GRACIE’S BIRTH STORY: All the Details You Probably Didn’t Want to Know

It all started on Wednesday night (February 28th). I was 41 weeks pregnant so our doctor wanted to induce me. My amniotic fluid had been measuring at 7cm which is on the lower end, so she didn’t want me to wait much longer to have the baby. I was really upset at first because I wanted to go into labor naturally. I had always envisioned that I would wake up in the middle of the night because I felt a contraction and I would wake my husband, Tim, up and say, “I think this is it!” Then we would be all nervous and excited as we got ready to go to the hospital. When I found out it was going to be so…planned, I was really disappointed. But by that point, I was so incredibly anxious and excited to meet our baby that I was ready to do whatever I needed to do to have it happen!

Driving to the hospital was so surreal. With our pillows and bags in the back of the King Ranch truck, it felt like we were going on a fun little road trip, but we were going to be coming home with a BABY! We arrived at the hospital at 9:30pm and got checked into our room. I got dressed in the hospital gown and socks and the nurse hooked me up to two monitors–one to measure the baby’s heart rate and the other to measure my contractions. We had to wait for a bit but finally the nurse inserted a little pill into my cervix that would help it to thin and get it ready to start dilating. The nurse said that they would try one pill (which lasts for 4 hours) and then see how I was doing after that.

30 minutes later I was starting to feel something happening. I wasn’t sure if I was feeling contractions because I had no idea what a contraction felt like–but pretty soon I realized I definitely was. OUCH. We also noticed that there was a screen above my head that showed the peaks and valleys of my contractions. I was having a lot of them! They started coming fast and furious–with not a lot of time in between. The nurse came back in to check on me and noticed that it was all happening faster than she had anticipated. She said that it might be because I’m small that the pill worked faster and more intensely than planned. She said she definitely didn’t want to give me another dose, and that instead we would wait until morning and see how I was doing. She checked my dilation again and I was still only about 1-2 cm.

The night was lonnnngg and everyone kept telling me to try to sleep, but I couldn’t because the contractions were really painful and they were so close together that I didn’t have any time to recover between each one. Also, who can actually sleep the night before they have a BABY? By morning I was pretty miserable, but I was excited that the nurse was going to come check my dilation again (the things you get excited for while giving birth! haha!). I think around 5am or so she came in and I was STILL only at 2cm! I was beyond discouraged and frustrated because it felt like the whole night had been a waste! She told me that our doctor would be in at 7am to break my water and we would figure out where to go from there.

At around 7:45 our doctor came in and checked to see how I was doing. She broke my water (which–TMI–at first was a warm gush of fluid but then it kept trickling out!) and then stayed for a little to check how my contractions were progressing. She was pretty concerned that they were happening so frequently and that I wasn’t able to get back to a good level (i.e. recover) after each one. It actually made me feel better because I was starting to think I was crazy and that I was being a huge baby! So they decided to start a pitocin drip to help me dilate faster.

By this point, I was in a lot of pain and I was really upset because I thought I would be able to ‘last longer’ without the epidural. As a former athlete, my competitive nature was telling me I needed to push through the pain! But everyone around me kept reminding me that no one was going to judge me, and the fact that I wasn’t able to recover between contractions was a great a reason to get it! So I caved and decided to go ahead and get the epidural. I’m not sure what time it was but the whole process was pretty quick and it really didn’t hurt. Tim helped distract me–although they made him sit down just in case HE passed out! But he was a champ. 🙂 (I give my real thoughts on the epidural at the end of this post.) Pretty soon I was feeling sooo much better as I couldn’t feel the contractions as much anymore. I could still feel pressure and a little bit of an uncomfortable feeling, but it was such a relief to get a break! I even had myself a popsicle to celebrate. The nurse checked me again at around 11am and I was at 4cm. which wasn’t where I wanted to be but I liked that I was at least progressing!

The nurse (who I loved by the way – she was an older woman with gray hair named Robin) decided to have me use what they call a peanut ball–she wanted to make sure the contractions weren’t upsetting the baby since they were still coming so close together. She had me lie on my side and put the peanut ball between my legs. This is a rather funny process when you don’t have any feeling in your legs–it was a team effort to get it positioned correctly. I stayed like that for a little over an hour. My mom came in to see how I was doing and we told her that both the nurse and doctor thought I would give birth around 7pm. After she left Robin came back in and decided to check me again.

On her way to check my dilation (haha!) she exclaimed, “Oh wow I just touched the head! The baby is soo low!” She started laughing and said, “Wait until I tell the doctor–she is going to die!” So Tim and I looked at each other, confused, and finally I asked, “Sooo what does that mean? How dilated am I?” We both thought she would say something like a 6. She replied, “You’re COMPLETE!” I was 10cm! Apparently it was a magic peanut ball. We had both been trying to take a bit of a nap before she came in, so Tim was sitting on the couch near my bed. I will never forget that when she said I was complete, I looked over at him as he SHOT UP and we both had a moment where we were like, “OH MY GOD THIS IS HAPPENING!! We are having a baby right NOW!”

OUR LITTLE BLUEBERRY ANGEL BABY

4. Speaking of the epidural, my biggest fear was surprisingly NOT the huge needle that was going to be inserted into my spine. I ended up not even seeing the needle (which definitely helped) and the anesthesiologist really made sure the entire process was as quick and seamless as possible. In fact, getting the urinary catheter put in was probably more uncomfortable for me than the epidural–but I think that was because I was imagining what was happening, and thinking about sticking a tube up there just doesn’t seem like a good idea!

In regards to the epidural, though, I was more nervous about not being able to feel my legs. Besides being bedridden for the rest of delivery (which I was also not pumped about), I was very paranoid that I would be obsessing over the sensation and not be able to enjoy the experience. This definitely happened at first–I remember I tried to not touch my legs because feeling my skin under my fingers when I couldn’t feel it on my leg really freaked me out. My legs also got VERY ITCHY. Apparently that is a side effect that I didn’t know about. I had heard that some people get really bad headaches when they get the epidural, but I only experienced itchy legs. OH! I also was shaking a lot throughout the whole delivery! I had read this might happen so thankfully I knew it was normal, but it was still strange to experience—my teeth were legitimately chattering!

The anesthesiologist will also show you how to self-administer ‘doses’ of the anesthesia via a button by your bed (if you are feeling more pain). What they didn’t tell me, however, is that if you’re lying on your side and you push the button, it’ll only really be administered to ONE leg! Not knowing this, I accidentally gave myself two doses to my right leg and it was still partially numb the NEXT MORNING. I definitely obsessed over this for a few hours and told Tim I thought I would probably never walk again. (Not dramatic at all.)