Declan's Birth Story

Let me start off by saying that this post will involve birth details and info that some of you might not be comfortable with, so if you don't want to know...don't read! :)

Basically the whole labour process started on Wednesday morning, September 4. I woke up with mild contractions but didn't really want to acknowledge that they were contractions because I had a hair appointment at 2, and hadn't gotten it done since April...so no matter what I was getting my hair done! My Mom flew in that morning, which was nice because at my OB appointment on Tuesday he had said that we would be having a baby by the weekend so she made sure she got up here as soon as possible! Of course once Mom got here she insisted that I start timing my contractions, so I did...while I made a batch of soup and cleaned my house! :) They were fairly steady coming at 4 or so minutes apart, but for the most part they were completely bearable! So I was able to go to my hair appointment...woohoo baby! But during my appointment the intensity of the contractions grew, so after I decided I would go to labour & delivery to get checked out and see how I was progressing. When I went in my doctor checked me and said that I was about 1.5 cm dilated but that my cervix was short and soft and he did a sweep on me. He told me to go home and that he expected that we wouldn't be sleeping that night and that he would see us later. He told me to have a good meal and get some rest! I called Mom and Justin and told them I wanted some decent food, so I suggested BP, my oh so generous husband decided that BP was too expensive for my last meal and we went to McDonalds instead...we had coupons! After that we went home and Justin went to "Canadian Tire". Mom and I had planned to walk the neighbourhood and try and get things moving with the labour. When Justin came home he gave me what he called a "baby pushing present" of a Canon Rebel T3i!! EEEEEEEE!!!! I have wanted a DSLR camera since 2005 when I had one and it broke! It was honestly the best timing ever, because we had it for my labour and Declan's arrival! Sadly after walking and even going on the elliptical my contractions died down and I had a great sleep.

Thursday was much the same with contractions, I had them all day, but they didn't really seem to go anywhere and I was getting frustrated! Thursday night Mom and I went to Walmart and did some grocery shopping and just walked trying to make things move along. After walking for a little bit I decided I should probably check my blood pressure, it had been creeping up lately, so after sitting for 10 minutes I checked it and it was 149/98...kinda high. My OB had told me that if I have high BP again to come to the hospital and get checked. So we came home, ate dinner and then all went to the hospital. They hooked me up to a non-stress test machine, which checks my uterus for contractions and checks baby's heartbeat to make sure they are doing okay! My BP stayed pretty high and baby was sitting really low so he decided it was best to induce me so that we could get him out and get my BP back down! So they gave me a prostaglandin gel, which is just a cervix ripening gel that they put behind my cervix. After that, it was about 10:30 pm and I got moved to a room for the night and they gave me something to help me sleep! I was able to sleep for about 6.5 hours!

Friday morning I woke up and had my BP checked, which was still high. Since I hadn't really progressed from the night before they decided to give me another dose of the prostaglandin gel at 8:30 am and monitored me and baby again to see how we were doing. Baby was still doing great, but my BP was still really high. I had a shower and came back to the room and at that point my contractions really kicked into high gear. I was having fairly regular contractions at this point so I was moved over to the delivery room around 2 pm. I was frequently monitored for my BP and to see how Declan was doing in there. I was having pretty steady contractions by this point, and because of the gel I didn't really get breaks between them. I was generally having 2:45 long contractions with 30 second breaks in between them, but when we told the nurses about my contractions they said that "it wasn't possible" for me to be having contractions like that. Ummm....pretty sure it was happening! It was quite frustrating because then when they would come and check the machine it would not record most of my contractions. They said that I was having "tone" which is different than a contraction...they felt EXACTLY the same to me! By 5:30 the OB came in and checked me and I hadn't really progressed dilation wise but my cervix was looking really good. He told me to get up and get moving to help my body along. Standing was honestly the last thing I wanted to do, I found during my contractions I would just close my eyes and melt into my bed and that wasn't very easy to do while upright! So I got up and sat on the ball and my Mom rubbed my back as Justin went out for food. While sitting on the ball I pretty much had one steady contraction for 20 minutes...no joke. I was just crying asking for a break, because one would end and probably 5 seconds later another one would start up again.

