Mia's Birth Story....finally...

Sorry its taken me so long to get this up. We've been so busy with Mia as well as with getting all our little ones adjusted and settled in...anyways....



Mia's Birth Story:



For a couple of weeks we'd had the plan set with our midwife, Tammy that we would induce on Saturday, the 17th of April by breaking my water. We didn't want to use pitocin because I have had a prior C-section. I felt strongly that I didn't want to up my chances of uterine rupture nor did I want to jeopardize the hospital's policy on allowing VBAC's by taking un-necessary chances. Thus, the plan was going to be to go to my 39 week appointment on Friday the 16th and if Mia's head was low enough, we'd go ahead and break my water on Saturday morning.



At the appointment, Mia's head was indeed not down far enough and so Tammy told me that she couldn't break my water with her head still able to be pushed out of my pelvis....we were a bit disappointed but knew that if her head wasn't engaged, breaking my water just wasn't safe and that we should wait it out. We were talking about returning the next week and seeing where she was then, when Tammy told me that since I'd be 40 weeks on Tuesday, I'd need to start coming in two to three times a week for non stress testing and biophysical profiles. This was not good news....childcare, school schedules and driving distance made that not an optimal scenario...so, Tammy then offered to sweep my membranes and have us go walking around Walmart of Target for a couple hours, then return to see if baby's head was down any lower. I agreed to this and as she swept the membranes, I dilated to from three to four centimeters right then and there. At four centimeters with my tenth child, Tammy no longer felt comfortable with me walking around at home. She told me that perhaps I should reconsider using a very small amount of pitocin, to help start contractions and bring baby's head down. She consulted with the OB who agreed that a very small amount of pitocin was probably better than going home at four centimeters, with a tenth baby, living a distance from the hospital...



We considered our options for a moment. I wasn't wild about the pitocin for the reasons I already mentioned plus the fact that using it would significantly change several of the things that were important to me during labor. Still, I couldn't see coming back to the hospital every couple days for extra testing, so we agreed to the induction. We left to go out to lunch with the plan to head to the hospital after we ate.

We got to Labor and Delivery and started the pitocin for a while it did nothing. The strange thing was, that the very thing I thought I wouldn't want- continuous monitoring, ended up being my favorite part of her birth. I was worried about the effect of the pit on Mia, and I wanted to watch her heartbeat with my own two eyes...I pulled the monitor over towards me so that I could watch her heart beating. I loved talking to her and following all of her movements and activities on the monitor. She did fabulously. Not one single time did her heartbeat ever become irregular or was she stressed at all. She did wonderfully the entire time.



While we waited for contractions to start, Albert and I played cards- Uno and Blackjack, I bounced on the birthing ball beside my bed and finally we progressed from mild cramps to recognizable contractions. Albert helped me breathe through them, and rubbed my back and my feet. The thing about the pitocin was that it made the contractions pretty close together and again I worried that Mia would be stressed by not having enough time to re-oxygenate between contractions. She was totally fine though.

While the contractions intensified, we watched television-and hung our with our midwife and her daughter Ashley. I updated my blog and facebook and my due date club. The contractions intensified and became painful but I did pretty good with breathing and working through them. Albert was a huge help. Tammy checked me again and the baby was finally low enough for her to rupture my water.

With my water now broken, I asked Tammy if we could turn off the pitocin. It had done its job and I didn't want to use it un-necessarily. She agreed and turned it off. I also asked for my bag of fluids so that I could get my epidural. After the fluids ran, the anesthesiologist came by, and just as he walked towards the door of my room, he was paged away for an emergency code somewhere else in the hospital. No one knew how long he'd be gone. Obviously, emergencies can't be predicted. Tammy informed me that he was indeed the only anesthesiologist in the hospital. And that I might have to go naturally. I was unhappy about it but was doing well just taking each contraction at a time and reminding myself to relax and not tense up. Albert was helping me and just as I started to put the epidural out of my mind, and accept the fact that it just wasn't going to be available this time, the anesthesiologist magically reappeared in my room. Part of me was tempted to just tell him never mind, because I was working though the contractions pretty well but knowing that the delivery stage was coming, I went ahead and got the epi....and it was wonderful. I noticed that I only felt one contraction during the placement of the epidural and thought that it was odd....then I noticed that I was only feeling one contraction every fifteen minutes or so (they didn't hurt any longer but I could still feel them...this epidural was perfect). I realized then that since we'd turned off the pitocin, the contractions had spaced wayyy out. I was seven centimeters and didn't want to stall...so I asked Tammy to turn it back on the lowest setting. We did, and the contractions picked back up.

Around that time, my mom arrived from Tennessee and now she was going to be able to be part of the baby's birth. We talked and hung out until I felt the contractions become painful again and asked for more medicine in my epidural. As each contraction got increasingly more painful, I feared that this would be a repeat of Bree's birth where the epi didn't quite cover the delivery...
Fortunately pretty soon after that, I was complete and it was time to push.

Because I don't like to have my bed broken down or push in stirrups, it took several minutes for me to find a position to push in that was comfortable and effective. We went through a few different scenarios, including Albert standing at the foot of the bed holding a towel that we played tug of war with. Finally, Tammy suggested that I lay the bed back and curl around the baby more. That worked. The baby moved down, down, down. Just minutes before she crowned, our pediatrician came through the door and asked if she could stay for the delivery. She was at the hospital for another reason and wanted to attend Mia's birth. It was kind of cool to have her there.

The epidural ended up working perfectly. It didn't cover all the pain, but it covered enough that this time I didnt need to yell and scream. It hurt enough for me to feel exactly what was going on and to be fully present in the moment, but it wasn't soooo painful that I couldn't even focus on anything except getting it out! It was perfect. I pushed her out silently even though I wanted to yell because it was burning and stretching. After her head and shoulders were out, Tammy guided my hands so that I grabbed Mia under her arms and pulled her out myself and brought her up to my chest. That was amazing. I said "hello, honey girl!" to her and let the nurse wipe her off. She had swallowed some fluid on her way out so she did need to go to the warmer to get suctioned out really well and then needed to be percussed due to all the excess fluid, but our pediatrician was there and told us she'd be fine and that she was perfect...just had a little fluid that needed to be worked out. The nursery nurse finally brought her over to me to hold and told me that it'd be best if I could get her to cry...she hadn't done much of that yet....she was just looking around, really alert but really calm and quiet.

I held her for quite a while. The nurse left her in my room and brought the supplies for her bath to us. After my epidural wore off, I got up and bathed her myself in our room and then we waited to be transferred to our postpartum room.

we came home on Sunday morning and things have been really wonderful since. That's her birth story. It was a perfect birth. And a perfect way to complete (hopefully) our family.