I'll preface all of this by saying that in my over one week of false labor shenanigans I read a LOT of stuff online - including quite a few birth stories. I love me a good birth story, but I think there's a limit to the detail necessary for a birth story. Not an appropriateness limit (although there is a bit of a need for that as well), but a volume limit. So I'll try to be thorough and detailed, but avoid reaching short story or novella length and make up for any tediousness in the writing with lots of pictures!
My two separate days of false labor had made me feel like I couldn't trust my body to let me know when the real thing was actually here. I had come to conclude that the difference would have to be that either a) the contractions would be noticeably more painful or b) my water would break. So on Saturday afternoon, when regular, fairly painless contractions started up around 3:30, I just ignored them. At around 7:30, they hadn't lessened and were getting a bit more uncomfortable, so I called the nurse on call. She thought I should go into labor and delivery just to get checked. We took Abram with us, thinking - no, actually convinced - that this was not the real thing and we were going to be sent home. I actually regretted calling and wished I could let them know I wasn't coming in. But we thought it would at least be good to know if the contractions were helping make any progress at all or if it looked like we were in for the long haul.
I checked into triage in labor and delivery and was 1.5 cm - which is what I was at my appointment three days before. No progress. We thought we were going home to get our fussy toddler in bed, but they wanted to monitor me for two hours to see if anything was happening. We decided that Quinn would take Abram home and put him to bed while I hung out at the hospital. If I needed to be picked up in a few hours, our wonderful neighbors were going to come to the house to sit there while Quinn came to get me. If I needed to stay, our wonderful friends were going to come over and spend the night and be with Abram in the morning until Chelsea could make it back from San Antonio and take over. When, after two hours, they checked and I had dilated to a 3, the latter is what happened.
Akin and Masami came over at midnight (what amazing people, right?), Quinn gave them instructions, and headed back over to the hospital. All the while, I am trying to figure out from the nurses why they want to admit me when I'm only a 3 and did this mean that if I hadn't really progressed in a few hours and morning came, they would start talking Pitocin and Cervadil or whatever? I was told that that might be the case, but that they wanted me there because 1.5 cm in two hours means that things were going pretty quickly at that point.
In my new, large, labor and delivery room, I asked not to be hooked up to anything so that I could walk around and hopefully help things along. They were fine with that and my fantastic nurse, Christi, encouraged me to do squats during contractions. Since they still weren't that painful, that's what I did. My poor, sick, tired husband got there around 12:30 and took a light nap while I walked around, squatted and ate a popcicle.
At 3:30, the nurse checked and I was a 4! Active labor! The contractions were just starting to get where I didn't feel like talking through them and I had to concentrate a bit. She said that my bag of water was "bulging" and would probably break at any time. I had been praying that everything would progress naturally so that no one would have to start suggesting medication and the progress was an answer to prayer!
I knew that I wanted an epidural, but I didn't think that I would get one until I was in more pain, like with Abram. But Christi told me that around 5am the anesthesiologist started to get baked up with c-section and induction patients coming in and if I knew I wanted one, I might want to think of it a little sooner than I thought, otherwise I might not be able to get one at all.. So I went ahead and did it at 3:30, since it was starting to get painful. The doctor on call came in to check me at 4am right after I'd gotten the epidural. She was so fantastic! She is a younger doctor who is fairly new to the practice I go to, but she was sweet and knowledgeable and I trusted her immediately. If I couldn't have my regular, wonderful doctor, Dr. Anderson was an amazing alternative. She said that I had already gone up to a 5 and my water was so close to breaking, did I want her to just break it so that we control the clean up? I was fine with that, since I knew what sitting in a puddle of amniotic fluid while waiting for someone to come help you clean up felt like from Abram. She broke it and Quinn and I heard what we both decided sounded like a few seconds of a babbling brook fountain or something. Apparently, there was a lot of fluid. They were convinced that Selah was going to be pretty small because they didn't think that that much fluid and an average sized baby could have fit in my abdomen.
After breaking my water, the contractions picked up considerably. Because I had the epidural, I could feel them, but they didn't hurt, so I was in a pretty talkative and good mood - even though I hadn't slept or eaten in quite some time. Quinn and I took some pictures and talked about when we thought Selah was going to come. They say that moms who have had a baby before usually progress at 1 cm an hour until delivery. So we were pretty much doing that and looking at a 9 am ish ETA. It was pretty surreal that we had thought we were coming in for a check and going to be sent home and there we were, counting down the hours until our baby would be born.
At 5:30 or so, the epidural started to wane and I could feel the pretty intense contractions. So a different nurse came in to show me how I could push a button to give myself a controlled dose of the medicine if it was wearing off. Christi (my normal nurse) came in right after that to check and see how I felt. She did another cervical check and I was at a 7. Selah still hadn't descended yet, though, so she put me on my side so that the pressure from Selah's head would help open the cervix more and let her drop in.