At 9 pm my OB came and checked me again and I was still only 1.5 cm dilated, I was CRUSHED! I had been working SO hard all day and nothing had really happened! My cervix, once again was progressing well and looked ideal but I wasn't dilating. So my doctor talked about giving me something to relax my cervix and sending me home and waiting for it to happen naturally! Are you for real?! That would be the worst thing ever, I was so upset, I had pretty much been having contractions for 3 days at that point, and had been in proper labour for 12 hours already. He brought in the OB that was working that night to check me and he decided to break my water! WAHOO!!!!! Instantly I dilated to 3 cms and then made the switch out of my cutesy(water soaked) dress to a hospital gown and all the "sexy" garb that goes along with it! I was not feeling very well at this point, I had a headache and still had really high BP so they put me on an IV and gave me morphine for the pain. At 10:50 they took my BP and it was down to a normal level once again! At 11:30 I started to feel really sick and started vomiting for about 25 minutes, I was also feeling really groggy and tired. At 12:20 I decided to start oxytocin so help move things along and at 1:15 I wanted an epidural. Oh my gosh, best thing ever!! It made me feel like a human again!! Below you can see a before and after photo! Obvious difference! hehe! Mom, Justin and I were then able to get in a much needed nap and get up our energy!

The machines were still saying that I wasn't contracting regularly, and I apparently was having mostly "tone" and not legit contractions so we didn't really expect anything to happen. I had been disappointed so many times during the day so I didn't want to get my hopes up! At 3:50 my nurse decided that she would just check my dilation, she figured I would either be fully dilated or not at all since I had been complaining about the urge to go poo. She checked me and said, almost in a song, "you're gonna have a baaaaabbbyyyy" and we all cheered! It felt like such a long process to get there I was so stinking excited! I also had a wave of "crap....I have NO idea what I'm doing...how do I even push?!" At 4:15 we decided that I would try pushing to see how I did and how quickly we needed to call my OB to come deliver baby! I gave a couple good pushes when I felt the urge and my nurse decided that we should call the OB right away because I was a "good pusher" :) *pats back* They told me that I couldn't push until he got there because baby would have been born before he could make it. So I had to resist the urge to push, which was not easy! I asked for the birthing bar to be put up so I could use that to help push, so we set it up as we waited for my doctor to get there. Before he was there I decided that I didn't want to wait anymore and pushed a bit more, when he finally got there they told him that he needed to hurry up and get ready because I was almost done! I pushed until they told me that I needed to stop, at which point Justin had a looky loo and saw baby's head crowning! They asked me if I wanted to feel it...I certainly did not :) Quickly after I pushed his head out and they got me to look down to which I responded "OH MY GOSH!!" such a weird thing to see!! I pushed the rest of him out and he was born September 7 at 4:44 am after 20 hours of labour and about 30 minutes of pushing(including when I stopped to wait for my OB) plus I had the full effect of an epidural then too. When Declan was born he didn't have good oxygen levels, they put him on my chest to do their tests on him while we had skin on skin but he wasn't crying well and seemed a little lethargic. So they took him over and put him on a cpap machine, which for those of you who don't know what that is...its an oxygen machine! :) After he was on it for a bit he had a lot better colour and was able to cry and clear out his lungs! He weighed 6 lbs 4 oz and measured 18.5 inches long!

I went in to labour with a birth plan which I totally didn't stick to, but I am so happy with the results and the fact that I have a happy and healthy baby! Giving birth was honestly the hardest, most empowering thing I have ever experienced! I did end up with 2nd degree tears and got stitches, but it just makes the glam of it all (sarcasm) so much better!! :)

Having some fun with lunch

Justin passing some time

Before epidural

After epidural :)

Right after he was born, poor guy is all purple

Getting checked out

Happily swaddled