Mila's Birth Story

I've been super excited to write Mila's birth story and thought I'd be able to get to it sooner, but this "mom of two under two" thing has proven to be a lot of work (I'd thankfully anticipated it being a lot of work, so this is no surprise). I wanted to get to it before I'd forgotten all of the details, so here is my best attempt at her birth story, on about 4 hours of sleep, sigh... (while little one sleeps on the floor next to me - btw, she just let out the hugest fart and it startled her awake for a few seconds...these newborns are too hilarious!)

So, Thursday (6/7) was my last official day of work. I was supposed to go in on Friday to turn in all of my keys and such, but considering I was practically 9 months pregnant, I was given a pass. Thank the lord, because I can't imagine what I would've done had I gone into labor at work! Anyways, I had my 39 week appointment on Friday at 1:00, so I dropped Kellen off at Grandma Julie's for the afternoon so I could go to my appointment and then get a massage. I had planned on taking Kellen to the zoo after he woke up from his nap, and was really looking forward to what would most likely be our last Mommy and Kellen trip to the zoo. This appointment was scheduled a little differently because my doctor only had one appointment available that week, which happened to be at a time that didn't work for me, so I made an appointment with her on a day that she was on call. This pretty much meant that there was a chance I wouldn't get to see her if she had to go into surgery or was in the middle of delivering a baby. I went to Subway for lunch and called the clinic at 12:30 to see if my OB was available. They had to call me back because they were having a hard time getting ahold of her, so I just sat outside and had my chicken salad. I tried to make a massage appointment in the meantime, but they didn't have an opening until the following day (which ended up being a good thing, in hindsight). The doctor's office called me back at 1 and said that my OB was in the middle of surgery and wouldn't be available for my appointment, but may possibly be available at 3. Well, this didn't work for me because I was dead-set on taking Kellen to the zoo. So, I was very annoyed, even though I knew this very likely would happen...they said I should still come in for my appointment, so they got me set up with a nurse I'd never seen before. On the way to my appointment I was kind of emotional that I wouldn't be seeing my doctor because I was so far along in the game and really needed this appointment to be with my doc. Anyways, I got over it and went to the appointment.

I was really hoping that there would be some progress from my last appointment, because I'd been feeling a lot of action going on in my lady parts. I was having somewhat-painful contractions a couple times an hour and really thought I may have dilated at least a centimeter more than last week. No such luck. I was exactly the same as I'd been the week before --- 2 cm dilated, 75% effaced, and at a -1 station. I know this doesn't mean a lot and that someone can go into labor being only that far along, but it kind of bummed me out. I was kind of moody after the appointment because of this and so even though I had planned on running a few errands (since I couldn't get my much-needed massage), I decided to just go home and take a nap until 3ish.

When I got home, I had a bowl of ice cream, checked facebook, and then decided to lay down on the couch downstairs while having some t.v. on in the background. I was just about to fall asleep when I had another somewhat-painful contraction that lasted just over a minute long. A few seconds after the contraction ended, I felt/heard a kind of 'popping' noise and then a huge gush of warmth radiated in my nether regions. I immediately stood up and waddled straight to the bathroom, 99% sure my water had just broken. As I bent over to pull down my shorts, I noticed blood seeping down my inner thighs. WTF? I pulled down my shorts all the way and noticed a huge pool of dark blood sitting in my underwear, beginning to soak through my shorts and onto the bathroom rug. I got really light headed from panic all of a sudden and sat down on the toilet. When I looked down into the toilet, the entire bowl was blood-red and there was blood smeared all over the toilet seat. This. was. not. good. This was definitely not bloody show or a mucus plug, and considering that I still had blood leaking out of me as I sat on the toilet, I decided this was probably not something that should be happening at all. Pretty much all I'd remembered from my previous doctor's appointments leading up to my TOLAC was if I had any sharp pains in my uterus or if I started experiencing any heavy bleeding, I needed to go to the hospital ASAP because this could indicate uterine rupture (which is the risk when doing a VBAC). At this moment, I decided there was no way I was going to take a wait and see approach with this, and a voice in my head said "you are not going to lose this baby, get your ass to the hospital!" Things kind of get jumbled at this point, so I don't really remember the order in which I did things. All I know is that I: 1) called Aaron and told him he had to meet me at the hospital (mentioned something about bleeding), 2) took an entire roll of toilet paper, rolled it up, and shoved it in my underwear, not sure how much I'd bleed on the way to the hospital, 3) ran upstairs to grab my 1/2 packed hospital bag and didn't bother to look at my list to see what else needed to be packed, and 4) called the labor department at the hospital and was on hold for what felt like an eternity, at which point I decided to just hang up and call on my way to the hospital. I somehow managed to grab a towel on my way out as well, which in hindsight was necessary as I bled through my underwear, toilet paper, and yoga pants on the drive to the hospital. On the way there, I was completely panicked but managed to avoid an accident. I tried calling the hospital number again, but was too impatient with being on hold, so I called the nurseline and got through to someone right away. I began crying the second I heard a real voice, and they connected me with a nurse at the hospital within 30 seconds. The nurse I spoke to told me that yes, I needed to get to the hospital right away, and told me someone from OB would be waiting for me in the ER entrance. At this point I attempted to call my doula, but go her voicemail...I left a very rambly but composed voicemail about what was going on (in short, when we decided to go with our doula, she had warned us that she was going to be out of town for a wedding the weekend of June 8th, but this didn't bother me because I was convinced I wouldn't be going into labor early...just our luck! The week before I went into labor, she'd managed to hook up with a backup doula, but we were never able to meet her...I'll touch on this a little bit later in the story). I then called Aaron back, as he'd called me a few times while I was on the phone with the hospital, and told him I was close to arriving. He was about another 20 - 30 minutes away. I didn't really pay attention to the time, but I got to the hospital in something like 10 - 15 minutes, which was good considering it was the start of Friday rush-hour on CR42, which is always awful. When I arrived at the ER entrance, there wasn't anyone from OB waiting for me, but the woman at the reception desk could see that I was in a panic (and as I'd realize later on, she probably saw the blood smeared on my legs and hands, which I didn't realize were there), and called someone to get a wheelchair for me to wheel me up to the labor and delivery floor. Now, I didn't really think a wheelchair was necessary, as I was fully capable of walking, but maybe they were reacting more to my panicked state and less to my bloodiness.

