January Jumping Beans Birth Stories and Birthdates

Josiah's full name is Josiah Jeffrey Athanasius. He has the two middle names. Thanks!

Oh and 4:02am

Bronwyn Rosalie born 1/28 10:59 pm

Around 5:30 pm on Wednesday night I started feeling really regular BH contractions. I didn’t say anything to DH because they didn’t really hurt, but they were super regular and felt “different” than my usual BH. I decided I didn’t want to cook, and was in the mood for Chipotle. The episode of Oprah that day was about food and trying to eat food that is antibiotic free and not processed. The Chipotle owner was on because they have those values and seeing the food made me want it! It looked so good. I tried to make it extra spicy to help things along. I was a day past my due date and ready to have this baby. Well, after dinner, we came home and relaxed, and watched TV for a bit. Then at 9pm I felt it. I had my first painful contraction. I managed to still not say anything to DH for about an hour. I was slyly timing them on my phone. We went to bed around 11:30, but I had the feeling I wasn’t going to be able to sleep very well, and I was right. I downplayed the contractions to DH because I wanted him to sleep. I may have catnapped in this period, but no real sleep was happening. Around 3am the contractions definitely intensified. They were about 10 minutes apart, but lasted a long time. At about 3:45 I wasn’t feeling very well. I started throwing up. Every time I changed positions, or laid down it would make me sick. I kept trying to drink liquids when I started to feel better, but I would throw up again. I called my doula around this point, since she lives a little bit away. I was handling the contractions pretty decently. I got in the shower while waiting for the doula, the shower helped speed up the time between contractions, but it shortened the length of them. My doula arrived at about 5 am. Shortly after that DH tried to make me some light food, toast and things, but once again I couldn’t hold it down. For the next several hours I labored at home, mostly sitting on the birth ball leaning over my bed. By about 8:30 they were within 5 minutes apart lasting anywhere from 1 -2 minutes long. We decided to call L&D since I couldn’t drink fluids and the contractions were close. They said to come right in. I managed to get to the hospital without too much difficulty. Thank goodness no contractions came while we were going over railroad tracks. I got to the hospital about 9am. They got me checked in to triage. They asked for a urine sample, and I could barely get out half a cm worth of a sample. It was enough though. They checked my blood pressure, and I can’t recall any of the actual numbers at this point, but apparently it was high. My urine came back and it had protein in it. I had just been at the OB two days earlier and there was no protein and I had normal BP. I was severely dehydrated at this point so they wanted to hook me up to fluids and I agreed. Then they checked me. After laboring all night, I was a grand total of 2cm. Yeah, that pissed me off. The contractions hurt like no other, but that was probably because of the severe dehydration. I was 70% effaced though. They had to take a blood sample at this point because they were worried about my BP/proteins. About an hour and a half or so goes by and the labs come back. At first they say they are fine. I’ll probably be sent home. Especially after they check me again, and oh yeah I’m still 2cm, but hey I’m 90% effaced though. I was bummed that I was going to have to keep going, and dealing with two more car rides. So the OB leaves, and then all of a sudden like 7 people are in the room, which is TINY. They say they looked at my blood work wrong and I’m not going home. I’m definitely diagnosed with preeclampsia. This was a mixed bag of feeling. Worried, but relieved that I wouldn’t be going home. They tell me I will need to go on Magnesium Sulfate because even though I’ve been rehydrated with IV fluids my BP isn’t going down. Oh and because of this I was going to admitted to the high risk wing and wouldn’t be able to deliver with a nurse midwife as I hoped. 20 minutes or so later they change their minds and tell me that the CNM will be able to oversee it, but the OB will be on call in case of complication. Luckily the baby had maintained a wonderful heart rate the entire time, so everyone thought she was handling things well. They get me back to an L&D room at this point, about 12:30pm. Until then I thought that I’d be able to walk around and things even with the IV. When I get to the room I find out things are going to be very different than I was hoping for. Because of the Mag IV I needed continuous monitoring and can’t walk. Because the Mag can slow things down, I’m going to need Pitocin. Oh and a catheter , and oral liquid restrictions. They brought me so much water at a time and if I ran out before the time they gave, I couldn’t drink anything else til the next hour. I still didn’t want to drink much and was feeling nauseous, so they gave me Zofran, which finally made me feel a little better. I also knew ahead of time I need antibiotics for my GBS positive. An hour or so goes by, they check me again, and I’m only 2-3, but fully effaced. My mind started getting very discouraged about this point. Knowing how long I’d been going and not much was happening, and knowing it was about to get worse with the pitocin. Oh and that pesky catheter, the thought of getting that with no pain meds was weighing on my heavily. I started thinking about things and I knew I couldn’t bring myself to take any narcotics, but I might have to get the epidural. This was a very hard decision for me to make. I had prepped so much for a natural birth, and I was now having more interventions than I could count. Since I couldn’t walk around to help things along that Pitocin was definitely going to be necessary. The two good things I had going were my baby looked great on the monitor and my bag of water was still in tact. I failed to mention earlier that she was still really high up when I got to the hospital, -3 station. I finally decide to get the epidural, and came to terms with it. They tell me I’ll have it by 3:15. No way did that happen. At 3:15 they came to give me another IV of something that they wanted before the epidural, because my BP wasn’t responding to the Mag. Finally about 5ish the anesthesiologists arrive, but there is all the talk they have to go through first. About 5:30 they start, and it was taking a really long time to go in. With my relaxation techniques though they said they had never seen anyone stay so still and not flinch at all. After this I get settled and they do the cold test, and I felt everything. Yeah, it didn’t take properly. They had to do it AGAIN. It was about 6:30 by the time it was in and working. They stared pitcoin shortly after. I finally decided to try and rest. I catnapped for a while and then they came to turn me, because baby’s heart rate had gone down a little bit. The problem with this was that the epidural had taken a little better on my right side and now that I was laying on my right side my left started feeling things. I started clicking the button to release more, more often and went back to being more even. Some time passed, and I knew when I was having contractions, but it wasn’t as intense as with no epi. Finally at 9pm they check me again. Yeah I’m 3cm STILL, but -2 station and a bulging bag of water. They up the pitocin. Shortly after I start feeling lots of pressure on each contraction. After about 45 minutes of that I almost feel like I have to push, but don’t say anything because I knew I wasn’t far enough along, so I just bear through each contraction, trying to relax and let it do it’s job. I told my doula and DH that it was starting to feel like I had to push at about 10pm, because it was becoming overwhelming. We told the nurse as well. They got the Nurse Midwife to check me again. At 10:30pm, yeah I’m 8 cm all of a sudden. At this point things start getting crazy in the room, they start prepping for delivery, and I’m REALLY feeling the urge to push. More than anything I’ve ever known, and the moaning begins. The nurse knows this sound and starts hurrying the nurse midwife back, and jokes (she was really funny and great the whole time) that I better not push that baby out while she was the only one there because she’d have A LOT of paperwork. Within 10-15 minutes the nurse midwife is back and checking things again and I’m complete. She says I can push a little and my water breaks spectacularly. It went everywhere. On the next contraction I start pushing. Even though I had an epi, I was able to have full control over my pushing because with the pressure I could feel them. I wasn’t pushing for long, but at the time it felt like forever. I got to reach down and feel her head. She came out at 10:59pm. The first thing I asked was “Is she really a girl” and yes she was. She let out a wail and then calmed down pretty quickly. The cord was short so she couldn’t get past my stomach, and once it stopped pulsating DH cut it and she was brought to my chest. This is where things went wonky with me. I started losing a bit of blood, but they didn’t tell me til they had it under control. DH told me I went white. My placenta came out with 5-10 minutes. Then they started checking things over. That began a TWO HOUR repair. It hurt worse than labor. I didn’t tear in the traditional spot on my perineum. I tore up top, and inside. This was because she came out so fast. She didn’t even have a cone head. The tear up top was so bad and near my urethra it led to me having to have a catheter in until Sunday (It was Thursday night at this point). They had to take out the epi catheter for the repair, and bring in an OB because it was complex. They then had to put the new catheter in because they needed to make sure the repair “didn’t close my urethra up”. I was luckily able to keep Bronwyn (which as soon as we saw her we knew that was the right choice of name) on my chest for an hour before they took her to weigh and check. That helped me bear through the pain of the stitches. I still don’t know how many stitches were required. After the OB came and finished everything up and I was stable and had scarfed down a bite of food they took me to my recovery room where I stayed for 3 nights. She came out so fast that I couldn’t move for a bit, but it was worth it. They kept me on the mag for 24 hours after birth. She was super healthy, APGARS of 9 and 9. Bili levels later were only 8.5. She was ready to go before I was! Although nothing went as expected I got a beautiful, wonderful baby girl out of it, which I wouldn’t change for anything.

