My Baby Story

This is full disclosure for anyone who wants to know Olivia's birth story. So if you don't want to read about anything birth-related, stop now and look at the super cute pictures of my baby on facebook. Let me also say that there is a good portion of this experience that I probably don't remember, or remember properly. Thankfully, during all of his down time in labor & deliver, and our time in mother/baby waiting for tests and peds visits, my darling husband took the time to write in his journal about it. Did I ever mention how awesome my husband is? Because he really is. And to follow his example, I need to write about it too. (I think some day I'm going to get this blog printed and bound into a journal... it seems like a good thing to do.) This story starts on Thursday (June 21st). Prior to Thursday, I was having some Braxton Hicks contractions, but nothing crazy and nothing consistent. Thursday afternoon, it seemed like I was having real contractions. They hurt, they were consistent, and I was uncomfortable. I started timing them and they started hitting 5 minutes apart and lasting a minute later that night. Cory and I watched a movie and hung out with our neighbors to pass the time and keep ourselves distracted. Finally, we decided to head about 1am to the hospital and hopefully start this baby-having process. We got to the hospital, they check us in, check to see how dilated I was, and we were disappointed that nothing had changed in a week. I was still at a tight 1cm. Since I wasn't really dilated, they hooked me up to monitor my contractions for an hour, then they checked back to see if any progress had been made in that hour. Ideally you would dilated a cm for each hour you're in active labor... ideally. My progress in that hour: absolutely none! We were disappointed and they sent us home. At least we didn't bring up all our bags and bunker down. That was the up side. Friday was a little depressing and I was pretty determined to not let that happen again. I spent my work day on Friday counting contractions since my office was essentially dead (Fridays are like that usually). They were definitely stronger. At my doctor's appointment that morning, there was a little progress, but really not much. At this rate, I wasn't expecting to see Baby Girl for another week. In fact, I had a scheduled induction for Friday the 29th. Saturday, Cory made a point to keep the day moving for me. He's so sweet like that. I think we were both equally disappointed, so it was probably a little bit for him too. At this point, too, my contractions were even stronger and making it hard to walk through them. We got up that morning and decided to go see a movie. The new Disney-Pixar movie, Brave, came out in theaters the day before. We intended on seeing the 10am showing, but it sold out by the time we got there. Fortunately there was another showing at 11am. To pass the time, we walked around the mall a little bit. Walking is supposed to help labor progress, right? The movie was a great idea, and we loved it! After the movie we tried out this new sandwich place next to the theater. Like I said, Cory really went out of his way to keep the day going for me. I know it doesn't sound like much (movie and lunch), but we don't have money to go out all the time. So when we do a meal AND something else (or something AND a meal) it feels like a special occasion. I can't remember what we did the rest of the afternoon. I probably sat around counting contractions again... I hurt for sure. That night, we waited as long as possible, but ended up at the hospital again. This time it was about 6pm. At least we knew if they were going to send us home, we'd be home early enough that we wouldn't lose sleep. We were so hopeful that we wouldn't be going home this time we even brought all our bags with us. So we got into the room, checked out (I was at a 3!!! and VERY hopeful), and hooked up. Then we sat and waited. Well, I was laying on my back. The hour went by quickly because of our anticipation. The nurse checked me again, and NOTHING. She asked the doctor if they should have me hang out for a while and walk around to see if things would get moving, but they ended up sending me home again. I took some Tylenol PM to help me sleep, since it did a beautiful job the night before, and since my contractions were killing me. They just radiated in my hips and back. I tried my best to sleep, but with each contraction closer and closer together, I didn't get a wink. Finally about 4:30 in the morning, I woke Cory up (though I'm sure he wasn't in a deep sleep since I spent the entire night tossing and moaning through contractions), and sobbed to him that I was in so much pain and didn't know what to do. I didn't want to go straight back to the hospital just to be sent home again. After all, this is my first baby and have no idea what I'm doing and what I'm in for. We called the hospital, told them the situation, and left it up to them. Do you want us to come in, or should we wait longer?... because I feel like I'm dying. (I'm sure most of it was because of all the previous disappointment and complete lack of sleep.) They told us to go ahead and come in. (The worst they could do is send us back home...) So the nurse checked me out. 5cm! Wow! They didn't bother to hook me up right away and said we were staying to have a baby! Oh the elation! We were there and I was hooked up for about an hour