Mary-Kate's Birth Story

Ok, most of you probably don't care to know the details, and that is fine with me. But, for those of you who have been asking, here is MK's birth story. It is pretty long considering I labored for about 27 hours! I am long winded when it comes to my birth stories, because I want to remember every little detail and I print a copy out for my scrapbook. Anyways...enjoy! :o)

Mary-Kate’s Birth Story

I always come to a point when I think I will be pregnant forever. That is what it feels like in those last few weeks. At my 40 week appointment on Monday, my doctor went ahead and scheduled us for a BPP (Bio-Physical Profile). I was devastated. Early on in the pregnancy, I had done a lot of reading and research, and we had decided that a natural child birth would be the best thing for me and my baby. I was disappointed because I knew that once they started running tests, they often found many reasons to start intervening and would usually start talking about Induction! Well, Thursday rolled around and still no baby. Fortunately, the BPP turned out well. The only concern they had was low fluid, but it was still adequate enough to carry on the pregnancy. Dr. Dickens knew our wishes were to have as natural a birth as possible, so he gave us another week before we would need to talk induction. He stripped my membranes and sent me home saying I would more than likely have my baby over the weekend. After that, I was very crampy and my contractions were definitely hurting more. I was finally feeling like the time would be soon. That night, I lost more of my mucous plug and had bloody show. My parent’s offered to watch Kade for us that night so we could have some time to ourselves, and I think we were all secretly hoping it would be “the night”.

At 3:31am Friday morning, I finally woke Bryan up because I needed some help to breathe through the contractions. They were suddenly intense and much closer together at 8 minutes apart. I was excited but didn’t want to get my hopes up if it was all going to fizzle out like it normally did. By 4:45am I was on my labor ball spending time praying and listening to worship music. I was sitting on the ball and leaning over onto the bed relaxing between the contractions and then Bryan would rub my back and breathe with me during them. This continued for awhile where I would alternate tailor sitting with time sitting on my ball. The contractions were consistently 8 minutes apart, and although they were hurting, they were not unbearable. About 7:00am I had an emotional breakdown. I sobbed as Bryan held me close. I was tired, discouraged, hurting, and just couldn’t understand what exactly was going on. Bryan was convinced that this was real labor, but I was beginning to think that it was like all of our other false alarms! He went ahead and called into work and told them he would be staying with me because he was pretty sure I was in labor. By 7:30am, my contractions were consistently coming 7 minutes apart and they were a lot more intense. At this point, I had to stand during them because it was too painful to sit when the peak hit. As I felt one come on, I would stand and put my arms around Bryan’s neck. We would slowly sway to the music and often times he would rub my back as well. At 8:45am, I got in the shower, thinking it would make them go away (I still was not convinced this was it!) but they continued on at about 7 minutes apart. I continued to lose my mucous plug and have lots of bloody show.

We had planned on my best friend Ashley being apart of our experience as a labor support person. Bryan suggested we call her at this point to inform her that I was in active labor. I did so hesitantly because I felt guilty that I might be calling her for a false alarm. She arrived at 11:00am ready and eager to help and I was so thankful for that! She sat with me as I had contractions, although, much to my dismay, they were becoming less intense. Around noon we ate some lunch and made plans to start walking the neighborhood. About 1:00pm we started taking long walks and then would come back and I would labor some more on my birthing ball. The walks definitely intensified my contractions and brought them up to 5 minutes apart. Even though they were closer together, they weren’t as intense any more. I started to get discouraged again and swore I was not in labor even though it felt like I might be leaking some fluid at this point. I must have apologized to Ashley 500 times. She and Bryan weren’t worried though. They were both convinced this was it, it was just taking awhile. About 3:45pm Ashley went home to be with her family for awhile and Bryan and I laid down to get some rest. I don’t know how much sleep I got, but it was nice to relax and get some rest. About 5:30pm I woke up with more intense contractions again. They were back to 8 minutes apart and it felt like the baby had dropped deep into my pelvis. The only place that felt comfortable to sit was on the potty, so I labored there for awhile.

