Our Birth Story

So, this post is about our birth story.  It's written by Justin and I, telling our own version of the story throughout the labor.  Justin's side of the story is written in blue and mine is written in pink; if only we could have Avery's side of the story as well :P.  It is a very long birth story, but it was an experience that we didn't want to forget; it was difficult yet an amazing 16 1/2 hours.
And, yes, there are pictures at the end!

 

THE DAY

We went at 11:00, on the 13^th of September, for a longer checkup than usual; because Sammie was past her due date, they wanted to check her fluid levels (AFI test) and listen to the baby's heartbeat for 20 min to make sure it was well. The sound test went great, our little girl's heart beat just how it should. After the ultrasound to check for fluid levels, we asked the technician how the ultrasound was looking. She responded with an ominous sounding “not good at all, your fluid levels are extremely low.” Perhaps a “looks like it's time to get your baby out” would have been a preferable way to break that news!

We went back to the lobby to wait for Katie Gubler (our midwife) to be available. Sammie was nervous at this point – she really didn't to have to get induced, with the higher C-section probability. She called her doula, Trisha Baird, to let her know, and we waited about ten minutes before Katie brought us back. She confirmed that we definitely needed to induce that day. She performed a check on Sammie, and found that was only just over a centimeter dilated. She told us to go home and eat some lunch, and come to the hospital around 2 or 2:30 and check in.

We went home for a frenzied round of last minute cleaning, and ate some leftover bean-and-beef burritos we'd made the day before. 

When the ultrasound technician told us that the fluid levels were low and that we were going to have that baby today, I remember feeling a rush of mostly confusion and uncertainty. I almost started crying because my emotions were so confusing. I would feel excited but then feel dread because I knew that being induced with the complications that I was having (the baby was posterior, I was only at 1 1/2 centimeters with no active labor signs) would make the labor very difficult.
When we went home to get ready, Justin was in super cleaning mode and trying to organize everything in sight. I went downstairs and got my music playlist sorted for the labor and just browsed the internet while listening to calming music so I could try to get my mind off of the coming induction. We packed our bags for the hospital, which was pretty fun to do, then we left for the hospital around 2. Justin and I both thought the drive to the hospital would be completely different as we were expecting to do most of my laboring at home and then leave for the hospital when my contractions were very close together and gathering in strength. Justin was disappointed he didn't get to speed through downtown St. George without getting in trouble to race me to the hospital; we just had to follow the speed limit and think about what lay ahead in the near future.

THE WAIT

We dutifully got to the hospital between 2 and 2:30. However, the hospital wasn't quite ready for us; there wasn't an open room quite yet (there were rooms, but not the nice ones with the tub – we wanted one of those!) They told us that one of them had just finished the labor and was moving upstairs, and that if we wanted to wait for about 20 minutes, we could have it. We went out and played a game of Carcossone on the iPad, watched some of a terrible Eddie Murphy movie on the TV (I Spy), and ate trail mix. And waited. And waited.

After about two hours, we finally moved into the room. 

At this point, I was just excited and ready to get started when we made it to the hospital and were waiting. We actually didn't really mind the wait because it was fun to have some time together, playing a game and sitting together on their waiting room couches. We got into our room though finally and it was time to get started. I asked them if I could just wear my own clothes and they were fine with that, instead of the hospital garments. Then we waited a bit more for the nurses and Katie to arrive. 

THE LABOR BEGINS

By 5pm, the first nurse had come in to get us started. Beeping monitors were activated, and an army of wires, and an IV were attached to Sammie. The nurse told Sammie she was going to need to check her again; though she'd just been checked at Katie's office, and checks are uncomfortable and painful. It made me quite mad at first that they were going to do that just to satisfy a bureaucratic requirement, but by the time it was actually happened, it had been a good 6+ hours since the check that was done at at Katie's office. It took until nearly 6pm for the induction to start.