Not to long after that, at around 6am, gravity had pulled the medicine down into one side of my body and my right side could feel everything. It was unfun. Just feeling what 100% contractions kind of feel like makes me have an immense respect for women who do all of this with no pain management. They are like super women or something. So I called Christi to come help me flip. While I was waiting for her, I started to have really intense, off the chart contractions every minute and a half. All of a sudden I felt her "descend" and the with next contraction I could tell that her head was right there and I really wanted to push. So when Christi came in to flip me I told her and she checked. I was at a 10 and Selah's head was ready to come out. She called Dr. Anderson and they got the bed ready for us to have a baby!
This was a contraction, not pushing :)
I started pushing at around 6:15. Because I had dosed up my epidural right before that I couldn't really feel anything. Including my right leg. It was literally like jello when they moved it into position and I was thinking "How am I going to push a baby out, I can't even move my leg?!" But, thankfully, I could feel when the contractions were coming and my pushing ended up being perfectly controlled because of the epidural. This meant that her head came out in about three sets of pushes and resulted in a lot less "trauma" down there than with Abram - whose head came out in one push. Neither Quinn nor I really wanted to watch what was going on down there. The reality is that you can say you don't want to watch, but it's pretty much right there. You can't get away from it and once you see how crazy it is, you can't take your eyes away. So Quinn says he watched her body come out like a "Gumbi" and regain it's shape once it came out. Pretty crazy.
So she came to meet us at 6:31 am on Sunday, April 22nd! She didn't cry a whole lot, but I was assured that she was totally fine and everything looked great. She was a surprising 6lbs 6 oz! I was 6-6 when I was born a week early! How about that :) I ended up with only one stitch. Super awesome. I loved Dr. Anderson just as much as I love Dr. Seeker and I would highly recommend her to anyone looking for a good, knowledgeable, friendly OB. And my nurse, Christi, was so excited that she got to be there to deliver Selah. I only had her for the whole process and delivered right before the shift change. She was very happy.
Whew! You waded through the logistics of the labor and delivery of this much anticipated little girl (or maybe you've skipped ahead to right here) and now it's time for the good stuff: the pictures!
Covered in vernix (yum.)
We have almost the exact same shot of Abram in his birth story post.
But her head was so much less cone shaped since she dropped minutes before coming out and he was there for weeks.
Squishy face and tired Mommy.
Enamored Daddy.
Bath time.
Aunt Liesl drove up from San Antonio right away. So glad Selah was born on a Sunday!
Liesl was the first one other than Quinn and I to hold Abram, too :)
Me, after a day of no sleep (and only a 4 hour night the night before). I was tired.
Chelsea brought Abram over on Sunday afternoon.
The first thing he said when he walked in the room was "Baby!" So glad he learned that word.
Selah's 1920's flapper hat I made. I thought it would be big, but it ended up fitting perfectly.
Abram's new favorite thing is giving people kisses. This is sweet - for Quinn and I. It's a little awkward for the strangers who happen to be in the room when he gets on a kissing streak. Don't get me wrong, it's cute. But just like he wants to high five everyone in sight once he starts dishing those out, he puckers up his lips and tries to get to everyone in the room. And when you see a cute, but very snotty kid coming at you with duck lips and you've never met him before, I would imagine it's a little hard to know what to do. So we try to switch him to giving high fives in that moment. And it usually works. He likes to give me kisses on the lips (which is always a very wet and saliva filled experience), but everyone else he has to kiss on the cheek.
Giving Chelsea a kiss for taking such good care of him.
(He says "Tel see" now!)
Meeting Sister Selie.
We had Abram with us for a few hours before we got discharged. It was a bit difficult to entertain a sleepy toddler in a small hospital room. There were lots of Daddy walks around the halls involved.
He loves giving her kisses on the head.
We came home after only a day and half. When we had Abram, we were hoping for excuses to get to stay in the hospital for longer than the allotted 48 hours after delivery. This time, we couldn't wait to get home. Abram needed a nap and I wanted to change clothes and we sort of hurried out of there as soon as we were able.
Woah. That's a lot of pink.
Our friends, Jonathan and Lacy came over to meet her Monday night. Their baby is due at the end of June. We couldn't get Jonathan to hold the baby, even though he is going to be a baby holding pro in a few short months. But Lacy was all about it :)
Cutie picture of Abram eating his first breakfast as a big brother!
On a walk in our awesome stroller! Thanks to everyone who helped us get this, by the way. I can tell it's going to be something we can't imagine living without now that we officially have two!
I'm hoping there will be lots more pictures for the next few days. So keep your eyes peeled. Quinn's mom got here yesterday to help for the next week and my mom is coming a few days after that. I hope I won't get too spoiled for when all the moms and husbands go back to work in a few weeks and leave me all alone! I'm not going to think about that right now. I am going to be glad for the help I have right now. And I'm going back to sleep. Selah's been a champion sleeping and I'm not sure how long that will last, so I need to take advantage of that as well.
Thanks for trekking through this pregnancy with me! There won't be any more pregnancy post for a long... long... long... maybe ever... time. Promise.
Thrilled for you and your little family. She is pretty in pink. Abram will be able to demonstrate 'Pucker Power'! God has certainly blessed you.
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