At this point, I really started to miss Kade. My parent’s still had him and it felt like forever since I had seen him. Although I was having painful contractions, we went to visit him for a little bit. It was so good to hug his neck and watch him play for awhile. I tried not to show that I was in too much pain during my contractions. I was afraid of getting everyone’s hopes up. Looking back, it’s so silly that I wasn’t convinced it was true labor, but I had had a hard couple of weeks of prodromal labor that felt just like the real thing. After giving Kade one more big hug and kiss we went back home to eat dinner. Seeing that the contractions were intense again we called Ashley to come back around 8:20pm. At 8:50pm we decided to go walking again. My contractions were 5-8 minutes apart and they were much more intense. The rest of the evening we spent time dancing, swaying to music, walking around the block, laboring on the birth ball, and tailor sitting. The contractions were definitely hurting at this point and I needed help to cope with them. The thing that felt the best was to cling to Bryan and have him help me relax my belly during the contractions and breathe. I felt terrible that nothing was happening and kept apologizing to Ashley, but she was so sweet and so encouraging. She knew that this was it, and she was a true friend to stay with me through it all. Around 2:00am Saturday morning we decided to lie down and get some rest again. I woke up at 2:50am with super intense contractions, but they only lasted for a few minutes. Laid back down at 3:10am and fell into a deep sleep. At 4:41am I woke up to a very intense contraction. All of a sudden, I felt a pop inside my belly and then the pain that followed was worse than any I had felt all day. All I could do was groan and cry out, “help me, help me, help me.” Bryan jumped up and ran around to my side. After the contraction ended he helped me up and into the bathroom. I immediately had another contraction that made me double over. All I could do was groan through it. I had more mucous and a lot of fluid at this point. I’m pretty sure that the pop I felt was my water breaking. I had two more intense contractions about 2 minutes apart and I knew this was it. I told Bryan, “We have to go to the hospital, now!!” We woke Ashley up on the couch and grabbed the rest of our stuff and loaded up. (Fortunately, we had already loaded the car with our hospital bag before this time.) The pain was very intense during the contractions, but nothing I couldn’t handle. I was excited, yet scared as I knew this was it! I knew I would be meeting my daughter soon!

My contractions were about every 2-3 minutes at this point, and I had to stop and hold onto Bryan and Ashley during them as we walked into L&D. We arrived shortly after 5:00am and began the annoying process of having to sign paper work. It was very apparent that the nurse I had was not very nice and not very supportive of natural child birth. I don’t think she realized how close I was to delivering or how much pain I was in because she would roll her eyes when I couldn’t sign papers during a contraction. Ashley said she was even throwing the papers after I was done with them saying I had to hurry up and get them signed because she needed to put oxygen on me for the baby’s sake. This was frustrating because the baby’s heart beat looked completely fine and was recovering very well after my contractions. I just tried to ignore the nurse at this point because my contractions were so intense that all I could think about was breathing through them and either lifting my body off the bed a little or clutching Bryan. Finally, at about 5:45am, we were all checked in and everything was signed. She checked me at this point and said that I was about 4 maybe 5cm dilated. I was devastated. I was about 3.5cm at my last appointment on Thursday and couldn’t believe I wasn’t further along than that after a full day of laboring! I couldn’t imagine enduring this pain for much longer and began to worry that maybe I couldn’t do it naturally after all. Bryan and Ashley were so encouraging though. They kept assuring me I was doing a good job and that I could do it. They were quick to get me cold rags, water, or anything else I needed. At this point I remember telling Bryan that the pressure during the contractions was pretty intense. It felt like she was right there. The nurse said she would check me, just in case I was jumping numbers, but she didn’t sound very convinced. Sure enough, I was only a 6. I looked at Bryan at this point and said, “I don’t think I can do this.” It felt like the delivery was so far away, but little did I know I was in transition.

The nurse said she needed to do something and would be back in a few minutes. Right after that another contraction came upon me and I felt the baby slip into the birth canal. I knew she was right there. I turned to Bryan and yelled for him to get the nurse and quick. The baby was there and I had to push. Before I knew it, my body took over and it automatically started pushing for me. It was the weirdest sensation ever. It knew what it was doing more than I did! Ashley ran to get the nurse and next thing I know the nurse was running back in screaming at me not to push and screaming for the other nurses. I didn’t care what she said, there was no way I could stop pushing. I remember her yelling at me that I needed to stop pushing if I wanted my Dr. to be there for the delivery. Again, I didn’t care who delivered my baby, I just needed to push. I think she was freaked out that I had gone so fast. She definitely wasn’t prepared for me to have the baby right then. Next thing I knew, Dr. Dickens was there and I could feel Mary-Kate crowning. After a few more pushes, Mary-Kate entered the world at 6:21am weighing 8lbs 14.4oz and was 20.5” long. I was so excited she was finally here and so relieved that it was over! Although it was painful, it was so exciting that I had done it. One of the best parts of delivering naturally was that I had a very quick and easy recovery. After nursing Mary-Kate I was able to walk to my room, take a shower, and then watch her get her first bath. I had no swelling, very little soreness, and only had to take Motrin for pain relief. I felt better than I had in 9 months! This was wonderful after some of the negative things I experienced with my first delivery. Thanks to the strength of God, much prayer, and a lot of encouragement from Bryan and Ashley, I accomplished the natural child birth that I wanted!