Chloe's Birth Story

Every time I got asked throughout this pregnancy if I had had any contractions, I always just shrugged my shoulders. Yes, there was some discomfort at the end, but I wasn't sure what to expect with contractions. They say, "you'll know" and it's true!

Monday night (Feb 12) around 1 am (I guess technically Tuesday morning) I felt what I consider was my first contraction. They continued off and on until around 4 am. They were anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour apart and didn't last very long.

I had maybe one or two at school on Tuesday, but nothing significant. I had a doctor's appointment that afternoon and due to some other changes that I'll spare you the details of, I wasn't 100% sure that I wasn't more in labor than I thought. When he checked me, I was still at 2 cm. Stephen was so disappointed. He was so hoping they would send us to the hospital from that appointment.

Tuesday night the contractions started again around 2 am and continued all day Wednesday, but were anywhere from an hour to two hours apart and were very manageable. Steph and Savva came for dinner Wednesday night and while they were here, I had a few stronger ones, but still no where close together. They left and we got ready for bed. I had barely been in bed when they started picking up to the point I couldn't lay there through them. Honestly, getting into bed that night, I just had a feeling that it was the night.

I stayed in bed as long as I could timing and breathing through them. They were much closer together, but not consistent. When I couldn't lay there any longer, I came into the living room and labored through them for another couple of hours. Around midnight I decided it was time to wake Stephen up. He blew up the medicine ball and helped me time contractions. I was starting to hurt pretty bad. Stephen showered and then encouraged me to shower. I was a little nervous about getting in the shower because I couldn't stand through the pain. But, the shower felt really good.

We headed to the hospital around 3 am because they were anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes apart and had been for an hour. When I got there, I was only 3 cm so they said they would monitor me for an hour and if I progressed anymore, they would keep me. After an hour, I had progressed to 4-5 cm so they said I could stay. Thank goodness! I don't know that I could have gone home.

Allyson got there and we hung out while I continued to labor. They gave me some pain meds in my IV that helped take the edge off and I requested an epidural ASAP. They have to give you a liter of fluid before you can get the epidural and that takes an hour. It was around 6 am when they got that going putting my hour mark at 7 am...aka shift change. So, I had to wait a little longer for the anesthesiologist.

Around 7:30 they came in to do my epidural. It went in really easily, but due to scar tissue from my back surgery, it didn't take on the left side. Because it went in so easily, they tried everything they could think of to get it to work on the left. The main thing they tried was have me lay on my left side to try and get the medicine to flow to that side.

Unfortunately baby girl didn't like that position and her heart beat went a little low. So they broke my water around 9:30 to insert an internal monitor on her to get a better reading on her heart beat.

Eventually my only option was for them to re-try the epidural. At that point, I was hurting a lot and was willing to give it a shot. He moved it down a little and it took! Whew! So around 11:15 I finally got some pain relief.

Thanks to the epidural, I was able to rest for the afternoon and visit with family a little bit. I tried taking a nap, but anytime I rolled on my side, her heartbeat would drop with each contraction so I had to stay flat on my back. I got some good rest in like that for about an hour and then got really uncomfortable in that position. But, if I moved, her heartbeat went crazy so I had to stay that way.

Then, around 4:30 my epidural wore off. At that point, my contractions were really bad. I was in SO MUCH pain it made me sick. My nurse was amazing and tracked the anesthesiologist down and wouldn't let him leave the floor until he came and helped me. He pumped something into the line that helped the pain some. I never got fully numb again, but the pain was much more manageable after he did that.

I hadn't progressed any since 12:30 so they began talk of a possible csection. They put an internal monitor in to get a better read on how strong my contractions were. They were trying to decide if they needed my contractions to get stronger or if they were already strong enough and I just wasn't progressing. They decided the contractions were in between so they started me on a pitocin drip to make them stronger (thankfully they waited until the epidural was somewhat working again) to see if that helped. After an hour of that and still no progress, they decided I was going to need a csection.

Although the epidural was semi-working, my pain level was still pretty high and I was so ready to be out of pain. They made that decision around 6:30 and immediately went to work prepping for the OR. The anesthesiologist came in shortly after that and I was so glad to see him. Then he told me he needed to turn off the epidural for about 30 minutes to prepare me for the spinal. Since the epidural wasn't really working for labor, he didn't trust it to work for the csection. So my options were a spinal or be put to sleep. I really didn't want to be put to sleep so we went for the spinal.

Usually epidurals take an hour or more to wear off, but mine was already wearing off so that 30 minutes was zero fun. Thankfully there was an end in sight so I just watched the clock. He was a fast working man. So when he came back, he quickly told me everything I needed to know and then they wheeled me to the OR.

We rolled into the OR at 7:55. Getting that spinal felt so good! Because it numbs you, it makes your blood pressure drop, which made me sick, but being numb felt great. I thought they were still prepping for surgery and the next thing I know she's screaming and they're holding her up for me to see.

Stephen was right beside me crying, she was screaming, and I was puking. It was a glorious moment. ha! No really, it was so special. Stephen stayed with her and they immediately took her back to the room while they finished sewing me up. Once my blood pressure got under control, I just laid there super relaxed, enjoying being pain free. The doctors and nurses were just chatting away about life. I got back to the room around 9:15.

We did skin to skin for about an hour and I tried to feed her but she was too tired. So, family got to come back and meet her around 10:30. They left around 11:30 and I tried to feed her again. She still wasn't interested. I gave her a break and ate myself. I was SO hungry! It had been well over 24 hours since I had eaten anything. She finally ate around 1 am and then we all crashed.

Welcome to the world, Chloe Grace! You are so loved and we're so glad you're here!