Anywho, I FINALLY got up to a labor/delivery room (it seemed to take forever to get up there!), where a nurse checked me out, confirmed that, yes, I was indeed bleeding heavily, and told me that I'd most likely be staying in the hospital until I had my baby. I hadn't progressed any since my appointment earlier that day, but my contractions had picked up a bit and the bleeding was concerning enough to keep me there. She called the OB who was on-call, which I hadn't made the connection was MY doctor (YES!), and she headed up to see me within 5 minutes. She had me hooked up to monitors to check baby's heart rate (which was perfect) and to monitor contractions. She stayed to watch the monitors for a while, to see if I was showing any contraction patterns which would indicate either a uterine rupture or a placental abruption, and couldn't see anything. She said she was baffled about the bleeding, but told me that she wanted me to continue laboring at the hospital, even though it was early on, to see how I progressed. Aaron arrived shortly after my doctor visited me, in an obvious panic, and was reassured to know that the baby was looking great.

At around 4:30, I started having regular contractions, every 5 - 6 minutes, that were getting more intense as time went on. They checked me around 5:00 and I'd progressed to 4 cm, fully effaced, and at a 0 station. I indeed was in labor, and this baby was going to be here within the next day or so! When they checked me, they noted that I was still bleeding, but not as heavily as when I'd arrived, so they were still optimistic about me doing a VBAC. At this point, I needed to decide if Aaron and I were going to do this on our own with our nurses or if I wanted to have the backup doula join us. I just didn't feel comfortable having someone I'd never met come to my labor/delivery, and was absolutely in love with the nurse who was with us, so I made the decision to have Aaron call the backup doula and tell her that we were going to go at it on our own. We didn't know what this meant in terms of $$$, because there was nothing in the contract about "if I'm not able to attend your delivery and you decide you don't want to use the backup...", but that was the least of my concern at the moment and I figured we'd deal with that later. We also realized at this point that Aaron needed to rush home to get the rest of our things packed and to pack a weekend bag for Kellen, since I didn't realize when I dropped him off at grandma's that we were going to be having his baby brother or sister that weekend. So, I told him he needed to leave ASAP to get all that stuff done...it felt kind of weird sending my hubby off as my labor got more intense, but I knew those things needed to get done, so off he went. For the next hour or so, I labored by myself, which was actually very nice. My nurse checked in on me every so often, and I just went through it on my own terms. I started off in the bed, then went to a rocking chair (which was probably my favorite place), tried sitting on the birthing ball, leaned the birthing ball on the bed and rocked back and forth, and ended up just standing while leaning against the bed, which ended up being the most tolerable position for me.

