Rebecca's Birth Story

Let's see where to start? I guess Sunday is a good spot since it affects the story later.

Eary Sunday Morning I woke up to contractions about 3-5 minutes apart. They weren't that intense at all, but pretty close together so I woke up Dennis and we headed into the hospital. Well, when we get to the hospital the contractions started dieing down and spacing out. Pretty soon they were 5 minutes apart. When they started monitoring me, the nurse mentioned that my blood pressure was a bit on the high side so they wanted to keep an eye on it. Soon my contractions had lengthened out to 5-10 minutes apart. I think they would have sent me home sooner except they wanted to keep an eye on that. When they let me go it had come down quite a bit and was more in the normal range. hey told me to check in with my doctor the next day.

Well, I never got around to calling my doctor on Monday... Oops. But I figured I had an appointment scheduled for Tuesday night so I wasn't that worried about it.

Tuesday afternoon, Charity was having a rough day, throwing lots of fits, and just ugh. Well, at one point she was throwing a fit and screaming and crying and I just couldn't take anymore so I told her to go her room until she was ready to calm down but she told me no and refused to go. I let my temper get the best of me and I went and picked her up to take her to her room. (Hello Sarah 38 week pregnant women are NOT suppose to pick up 40lbs toddlers to begin with!) Well, she didn't want to go to her room so she fought me on it and I almost dropped her. In the process of this I pulled what felt like ALL of the muscles in my lower pelvic region. I was in so much pain I could hardly walk :( Then on our way to the Doctor's Appointment that night Dennis told me she was worried something might have happened to the baby in the ordeal an asked how I thought she was doing or how she was moving or something along those lines. It dawned on me at that point that she hadn't been that active at all that afternoon, she did move some, just not nearly as active...

So, at the appointment I started telling the nurse about that afternoon and then when she was checking my blood pressure, Dennis started telling her about the hospital and she said she was just about to mention my blood pressure was a little bit high. At the hospital and also at the appointment no protein had come back in my urine though, which was good. Well, when the doctor came in and was checking me out she redid the blood pressure and it was borderline high but the baby's heart rate was where it was normally. And I'd also progressed to a 3-4cm, so a little more than where I'd been the week before. She did want to do a quick ultrasound on the baby just as a precaution to check her out as well and then she asks us if we want to have the baby tomorrow. Tomorrow, really?

Because of my fast labor with Danielle she had wanted to induce at 39 weeks, if I made it that far. The hospital's policy is that don't do inductions or c-sections until 39 weeks unless medically necessary. Well, the high blood pressure readings had given her enough reason to induce earlier. Ok, we can do that. I wasn't sure I really wanted to be indced (I was hoping to avoid an IV, lol) but knowing I'd be at the hospital in plenty of time to deliver and that the baby would be there the next day we agreed. So, she sent us over to Labor and Delivery so they could do some monitoring and some blood work. She wasn't sure if they'd keep us overnight or just have us come in the morning so she said she'd come over after they got the blood work back and we'd figure out the last few details. So, over to Labor and Delivery we went. We got there right around 7. My blood pressure was initally a little high, but after just laying there for a while it came down to more of my normal range for the pregnancy. I also had some contractions but they were 10 or more minutes apart and not that intense. So, they decided to send us home and Dr. Anders said that she normally has women come in at 5:30 in the morning for inductions but because of my history to wait and come in at 7. Sounded good to me, I wouldn't have to get up as early. So, home we went.

We got home around 9 o'clock. Mom was just getting the girls ready for bed. So, we told them about how we would be going into the hospital in the morning to have the baby. They were excited! I sat in the living room doing a few things on the computer (I was going to blog about the day, but didn't get around to it, lol) But it was cute because I heard Charity in there talking to Danielle all about the baby coming. You could tell she was really excited. They were taking a while to fall asleep and there was some othe things I needed to do so I turned bedtime over to Mom and went to go finish up getting ready. Dennis and I ended up going to bed about 10:30.