I am finally able to get to writing up a birth story. I've just been so busy!

So Saturday night, 12/26 I tried nipple stimulation. I was getting contractions almost right away, so I'd stop the nipple stimulation. I'd get two to three good contractions, and then they'd stop. So I did that off and on for a few hours. I gave up and went to bed as they fizzled out again and my boobs were getting sore. lol.

I was just falling asleep, and about 11pm I had to get up and use the bathroom. TMI alert. I totally and completely emptied my bowels in a very short time. That made me wonder if something was up. I went and laid back down in bed and the contractions started up almost immediately. 3 minutes apart. But they weren't hard at all. And they weren't getting any harder. But when they didn't stop after 2 hours of laying down, I had a feeling they weren't going to. Being that we live an hour from the hospital, plus we had to get someone out here to watch the boys, I figured we'd better be on the safe side. The last time I went so fast.

So we got to the hospital about 3am. They checked me, I was 5cm 80% effaced (I had been 3cm 70% effaced last appt). So they kept me. Contractions started spacing out, so the doc broke my water. They picked back up, and got harder. Then, they spaced out again. At this point it was like 8am. And I was still at a 5-6cm. At this point I decided to get an epidural. I knew I was getting pitocin, I was super tired from being up all night, and didn't know how much longer I could take it.

