Ron {&} Maggie: Birth Story

It only took 5.5 months to write, but I finally finished Rosie's Birth Story! Possible TMI and also its long. Proceed with Caution.

I don't even know where to begin with Rosie's birth story. All I can say is this little peanut had her very own time table. My due date came and went and she just had no desire to experience life outside the womb. She was 9 days late!

I will rewind to the Friday before I had her. That seems to be when things got interesting and frustrating.

I was frustrated that Rose hadn't made her debut. Thankfully I had an appointment with my midwife that morning. When I went in I found that even though she hadn't come, I was making steady progress. I was dilated to a 3 and about 85% effaced, that is the most progress I've made with all 3 of my babies without being in actual labor. I was definitely relieved to here this from Sharon (my midwife), but still frustrated she hadn't come. Ron was supposed to start research at school the following Tuesday, and we were expecting her to be a week old by then!

Sharon (my midwife) and I talked about what the next steps would be of Rosie hadn't arrived by week 42. I was a bit worried cause I really didn't want Pitocin to get my labor started, but I was beginning to accept the inevitable at this point. I was very relieved when she said Pitocin was the last resort they used, and that she would break my water before going that direction. We then discussed the possibility of her breaking my water and therefore inducing me happening that following Monday or Tuesday. In the meantime I was to go home and just take it easy.

Fast forward to Saturday night/early Sunday morning I was sleeping and woke up to contractions every 6-7 minutes apart. I was beyond excited! They lasted for a good 3-4 hours. After about hour two I called my midwife to see when I should head in. She advised me to wait a little longer till the contractions felt stronger and a little closer together. So I did. A little over an hour later the contractions just stopped. Disappointment is a total understatement as to how I was feeling.

Sunday (41 week mark) left me just exhausted and miserable.

Monday morning I had another appointment with Sharon. By this point I was 41 +1 day. We got all packed, and ready to go. The kids were at my friend Sara's house for the day. We wanted to be completely ready in case Sharon decided she could take me then and get me induced. If not we were going to seriously discuss induction. Ron and I by this point were nervous baby girl hadn't come and had a strong feeling that we needed to make it happen even though that's not what we wanted.

Sharon told us she couldn't induce us because the hospital was to busy that day, and expected it to continue for the rest of the day and night. We were expecting a polar vortex and a blizzard to come through the next 12-18 hours which puts a lots of women in labor due to the barometric changes. Before we left Sharon told me that I could possibly be one of those women. I didn't believe her.

Ron and I were so bummed; however, Sharon saw our concern and decided to induce us the following day at 10 am. Ron and I left feeling relieved and still bummed. We were really hoping to meet our sweet baby that day.

To make me feel better, Ron took me out to lunch and bought me a really nice super soft blanket (I have thing for soft blankets) to snuggle up in the rest of the day. He's a keeper.

The rest of the day went about as normal. I did squats through out the day to try and bring the baby down, and it seemed to do something. Around 10 I took a hot bath a during the bath I had several contractions, but didn't think anything of it because I'd been contracting for days. The blizzard and the polar vortex seemed to be having an effect on my body because around 1 or 2 am things started to be happen. I was woken up out of a dead sleep by major pains much like the ones I had the previous Saturday night. I still ignored them because I figured it wasn't real labor yet and my body was still prepping.

It wasn't until around 3 that the pains were getting worse that I woke Ron up. I told him I was in labor and that I was going to shower to see if I could ease the pain. I mostly just wanted him to be somewhat alert and ready for when we needed to leave.

I was in the shower probably 15 minutes when I told Ron to get up and page the midwife. I was in too much pain to talk and I wanted him to talk for me. Sharon could tell just from hearing me talk to Ron that we would be needing to get to the hospital within the next 1-2 hours. So Ron got off the phone and re packed the car, got kids up and fed while I showered and got ready.

By the time we dropped kids off and got to the hospital it was around 600 in the morning.

Getting to the hospital was crazy. We had about a 30 minute drive in a blizzard with a good 7-8 inches of snow on the ground. We had to go very slowly so we didn't slide. It was pretty scary.

When we got to the hospital and all settled in, Sharon came in to check my progress. I was at a 5. I won't lie I was a little disappointed in my progress. I really hoped by the time I got into the hospital I'd be at least a 7. Oh well. I was in pain but not awful. It was going rather easy if I kept up with my breathing exercises and hypno birthing.

It was about 1.5 hours after I arrived we started hitting some problems. Rosie's heart was dropping drastically. It was To the point that I was bed bound and strapped to a monitor to Make sure she was okay. At one point I saw concerned looks on the nurse's and sharon's face when they could really find a good heart beat and when they did it was extremely low. Thank heavens I decided that I did want an IV site just in case something went wrong. They immediately started dumping fluids down me. They noticed I was extremely dehydrated. (which can cause the heart to drop). I told Sharon I literally hadn't been able to quench my thirst for days it seemed. I had been drinking water like crazy. The fluids were definitely helping but poor little Rosie was still struggling. So then we had to switch positions around. This was wonderful because going through labor lying down totally sucks! The only position I could be in with no issues was on my hands and knees. Her heart seemed to really like that position. It took a combination of fluids, me being on my hands and knees and the oxygen mask to stabilize myself and Rosie babe. There we stayed too.

