Josiah's Birth Story

HE'S HERE HE'S HERE HE'S HERE HE'S HERE HE'S HERE!!!!!!!!!!

I am in absolute awe. I'm a mom. Where did the past 40 weeks go? It literally feels like yesterday that I was starting my medicine for the IUI that brought this miracle to us. There will be a blog post more on all those feelings coming soon, but I know a lot of people have been asking about our birth story and how everything went, so here it is!

*Disclaimer, there may be some not so pretty details in this blog post.*

Sunday 3/19/2017

So on Saturday night into Sunday I was up for a good solid 24 hours having what I thought were contractions. I was timing them and found them to be about 7-10 minutes apart. I called the midwives in the afternoon to see what they wanted me to do, and since they had gotten closer to 5 minutes apart, they told me to come in to labor and delivery and they'd check to see what was going on (setting me up on the NST system to see contractions and his heart beat). After about 30 minutes they said that he looked great, and that they could see where I was having "uterine pains" but that they weren't actual contractions. They also checked for dilation and such and I was very high and closed so I was sent home. They did tell me that because they checked me, that it could get things going (wishful thinking) so to just be on the look out.

 Monday 3/20/2017

Monday I stayed home from work after not having slept all night into Sunday and just needing to sleep. I was uncomfortable, massive, and just ready to have this baby. In the tub that night I lost my mucus plug so I got EXTREMELY excited. I waited to see if I'd have any contractions, but nothing.

 Wednesday 3/22/2017

When I got home from work on Tuesday afternoon I was extremely tired and very sore. My back was hurting a little bit, but when wasn't my body hurting at this point? By midnight, I couldn't get comfortable in bed because my back just hurt SO BAD. I tried going on the couch, laying in every position possible, and figured, hmm, maybe I should pay attention to this. Maybe, just maybe, this is labor! I pull out my phone and bring up my contraction app. After 20 minutes, I realized that this might be real labor. I had contractions every 3-4 minutes. I go into the bedroom around 4:15 AM and wake Mike up going "Hey babe? I think this might be it." I hopped in the shower to see if that would help with some of the pain, but it only kept getting worse. I called the hospital and they said to definitely come in.

5:50 AM

We got ourselves checked into the hospital and got set up on the same system I was on Sunday. I was really just waiting for them to tell me that it was false labor again and send me home. One of the Dr's on call comes in and looks at my charts and says "You're definitely in labor let's check your cervix." When he checked I was at 3-4 cm dilated. It was official. I was in labor. 

They got all my papers in order and ready to go. By the time that all the paper work was taken care of, the nurses were switching shifts. The nurse that came in and was with me for the next 12 hours was absolutely amazing, and I couldn't have been happier to have her by my side.

I decided that since I was in a little pain, I'd take a second shower to get some heat on my body and distract me from pain in my back and it worked wonders. I wasn't sure at this point if I would have my Midwife there for the day or if it would be a doctor. About half way through my shower I hear the door open and the most angelic voice say "Amanda it's Sharon how are you doing?" My midwife was there. I was SO excited.  I also laughed after that she just walked right into the bathroom while I was showering (I mean, she'd be seeing a LOT more of me by the end of the day, so I guess it wasn't that big of a deal).

10:30 AM

By about 10:30 I was starting to get very uncomfortable. I was trying to prolong getting any medicine or the epidural. I wanted to do my labor and delivery naturally if I could. I didn't go in saying "no I don't want an epidural at all", but if I could do it, it'd be awesome. So at 10:30 when they checked and I was at a 6cm dilation, I decided to move my labor from my hospital room to the hypno-birthing room. I spent about 45 minutes in the giant bath tub laboring there. It didn't give me much relief from the pain per say, but being able to take a bath and relax a bit with the low lighting and my worship music playing on my phone.

12:30 PM

Around 12:30 I was starting to be in a bit more pain. The nurse showed Mike how to do counter pressure on my back to help with the contractions, and I got on a birthing ball to try and open my hips a bit. Pretty frequently (I couldn't even tell you how much, maybe ever 2 minutes?) I would call Mike over to do the pressure. He'd sit down just in time for me to call him back over. It helped so much to have that pressure on my back, but I needed more. I asked them to bring in the nitrous oxide gas to use. I was even hesitant to use this, but I needed to try something else. I was going from hurting a little bit in my back to my whole lower area from belly button to lady parts and all the way around were hurting. For me, the nitrous oxide was helpful for a little while, but I wasn't the biggest fan of it. It basically made me feel extremely drunk for about 30 seconds to a minute. That didn't really help with the pain per say, but it was a nice distraction!

2:00 PM

Around 2 PM I was hurting. It wasn't the worst pain I've ever felt, but I knew my body was getting there. I called the nurse in and asked her to get the Midwife to check my cervix again. I knew if I was ready to push I would just push through it (literally!) and not get the epidural, but if I wasn't progressing that I was going to need it before things got REALLY bad. When she checked, she said I was about 7cm pushing towards 8cm. I knew that things either could go very quickly to 10cm, or could take a long time, so I got the epidural. Again, this was when my nurse was just amazing. Her and the midwife coached me so well through getting the epidural. Apparently my posture was too good and it took a bit longer to get me into the right position, but once it was done, I felt a million times better. I am SO glad that I got the epidural when I did because things were about to get fun.