Sammie was given a pill to dissolve in her mouth that started the labor induction. Within minutes, she was having semi-regular contractions, although faint and far apart. I turned down the heart rate monitor machine, because even perfectly regular sounding heartbeats sound terrifying in the hospital. We brought up Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves on our laptop, and tried to get lost in a movie as much as possible for the first bit. Sammie ordered a chicken wrap from the hospital, and I ate trail mix and beef jerky. We were able to enjoy the first half of the movie pretty well; even with contractions coming every 8, then 7, then 5 minutes, the power of Mel Brooks helped distract Sammie from the discomfort pretty well.

Halfway through the movie Katie came. After seeing nurse after nurse come in and do uncomfortable things to Sammie, it was quite a relief to see a trusted face come in. Katie checked Sammie and found that she hadn't progressed much since the afternoon. She decided to use what was basically a medical balloon – she inserted a tube into Sammie in what looked to be an incredibly uncomfortable and painful procedure, and begin inflation. There was lots of blood on her glove when she finished putting it in – thankfully Sammie didn't see it! We were told that it was going to inflate her to 2.5 cm over the next 45 minutes to 2 hours. The movie now wasn't as good of a distraction now that there was that painful tube forcibly dilating Sammie, but there was still a few laughs.

It was now almost 9 pm, so we called Trisha to come help with the labor (and had her bring me some Diet Pepsi – I drank a LOT of caffeine over the next 12-24 hours!). A new nurse came on at 9 named Pearl, that was there for the next 12 hours, and would prove to be extremely helpful and caring.

A little while after the movie finished, the balloon finally popped out. After that Sammie was able to get up and walk around. The hospital staff wanted her wires attached most of the time, so they hooked up a wireless transmitter for her. We walked around together, her with wires, me with a big electronic box around my neck hooked up to her wires.

We alternated between going on short walks through the hospital hallways (always stopping to smell the coffee), having her sit back for some contractions, and kneeling for others. 

When the doctors hooked me up to wires and monitors, it turns out that I actually was having some minor, regular contractions without any induction; it was as if Avery knew it was time to come out now. They were not regular enough though, so the pill that was given to me increased the contractions and started to set things on track. Katie had talked to Dr. Lunt, my obstetrician, and they decided that they needed to insert the balloon, which actually wasn't as painful as I thought it would be. The contractions started to get pretty painful and more frequent after that. I was not fond of that balloon after a short while; it felt like something was definitely widening down there and it wasn't normal at all. To add to that discomfort, I couldn't really move except to go to the bathroom. There was one bathroom break where I called the nurse because blood had started coming out everywhere. They called in Katie and she checked and verified it was still in place. Sometime after that they gave me another pill to dissolve in my mouth.
When Justin and I got up to walk around finally, after the balloon had fallen out (thank goodness I told myself), it was interesting to feel the contractions mounting and it was very nice to be able to lean on Justin and ride it out. Little did I know that these contractions were nothing compared to the ones coming soon. It was at this point that I started to sort of go to my 'happy place' and everything outside of the hospital did not exist anymore, and everything and everyone inside my hospital room was now all that existed, and all I cared about. 

THE LABOR GETS SERIOUS

Around 11, the contractions started getting more serious. There wasn't much we could do to distract her during them; only attempt to comfort her during them with a mix of pressure, hot towels, tennis balls, etc. Trisha was a life saver here. She knew exactly where and how to rub, how hot to make a hot towel (the one time I tried to fish a hot towel out and help Sammie, it burnt her – I avoided hot towels for the rest of the labor!), and so forth. Between contractions we tried to help her rest, make her drink water, and tell her how good she was doing. It was during this time that it started to be hard for me, seeing her in real pain; but it was just standard labor pain at this point, so we were still doing pretty good. It was progressing along, albeit not as fast as we would have liked.

After a while of this, she decided to try the hot tub. The hospital had a very nice hot tub – it looked more like something you'd find in a nice hotel than a medical facility. Pearl got the water to a good temperature, and Sammie disrobed and got in. We put in 3 or 4 pillows (which had a tendency to float to the top; we would have to push them down to the floor of the tub for Sammie to get on them.) Her contractions in the tub did look much less painful than those she had been doing in the room, and she was able to relax between. We kept feeding her lots of juices and water, and putting cool rags on her head to help balance her temperature out from the hot water. She was probably in for somewhere between half an hour and an hour, and it seemed to be going pretty well. After a while she needed to get out, because she was getting too hot/tired/dizzy from the tub. We helped her out, and took her to the bed.