I was still doing great at this point. It was about 730 am and I was at an 8!! I couldn't believe that I was doing it and everything was going to plan relatively speaking. I was a little bummed I couldn't get in the birth tub to help with the pain or walk around, but I obviously wanted a healthy baby more and labor was progressing pretty quickly so I was good. I even remember mentioning to Sharon that this was easy! My contractions were still maybe 5-6 minutes apart but when they came they were good and hard! My midwife said that body was spacing contraction apart but making them really strong to ease the babies stress and heart (women's bodies are seriously amazing).

We continued in the same position for about an hour. Around 830 I was a 9.5! So close!!! And this is when all hell broke loose. There I stayed at that stupid stupid 9.5. We switched positions if we could. We squatted, we pulled out the birthing stool. We did the works. Rosie wouldn't have it. On my hands and knees I had to stay. I was exhausted by this point and falling asleep between contractions.

Finally they let me stand up and move. Just to see if we could find another position. I was hurting being on my hands and knees for so long. The moment I did is when the vomit happened. Ugh. The funny part is that Ron came within inches of getting a face full of vomit. It hit me so fast and fierce. It was awful and I couldn't stop for a good 10 minutes. After that happened Ron looked at me all offended and then started laughing "I can't believe you almost puked on me." My sense of humor was still there and I laughed too.

After it stopped though we noticed rose's heart wasn't having AS MANY issues and drops as before. My midwife again explained that the jerks from the vomiting probably moved things around and positioned rose better (again women's bodies are so cool!!)

It was around 1000 or so at this point. Sharon thought for sure Rose would have made her debut by 830 or 9 am, and she hadn't. We were getting concerned because of the whole heart issue and just wanted to get this baby here. So she broke my water. We had been putting off breaking it because the water takes softens the blow of the contractions for both mom and baby (Which we needed for Rosie's Heart). We Hoped it would get that final .5 cm to budge. We waited another hour ish, and still nothing had happened.

This is when the fun started to happen (insert major sarcasm and TMI here) when she had to manually dialate me, and I had to push against her to see if we could move that .5 cm and bring Rosie down. Yeah it's every bit as painful as it sounds. Every contraction she would stretch my cervix while I screamed and screamed. Ron said it was like being in a movies, and that he is pretty sure I probably scared some 1st time mom. Which now that it is over I laugh at, but at the time it wasn't funny at all! I've never been in so much pain in my life. We did this for over an hour. I begged for any kind of drug they'd give me. They couldn't because of how far progressed I was. This is when the shaking, chattering and pretty much convulsing happened. I had been in labor 10ish hours by this point. I was so tired and the manual dialation put me over the top in pain. Labor Pain was no longer manageable. Even the manual dilating wasn't working. I begged for showers or walking around but a that required a portable monitor. Sharon was just worried about me and the baby enough that she wanted me on the big monitor. We did one last manual dialation and that's when Sharon felt Rosie's little nose. She was posterior (face up) which makes moving through the birth canal difficult and long and very painful. This is when Ron said I completely checked out. He said my face full of determination to push to have a natural labor was gone. Hayden was posterior. I knew the hours of pushing I was in for, and just how long it can take for a posterior baby to get where it needs to be. All this junk had happened before. I was convulsing from all the pain I was in, and I was so exhausted.

After we realized little rose was posterior, Sharon said we had literally tried everything. Nothing was working. And so she said we had to move to our last and final resort before c section... Pitocin. Ugh just saying the word makes me shiver. I hate the stuff.

I agreed to having Pitocin if I could have an epidural. I had Pitocin with grace and it was so painful. I couldn't imagine being in even more pain on top of what I was in. I was already being given drugs so what the heck why not an epidural while we were at it. Sharon agreed because even though I was a 9.5 we were not sure how long this would take. After everything was agreed upon I didn't allow ANYONE to touch me unless it was the anesthesiologist . So within the hour I received my epidural and Pitocin. It was heaven not to be shaking and convulsing. I ended up falling asleep quickly and staying that way for 1.5-2 hours, with the occasional dilation check in between.

Finally almost 3.5 hours after the pitocin had been administered Sharon came in and checked me and I was complete!!! After 15hours of labor 12 of which un-medicated. I pushed 3 times and at 2:43pm We welcomed little Rose Marie Garner to the world. We realized why our little girl had not joined us sooner and had had such a hard time getting here. Poor girl had the chord wrapped around her neck and her shoulder was pinching it off. That's why being on my hands and knees was the only position that worked. It was the only position her chord wasn't being pinched off. Little Rosie baby was definitely over cooked. Boy I have never seen a more peely wrinkly cute baby in my life!! We had wondered this whole time if my due date was possibly off by a week, but by the look of rose's peeling skin and the fact that my placenta was starting to calcify, we new that she was indeed 9 days late. The wrapped pinched chord and being posterior made it extremely difficult on both our parts to get her here, but she is. She got here happy and healthy, and we are so relieved!