3:30 PM

The epidural was making me only feel a little bit of pressure every 2-4 contractions (only know I had contractions because of the monitor). I noticed those few times I felt pressure though that it was completely different than anything I'd felt so far. I call the midwife in again and said "I know you just checked me, but can you check me again? I feel a lot of pressure right now." When she went to check me I felt the weirdest feeling ever. I was about 99% certain I had just pooped all over my midwife who was right in that same spot checking my cervix. I looked at her and I said "I am so so sorry! I just pooped on you didn't I..." and she giggled and said "No, when I went to check your cervix I accidentally broke your water! No poop, just your water. And you're at 10 cm dilated and +3 station." I asked her what we did now and she said "Since you're still not feeling the pressure to push I'd just wait until the pressure gets to a 9/10 for you then we'll check and push if he's ready to go!"

4:10 PM

**Disclaimer this is where things might be less that glamorous** 
Have I mentioned how glad I was that I got the epidural? At 4:10 I had the midwife come in. I was ready to push. She looked at Mike and said "Want to hold her leg?" We hadn't ever discussed him holding my leg or anything like that. I just assumed that he would stand next to me and hold my hand or pat my head with a wash cloth. NOPE. He was right there in the action ready to go! So they showed me how to do it, he turned on my Labor Playlist on spotify (shuffled playing not in any particular order. Remember that.) and we started pushing. When we started I asked how low he was and the midwife said "Oh honey I can already see his head from where you're laying." Of course when I think you can see the head, I think the Hollywood style birth and that the head was about to come out. That isn't the case! He had to get around my pelvic bone first. So we pushed, and pushed, and pushed. Throughout my pushing time, I would ask Mike after pushing how he was doing. Not sure why I felt the need to ask him how HE was doing, but apparently it was important to me. He watched EVERYTHING going on so he was able to give me the dummy version of what the midwife was saying about my progression.

Maybe around 5:15-5:20 I had my first contraction where they told me NOT to push. I'm just going to say it right now, not pushing during those contractions were one of the worst parts of the entire labor. Pushing gave me something to focus on and a slight relief from the pressure of the contractions and him coming. So not being able to push was absolutely miserable! But his heart rate was going down a bit from all the pushing which was why they had me take a few breaks.

I could see a look on my midwife's face that something wasn't going the way she wanted. Nothing was wrong per say, but something wasn't right. She told me she might have to do an episiotomy to get him out safer. We did a few more contractions with pushing to see if he would come, but she knew he needed to be out soon and it would help to have the episiotomy. Poor Sharon felt SO bad having to do it but I told her anything to help get him out. So I had the episiotomy done. And it tingled a bit, but it wasn't horrible. This was maybe 3-5 contractions before he came, so it obviously was what needed to happen. I kept going and finally we got to the last push. She had to cut again during my last contraction to help him get out, but in the end it was worth it.

5:49 PM

Josiah Peter made his way into the world at 5:49 PM. The 2 1/2 years of infertility, the 9 months with morning sickness, back pain, sciatic nerve pain, constant peeing, no sleep, was worth it. He was here. When he came out, the song Good, Good, Father was playing. I will never forget that song playing as I pushed him into this world. God is Good, and is perfect in all of his ways! But the other reason I won't forget that song playing was that when he came out, Josiah made instant eye contact with Mike. And that was when Mike, the man who said he wouldn't cry when our son was born, cried. He was put on my chest quickly and he cried a little bit, but then was just absolutely perfect. Mike cut the cord, and then possibly the most painful thing I've ever been through happened.

The Placenta.

We think it may have been so painful because of the hemorrhage I had at 5 weeks pregnant. When Sharon went to deliver the placenta, it wasn't coming out the right way or something, because the next thing I know, the nurse is pushing on my uterus from the outside (ya know, right after having a baby), and Sharon is basically elbow deep having to physically take my placenta out. It was absolutely the worst part of the entire labor/birth. But once it was done it was such a relief. I had said since day one the only thing I cared about in giving birth was that he was here, and that I didn't see the placenta (which I didn't). And the midwife said "if you didn't want to see a placenta before, you don't want to see this one." She then spent a good chunk of time sewing me back up from the episiotomy (which was just awkward feeling) and they took Josiah to be weighted and measured. 7 lb. 15 oz, 21 1/4 inches long, and a 13 inch head. Sharon said they didn't think he would be that big from the ultrasound I had at 37 weeks. I have NO idea how I carried a nearly 8 lb. baby but yet here he is, big, and just absolutely perfect.


So there you have it. The long anticipated birth story of our miracle son. We have had the best first few days with him, and can't wait to see the person he becomes.

Xoxoxo

Amanda, Mike, and Josiah