers to deter them from having babies." She laughed and said it would probably have the opposite effect and that I made labor look easy. My labor did go really well considering it was an induction. Inductions have a tendancy to be faster and way more painful than labor that starts on its own. My OB told me after watching my labor and delivery and seeing how well they went, she wants to try for an unmedicated birth with her next baby. 

Hubs called my mom and told her to bring E to meet her new little sister. E was initially interested but was quickly distracted by my lack of belly. She came over to prod at my stomach and ask, "Momma belly? Baby? Where'd it go?" She knew I was pregnant with a baby, but she did not understand the concept that the baby we were showing her was the same baby that had been in my belly.

We stayed the full 48 hours because P had to pass a lot of tests before they would let us go home. The first night she would not nurse. I could get her to latch, but she was so sleepy. I had some colostrum from pumping during labor and I pumped another 15 minutes that evening. I got 26ml in total, so they finger fed her 6ml at a time. She was riding the line for her blood sugar tests and ended up failing one of them by four points. They gave her some sugar gel and she started to wake up enough to nurse. Her scores improved dramatically, so they stopped pricking her before every nursing session. All that remained was the car seat test. She passed that with flying colors and we got to go home Monday around noon.

I wasn't sure how my body would respond after baby #2. I snapped back pretty fast with E, and I'm happy that the same is happening with P. Here is the belly four days postpartum.

Life adjusting to two littles has been a crazy ride so far. E is intensely jealous of P. She gives her kisses and loves on her, but then has epic tantrums over absolutely nothing. Her pediatrician told me it'll last for about two weeks. Then, it will be as if P has always been here.

P is doing great. She eats well and is gaining back some of the weight she lost. She dropped to 5lbs 8oz while in the hospital. She's up to 5lbs 10.5oz as of Friday. Her bilirubin levels are going down as well, so we don't have to go in every other day to get her foot pricked anymore. She's a tough little lady.