Welcome to my birth story. I thought a birth story would be good introduction to my blog about my new life as a mom. It’s a long one but ill try to keep the story telling short. Those who know me know that my story telling ability is…unbearable? Let’s just say I’m much better on paper than in person, though it is a hilarious feat to observe.
For you to understand my birth story you must first know a little bit of background about my pregnancy. It all started when…ok, it was a perfect pregnancy, what all the mommy groups and blogs refer to as a “unicorn pregnancy” and I had plenty of pregnancy around me at the time to compare. I gained the perfect amount of weight, I worked on my feet up until 3 weeks before my due date, I had no morning sickness, and not one complication. The worst complaint I had was the rib pain and the heart burn, but lets be honest…who doesn’t have those things. Now, I’m not telling you this to brag or to qualify for some “amazing pregnant lady” award, I’m telling you this to say that I was in no way prepared for what was to come.
At my 37 week appointment I was a mere 2 centimeters dilated, but my OB kept insisting that things change fast and we are on pace for a due date delivery, “but it could happen at any moment” she joked. Week 38, still 2 centimeters and week 39. At this appointment we talk induction, she says if I don’t go into labor by week 40 we will schedule the induction for the following week. The entire time insisting that its just a formality and we won’t have to use that appointment, my OB is the best and super cheery and amazing she was obviously trying to keep me sane. So you can guess what happens next, week 41 at 12:30 AM I am checking into the hospital for my scheduled induction. Even though it sucked that I had to be induced we were so stoked that we were finally going to meet our baby girl.
We got settled in and the whole show was on the road. Well, after it took an hour and 4 sticks from 3 different nurses to get my I.V. in. I am a hard stick, so it wasn’t really their fault its always like that. My Pitocin started around 1:30 AM and we just waited, and waited, and walked, and waited…walked some more and kept waiting. There was little change over the course of the day. They would turn the IV up, some progress would be made, and then we would need to turn it down cause the baby was in distress. They broke my water and the changes came, but still very slowly. I got my epidural Saturday night and just kept waiting. The epidural was wearing off pretty quickly so the anesthesiologist had to come back multiple times, but we kept in good spirits. Finally, Sunday morning I was 10 centimeters and it was time to push…but my contractions were very small now. I pushed but nothing happened really, she was not budging. We waited an hour and tried again, still nothing. So after 36 hours of labor, all the way to 10 centimeters, my doctor told me that we should probably opt for a C-section. She explained that my uterus was very tired and at this point even if I could push her out it would take a very long time and there was a high chance that my uterus would be too tired to contract after the birth, and this is not good if they are trying to stop the bleeding. I was kind of sad, I admit I cried just a little, but overall it was the safest choice for my baby girl and I. It all happened pretty fast after that, within the hour Edythe Marie Phillips was born via C-Section on Sunday, January 31, 2016. She was a healthy 9 pounds 7 ounces 21.25 inch long beauty, I got a little skin to skin but I was feeling out of it so they took her away and gave her to Justin. I felt so bad for my husband because they sent him with Edie to the recovery room and said I would be right behind him but it took them almost an hour to stop my bleeding so he was waiting and worried with our baby girl. Eventually, everything was perfect and to be honest I didn’t really know anything was going wrong because my doctors were so amazing and cool under pressure.
After she was born the doctor told me she wasn’t 100% straight head down and she was bigger than expected so honestly it probably would have ended in a C-section anyway. All in all it was a little jarring to have a C-section after a long labor but everything was perfect with the baby so we were so happy and my recovery was great so I don’t have much to complain about. Maybe I’m a little sad that I didn’t have the vaginal birth experience but what are you gonna do? You have to roll with the punches and my birth story makes me happy when I think back on it, and our little girl is so perfect its ridiculous.
Edie Marie & Me 