So I got the epidural, got the pitocin, and then tried to call my son, Austin. He was at his dad's house. His dad decided that was a great time to pick a fight with me. He was being the biggest asshole. :sad: I told him we could talk about it later, that this wasn't the time. But he just kept going. I got off the phone with him, was pretty upset for a short time while my mom and the nurse tried to calm me down. Shortly after that it was time to push. Even the pushing contractions were strange. One contraction would be 5 minutes in between, the next would be 2. The doc and the nurse kept commenting on how I had such a strange labor pattern.

I pushed for a while, and I could tell he was more on the left, like he wasn't coming out quite right. The doc thought he was fine though. I kept pushing, and pushing. At one point, during a break between contractions, I felt a ton of more pressure. I guess the baby was finally turning to the right position. After that he came out great! The cord was wrapped around his neck twice, but he was fine. He had quite the cone head, in a weird spot. The back of his head instead of the top.

Anyway, he was born at 10:11am, 7lbs 11oz 12 3/4 inches long.

Look at that cone head, on the back of his head instead of the typical top. And you can see how bruised it was. :sad: It already looks a ton better
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Here he is!
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January 28th
9:40am - went to the drs to have my membranes swipped. I was 3cm, had a bulging bag of water and the babys head was right there.

2:30 pm - Very mild timable contractions started I cleaned the house and gave Dh a haircut.

6pm - I could tell this was going to be the night! Everyone ate dinner I ate 2 pasta noodles. contrations were still mild and getting closer about every 4min

8pm - contractions picked up and I was not able to walk through them. I said to DH we should get ready to go now - I don't think he was 100% that this was it... I kept wanting to sit on the toilet thinking I had to go to the bathroom but did not. That is when I knew we had to get going.

8:30 - 8:45pm - Contractions were every 2-3 min and getting stronger - It was time to leave. Saying good bye to Dylan was so hard - I have never left him before so I was a bawling mess....and not wanting to go - then the girls were getting teary and trying to reasure me - Brittany held Dylan and he said bye and watched us leave. It was like he knew what was going to happen.

9:10 pm we got to the hospital.
I went to the desk to sign in the nurse asked can I help you I said I am here to have my baby shen sadi are you a scheduled induction? I said no I am in labor - I don't think she believed me...then I was told all the triage rooms were filled and we would have to wait in the lobby for a few min until a room became available.

9:15 pm-9:20 pm a triage room was available
Nurse was getting the basic info and I was on the monitor contractions every 2 min and I was having to hold DH's hand and breath through the contractions. (still rating them as a 5) The nurse made a comment after I mentioned to her that I had my membranes swipped that morning that, that was why I was having to breath through the ctx's .. then she checked me and I was 7cm!!! I declined the IV as I planned to do this one all nat with no meds. I also kept asking that they contact my Dr.

9:30pm - I was admitted to a L&D room
I kept asking for them to get my Dr here (she was on call ) They got a hold of her and she must have given the nurse instructions per my birth plan we had discussed. I had the best nurse who was all for a natural child birth. I also asked for the birthing ball and ice chips. The nurse helped through a few hard ctx's by holding pressure points (one pressure point was my lower back and another point was squeezing my knees) Then Dh did this w/ each contractions as well as feed me ice chips as I was on the ball. I was only on the nomitor for short periods at a time and was able to move around freely while on it This was GREAT! After she showed us those she left me and dh alone to labor together.

9:45 pm My Dr showed up I was still 7-8cm. She asked what I would like to do I requested my water be broke.

9:50 pm - Dr broke my bag of water (baby was right there my bag was thick)

10:10pm - I was checked again and was 8-9cm. Contractions were really getting strong I wanted to get back on the ball for a little while longer I could tell transition was starting...

10:20pm - I could tell the baby was close! I had a really strong ctx where you could just tell it was almost time.

10:30 pm I got into the bed to be checked and the Dr said the next contraction I could push!!
1st big push and there was his head, 2nd BIG/Long push and out came his shoulders
The Dr said reach down and grab your baby - I said I can't she gave me a look like do it...and I let go of the bed side and dh's hand and grabbed my baby under his arms (dh also helped with his hand on my hand and the babys side) one more little push and I pulled him out onto me. I rubbed him he let out his 1st cry and I kept rubbing him as he turned pink... The dr waited over 5 min to clamp his cord it def stopped pulsing and dh got to cut it. No tears! I held him and got him to nurse pretty quickly then the nurse took his vitals he got 9's on his 1st and 2nd apgars! Dh and I were able to hold him as long as we wanted we were asked to let them know when to weigh and do his vit k and eye drops. We were there for 2 hrs and finally said ok to his weight --- he was 8lbs 5oz -- 20inches -- and then he got the drops etc Dh was the one who carried him over to the scale and he helped get his measurements too.
This by far was the best birth I have ever had - Thanks to my Dr for being there and making sure things were done just right for my last baby Oh and another plus was they lifted the visiting ban on Jan 28th!!!! So the kids got to visit me and meet their baby brother on Saturday!!!

Derek Colton just born
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