Well, a little before Midnight a contraction woke me up. I wasn't sure if it was going to turn into anything though so I decided I was going to wait a minute to make sure. (TMI alert, but hey, it's a baby story :) Well, I'd needed to go to the bathroom and I realized that I'd started bleeding. I hadn't had that happen in either of the other pregnancies or labors so I decided I wasn't going to wait. So, I woke Dennis up and told him it was time to go. The contractions weren't super intense yet but I figured oh well, I'm getting induced in a few hours anyway so if they turn into nothing, Oh well. Well, as we were finishing getting ready to go, they started getting more intense and I knew this time they weren't going to be nothing. So, we got there, and got checked in and everything. It was funny, we ended up in the same room and the contractions that I'd had earlier when we were there had registered high on the monitor where this time they weren't registering that much at all, but they were A LOT more painful. They checked me and I was at a solid 4 at that point, so 20 minutes or so in and I hadn't really progressed much from my appointment (that did make me wonder if I was in labor for real, atleast until the next contraction, lol) I wanted to be able to get up and move around a bit, it was not comfortable having contractions laying there in the bed! but they said no, they wanted to monitor me for a while and then maybe. Around 1 I needed to use the bathroom. After I stood up, the contractions started to intensify even more so when I was getting back into bed I told them they needed to check me. The nurse checked and I was at a 6/7 at that point. That's also the point I decided I wanted pain meds and I wanted them now. I was tired of being in pain.

Well, that's when the nurses really got serious about things. They started setting up things and getting things ready. The contractions at that point also intensified even more and got even more painful. I think atleast every 10 minutes I started demanding and asking where the epidural person was and could I PLEASE get something for the pain until then. They weren't serious enough about it though! I think it was about 1:30ish or so that I told them they'd better check again because I was feeling a LOT of pressure down there. They'd also called the doctor at this point and he was headed in (not our doctor, but the one on call). The nurse checked and said I was at an 8/9 or so, fully thinned and effaced. When the doctor got there a few minutes later and checked he said I was only at a 7! I didn't believe him though, cuz it felt like I was a lot closer to pushing than that. About 10 minutes later I told them that I was starting to feel like I was going to need to push and another nurse checked me and she said I was ready! That was also right after the anathesiologist got there and had started telling me my options... She then told me nevermind, it was too late for an epidural. Well, I told them to hurry you up!

Anyway, so then the doctor checks and he says I'm only at an 8 or 9, but I'm starting to feel the urge to push. Seriously, they couldn't make up their minds! In the meantime I'm having contractions one on top of each other, very much in pain, the anathesiologist lady is trying to tell me what my options are now. It was just a chaotic mess! I end up telling the lady to just do the shot in the back to help me out with the pain already! Turned out the shot in the back was a spinal block, which I didn't even figure out until afterwards.

It really was chaotic at this point, if I had Dennis here he'd be able to add a lot more details because I guess there was a lot going on around us that I was missing out on. Such as baby was showing distress during contractions, I'd become really pale several times (hello, lots of pain!), my blood pressure was measuring high most of the time, contractions on the monitor still showed up as not that much. Well, after the spinal block it was nice, all pain went away... but then it was time to push pretty much as soon as I got the spinal block but I then had to figure out which muscles were the ones I needed to use to push with! And the contractions also decreased to several minutes apart. The doctor had sent someone out to find out how long the shot in my back was suppose to last for and Dennis said that after they came back and told him an hour he said that could be a problem because we might need to make it an operational delivery. Why, I have no idea, I didn't even catch the comment. Anyway, that's the point I figured out which muscles to use and she was out in 2 pushes. And what a beautiful little baby!

Rebecca Marie was born a little before 2:40 in the morning on Wednesday September 29, 2010. She weighed 6lbs 11oz and was 19.5" long. Her Apgar scores were 8 and 9.

Overall, it was a crazy intense labor (and I think it would have been shorter had I been able to stand up and not lay in bed so much) but I'm glad she's here!

The hospital staff was great afterwards! We came home Thursday, though we could have stayed until Friday. Honestly, I wish we'd stayed but it's too late now, lol! But we are all doing good and she is just a great little baby. One of the nurses Thursday morning told me that they had decided she was their favorite baby this week because she was so easy. Took right to nursing, had no problems adjusting to being outside the womb, hardly cries, has the cutest little whine when she wants something, sleeps well. I'm hoping she continues to stay that way! I was worried, both other girls were easy babies, so I thought I might finally get a hard one but she is just a little darling.