By the time Aaron got back, I was in a LOT of pain, especially in my back, and felt like I'd progressed a lot. With all the pain I was feeling in my back, which I figured was back labor, my desire to go through this thing without medication had faded, and I'd decided that I wanted me an epidural. I wanted them to first check me once more to confirm that I had progressed, which I had (to 6 cm, 100% effaced, and +1 station), and so I gave my consent and waited for the anesthesiologist to arrive...it felt like an eternity for him to get there, but it really only took about 20 minutes. Getting the actual epidural kind of hurt, but once it settled in, I felt soooooo much relief in my stomach/uterus region. I, however, was still having a lot of pain in my pelvic area. The nurse said I would be feeling lots of pressure down there, but this wasn't pressure, this was what felt like my pelvic bones being shattered into little pieces. I tried to just breath my way through it, but I could tell that the epidural wasn't really working the way it was supposed to. I'd imagined that I'd still be able to feel my contractions, but not have to grimace through the pain every time I had one. My nurse did say that I shouldn't be feeling as much pain as it appeared I was feeling, so she had the anesthesiologist come back and give me a little extra of the medication. Within about 5 minutes, I felt so much relief, yet was still able to feel my contractions and pressure. After about 30 minutes, I started feeling the urge to push, so they checked me again and said that I was fully dilated (I went from 6 - 10 in about 1 1/2 hours) and effaced, but that my station was still at a +1. Oh, I forgot to mention that my bag of water was still intact when I got the epidural...at some point after getting the epidural, I decided that I wanted them to break the bag to speed up labor (which in my birth plan I stated that I didn't want, but I changed my mind!), which I think truly sped things along. Anywho, at this point they decided to let me continue to labor a little longer to see if baby would drop to +3 on his/her own, which I was completely on board with. I didn't quite feel mentally ready to push yet, and I needed a few more moments to prepare myself for the fact that I was going to be pushing out my 2nd child in a matter of minutes or less than an hour!

After about 30 minutes of having me continue to labor, the baby's heartrate kept dropping to around 100. My doctor came in and watched the monitors for a while. They would have me switch sides and it would improve for a little bit, but then drop again. At this point, they gave me an oxygen mask to see if the extra oxygen would help the heartrate to improve. This seemed to help for a little bit, but again, it would drop back down...so, my doc decided to have me start pushing even though the baby hadn't completely dropped all the way. I just want to note something that was different than what I expected. Many people had told me that I would barely see the doctor during this experience and that whoever was going to be delivering my baby would only be there while I was pushing. It was not like that for me at all. I don't know if it was because I was doing a VBAC or because it was my actual OB that was delivering the baby, but I saw my OB a TON during labor and obviously during delivery. This made my experience even more awesome and I felt like I was in good hands the entire time. They started getting the bed ready and I didn't even have time to think about the fact that I was going to be pushing in a matter of moments. While they were getting me ready, my nurse began coaching me on what I was going to be doing in terms of breathing and pushing. She assured me that I would be a rockstar and that we were going to get this baby out vaginally!

At around midnight, I started pushing. As I felt my first contraction come on, I could tell that I was going to be pooping - ugh! I forgot to mention above that during my entire labor, I felt the urge to poop, but every time I would go to the bathroom and try to poop, nothing would come out. I knew deep down that if I didn't get it out duirng labor, it would probably be coming out while I was pushing. Well, I was right. As soon as I knew I was pooping, I said "Did I just poop? Am I pooping?!? I can't believe I'm pooping!" All the nurses and my doctor kept telling me that it was completely normal to poop, and to not focus on it. Anyways, I probably repeated these phrases between my contractions/pushing on a few different occasions but eventually just accepted that it was happening. Back to the pushing - it was exhausting, but I felt like I was doing it exactly the way the nurse explained and that my pushes were really effective. It turns out they were and that baby was getting closer and closer to being delivered! Shortly before 12:15, while I was between contractions, the baby's heartrate dropped to the 70/80 mark, and the doctor decided that we needed to get baby out on the next series of pushes and so she said we were going to use the vacuum. I was really concerned at this point and decided that whatever would get baby out the fastest was okay with me. As the contraction came on, I told myself that I was going to push this baby out, no questions asked! On my 3rd and final push, I envisioned the baby coming down the birth canal and all the sudden I heard "The head is out! We don't know the gender yet! Don't push! Baby's got dark hair!" The next thing I knew, the baby was out and they were saying "It's a girl! It's a girl!" I couldn't believe it! They put her right on my chest and started wiping her off and warming her up. At some point either Aaron or I said "baby Mila is here! Mila Belle!" It felt so weird to say her name - we had a girl! I was so convinced we were having a boy, so to have it be a girl was such a shock! Anywho, Aaron cut the cord shortly after, and I just layed there with Mila and snuggled for a while... Mila's official birth stats were: born at 12:15 a.m. on Saturday, June 9th, 2012 - she weighed 6 lbs. 5 oz. and was 20 inches long!

I wanted to nurse right away, but I'd gotten a 1st degree tear so the doctor started stitching me up right away. I snuggled her the entire time, and then started nursing her as soon as I was done being stiched up. Miss Mila was an amazing nurser from the get-go, and has been ever since. After about 1 1/2 hours of her being born, we moved to our post pardom room, and the rest is history. Baby Mila was healthy, I was healing up well, and we were able to leave the hospital on Monday morning.

All has been going well since we've been home - Kellen has been a trooper, Mila is as sweet as can be, and I'm feeling so blessed to have a beautiful son AND daughter! How lucky am I???

This has definitely been quite the transition and I'm sure to be posting many posts about my new adventures as a mommy of 2!