when Dr. Jacob came in to talk to me. We decide that he would come back in a while and break my water to get things really moving. Well, when he broke my water, I went from about a 5 to a 7 in no time! I was excited because I was thinking that this labor thing might not go on forever and that we would be meeting our little girl soon. When the nurse came back to check on me, I was still at a 7. No progress. Bummer. So we talked about Pitocin. (I know... the "p" word.) We mentioned that if it were necessary, we would like to start of on a low dose and have small increments as we increased the dose. She seemed to understand. A while later, she checked me again (still a 7) and hooked me up on the Pitocin. Somehow, starting on a low dose in her book meant 4. I could feel the effects very quickly. And it was painful. But I seemed to manage just fine. A short time later (what felt like a short time) she came back, still no progress, so she increased the Pitocin. How much? Oh... only to an 8. Yeah... apparently the little chat we had about the Pitocin before it was administered went in one ear and out the other. She doubled my dose! And oh, boy was I in agony. (let me tell you... your body doesn't double... so you shouldn't force it to.) I was in tears. There was nothing we could do. Cory even tried to turn it down himself, but apparently there is some kind of code on the machine. We called the nurse to have her turn it down, but in the time it took her to get there, I was begging for an epidural. Of course the anesthesiologist got there in no time. By that time, I was in complete shock. My whole body shut down. My contractions were no longer functional. I was shaking uncontrollably. Cory had to help move me around just to get the epidural in. During this whole process, the nurse came back in and mentioned that a couple was there administering the Sacrament and asked if we would like them to come to our room. Immediately I said yes. I definitely needed it that day. I needed that reminder of the Savior. The cute elderly couple came in right after I got my epidural. The sweet sister shared a message with us, then Cory blessed the bread. He got a little choked up and I started to sob. The spirit was so strong in that room as my husband blessed the tiny piece of bread. It was a moment where you knew Heavenly Father was VERY aware of what was happening and He was watching over us. I ate the piece of bread and said a little prayer of gratitude for this tender mercy. The water was blessed, I drank, and the couple, after wishing us well, left. The spirit didn't leave with them. It stayed as we sat in amazement. I felt nothing at all but that wonderful spirit. A short time later, the nurse came back in and I hadn't made any progress yet. She started playing with the Pitocin, trying to find a level where my contractions would be productive again. Apparently jumping to an 8 didn't work. (duh!) After some time of this, they started to worry about Olivia since her heart rate started dropping down a little low. Cory called our neighbors who are good friends and asked Emmett if he would help Cory give me a blessing. Church was starting in about 30 minutes, but they came right over to help. Another tender mercy. Again, you could feel a rush of the spirit. Immediately after the blessing, my contractions began being productive, and soon after I was dilating again. It was a miracle for sure. Heavenly Father truly was aware and wanted to help us. All we needed to do was ask. About 2pm we were ready to push. I had never been more uncomfortable in my life. But I wanted to meet this little girl. We pushed for a while and the doctor came back in. Olivia was in a good position, but she wasn't moving much more and her head was turned slightly. Her heart rate started to drop again and we were worried, especially since there was a lot of meconium in the amniotic fluid. Dr. Jacob talked to me about our options. We would try the forceps, but because of the slight tilt in her head, he didn't know if he'd be able to get a good fit on her. The other option was a vacuum, but we only had 2 shots with that until there was a real risk of hemorrhage. If the forceps and vacuum didn't work, we would have no other option than a c-section. (Because that's what every mom wants to hear.) I felt incredibly blessed because on the first try, Dr. Jacob was able to get a good fit with the forceps and I started pushing with everything I had... which was not much since I had already been pushing for and hour, been up since 4:30am with really no sleep prior, and was starving. Finally, at 4:04pm, Olivia June Scott was born at 8lbs. 12oz. and 21 inches long. They whisked her away to clear her lungs since she didn't really start breathing and they were pretty certain she had swallowed meconium. A few minutes later, I got to hold my little angel. She had so much hair! And cute chubby cheeks. Holding her filled me with such joy. I hardly even noticed Dr. Jacob starting to stitch me up from how badly I had torn. I got 30 minutes with her before they took her to get her cleaned up. Then they moved me into a new room and shortly brought my baby back to me. She was perfect and so precious. I am so blessed and grateful for the opportunity to carry this sweet angel for almost 10 months and to finally hold her in my arms. I now firmly believe that true love is a love you share as an eternal family... with parents and children.