Baby #3's Crazy Birth Story!

            Hey folks! Baby #3 has FINALLY arrived! If you're more of a Cliff's notes type person...

-Baby #3 is a GIRL!

-Her name is Gillian Elise

-She arrived at 11:03am on Sunday, March 4^th

-She weighed a whopping 10lbs even and was 20.5 inches long

             If you're really into reading birth stories like I am, continue on!

             Baby #3 has thrown us for so many loops and her birth was no different! Saturday night, while trying to go to sleep, I laid in bed with my mind racing. (That's the main reason I have such a hard time falling asleep and taking naps. It has a nasty habit of not wanting to shut up!) I was 40+3 weeks that day, the same length of time I had been pregnant with my last baby, Ripley, before she arrived.

             Other than just being irritated that this baby was taking longer to cook, I started really worrying about baby coming on his/her own. She was already measuring large at my 39 week growth scan. I'd felt her hiccuping for weeks. I knew her lungs were developed. What if there was something causing her to not drop or come on her own? And so on and so forth it went. Needless to say, I got overwhelmed and ended up having a cryfest like I did the day before I had Ripley. I kept my poor husband up and he stayed up with me for awhile and watched a movie.

             I eventually went back to sleep at midnight something or other. As per usual, I woke up around 4:30 to use the bathroom. Right before 5, I woke up to a strange stabbing-type feeling low in my uterus followed by what first felt like my bladder leaking...Then I rolled over to get up and check in the bathroom and more gushed out. I said “Oh no” out loud and waddled my way to the bathroom. Ha ha

             I was trying not to panic as I'd never had my water break on its own. My previous two labors went pretty fast and even more so once my water was broken. It takes us about an hour, give or take depending on traffic, to get to our hospital, so that's the main reason I was trying not to freak out. I did NOT want to have a baby in the car!

             Our bathroom is right next to our bedroom, so I kept calling for my husband until he woke up. Ha ha We started gathering the rest of what we needed to take with us and he called our in-laws to come over and watch the kids. We left around 6am and arrived at the hospital just before 7. I was leaking so much water it just completely soaked through my underwear and pad as I tried to use the restroom again before they got me checked in at triage, so that was, um, pleasant.

             If you've never had a baby, sitting in triage is the worst. Sitting and waiting around in that bed is so uncomfortable! I was glad that they didn't check me yet, though.

             We probably got to my room around 8. I absolutely loved the first nurse I had while I was in labor. She was great. Not surprisingly, my contractions were growing stronger pretty quickly. I stood and walked and leaned around the room as we finished going through more b.s. questions. After awhile, the contractions were getting bad enough that I made John put pressure and rub the crap out of my lower back, which made a world of difference!

             It wasn't long before they got bad enough that I decided to try sitting up in bed. My deep breaths started turning into moans because it made me feel a little better. However, the contractions quickly escalated to where I wasn't getting a break between them AT ALL. When the nurse had checked me earlier she said I was probably around 6-7cm dilated. I felt like baby still wasn't dropping despite having no break between contractions and didn't figure I was going to be giving birth any time soon, so I decided to get the epidural. I had planned on having a natural VBAC like my last baby, of course, but I just couldn't handle not having a break at all. It was intense!

             So I got the epidural and was feeling MUCH better! When they let John back in the room, I told him I was no longer a feral animal. Ha ha The baby's heart rate had been dropping a little during contractions beforehand, but not alarmingly so. I asked the nurse if they were getting any better now that the epidural had set in. She said they were about the same, but I swear it wasn't 5 minutes later shit started hitting the fan. No one was really telling me what was going on until the doctor came in, which the nurse did apologize for later and explained that they just all get “stuck in the moment” and forget to let the patient know what's going on sometimes, which is understandable, but still scary when you're the patient!

             Anyways, she started trying to move the baby's heart rate monitor around. Then she called in more nurses to help flip me from side to side to see if that would help. The doctor came in a short time later and evidently the baby's heart rate was REALLY dropping now and he mentioned they may have to do a c-section. They kept trying things for a few more minutes to see if that would help it level out, but nothing was working, so they started whisking me back to the OR.

             On top of all that, I started panicking, my blood pressure was dropping, and epidurals just make me nauseous in general, so I ended up puking on myself on the way back to and in the operating room. I tried to get it in the bag, but it's kind of difficult to turn your head when all that is going on and you're laying on your back. :/

             Luckily, baby's heart rate stabilized enough once we got to the OR that things calmed down a bit. They later referred to it as an “urgent c-section” rather than an emergency one. Everyone was still working quickly, but it didn't feel quite as scary as before. 

             So they begin the surgery and at one point I hear something about a cheek laceration. I'm thinking, “What? Cheek laceration? Like butt cheek? Facial cheek? What in the hell is going on down there?” Then, once they go to get her out, we find out the reason her heart rate was dropping: Not only was her cord wrapped around her neck, it was also wrapped around her stomach, one of her legs, a few more places I don't remember, AND, to top it all off, it had a KNOT in it. Crazy kid was lucky to be alive! She was so tangled up in it, I guess they had a hard time getting her out and untangled.

             As for the cheek laceration, they somehow managed to cut her cheek when they were cutting into me because of the way she was facing. They said she was facing sideways and almost “sunnyside up”. At the time (and still, don't get me wrong) I was just happy to have a healthy baby. In hindsight, though, I still wonder how the hell they could manage that. I hate to think of worse spots they could have cut her on the face! Even today at our appointment to get her stitches out, the pediatrician seemed surprised something like that could happen.

             So yah! I feel like I've ran the gambit of births now! Ha ha From induction leading to c-section with my first, natural VBAC with my second, and water breaking on my own leading to an almost emergency c-section with my third!

             In case you are wondering...No, we weren't disappointed to not have a boy. We are still definitely DONE having babies! I will say we were surprised...And I may have cried a little. ;) I think it was more of a “What the hell am I going to do with THREE girls” cry, though. Ha ha We are just happy she's here finally and made it safely! :)