Katie checked her dilation – these checks were always incredibly painful for Sammie, a very intense pain; nothing we had learned about in any of the birthing classes came even close to helping with this – and found that although the tub contractions had passed relatively painlessly, they also hadn't done much good; she was not any more dilated then when she had got into the tub.

Out of the tub, the 'relatively painless' part was gone; the contractions were very strong, stronger than before we'd got her out of the tub. At one point Sammie ended up in the bathroom (having had to urinate), and had to pass a couple of contractions on the toilet because she was too wiped out to move. Sweat drenched her so much, that although she had dried off after getting out of the tub, a look at her would have you thinking that she had just been swimming again. She made it back to the bed for another period of extremely painful contractions.

After walking for a while, I did not want to really stand up anymore so we headed back to the room. I wanted to try every position that I had read and learned about that was supposed to ease labor. I found that going to the bathroom was terrifying because every time I went to the bathroom a contraction would hit within seconds afterward. Needless to say, I could not shut the door to the bathroom anymore and I made sure Justin and Trisha were close by to help me through those difficult contractions. The sink in the bathroom became my friend as I leaned on it many times and squatted through contractions.
There was a point where Katie had me sit on the toilet to ride through some contractions. This was mostly because I really couldn't handle going to the bathroom and coming back into the room anymore, so she had me stay there for a while.

Again, during all of this I was still in my 'happy place' and really time just didn't matter anymore. I remember switching positions often and leaning, squatting, kneeling on the bed, hands and knees on the bed; everything. I remember though vividly thinking that I could not, and would not, get through another contraction without Justin. If he had to go the bathroom I was desperately wanting him to hurry, asking Trisha where he was if he was even gone for a second. He hurried back every time, and I only remember him being gone two or three times. I remember I would stare at his stomach, while laying on my side, and grab onto him as hard as I could while dealing with a contraction and it was the only thing really getting me through. There was one position they had me do where I was sitting on the bed with the bottom half lowered down so the bed now looked like a chair. They had Justin on his knees in front of me and I held onto him tightly throughout contractions. I think this is where Justin hurt his back because he was at this position for over an hour, maybe more. I liked this position because I could really hold onto him.

At about this time I was having such difficult contractions, I felt like I really couldn't go on with them anymore. I looked at Justin desperately and said “Justin, I really can't do this. I really can't.” I don't remember what he said, but Katie said “I'll do whatever you want me to Samantha, just tell me what you want.” I thought for about 5 of the longest seconds of my life about whether I wanted to take drugs or not. My thought process was whether I wanted to risk having my baby not be as alert or active and being relieved of this pain or have her active and alert and deal with this pain no matter how bad it got. I accepted the fact that I was going to do this, with this pain that was unbearable, because it wouldn't last forever and it would end. My mantra became, “This will end. I can do this.”

And so after those 5 longest seconds of my life, I laid down on the bed and held onto Justin, literally and figuratively, repeating my mantra under my breath over and over and over. When it got really difficult I think I yelled it out. 

THE LABOR STOPS MOVING FORWARD

After a while, Katie needed to check her again. She found that the dilation had not progressed at all since Sammie had got out of the tub a long time previous. She probed deeper to investigate, causing my poor wife great agony; the news she discovered was even worse. A lip inside was preventing the baby from coming down; rather than sliding down, her neck had been bending more and more at an angle. Laying on her side would help fix this with future contractions, but at this point she'd already been in labor for over 12 hours (induced, unmedicated labor), and was already beyond physical exhaustion, and in unbearable pain. To make matters worse, the low fluid levels were making a speedy delivery more and more important. They told her she needed to take Pitocen – high levels of – if she even was going to have a chance of a natural birth. As soon as they got that in her through the IV, the medical professionals congregated in a circle, and started talking about getting a doctor in for a C-section, and which doctor it would be.

The next hour was literally the worst hour of my life. Sammie was too out of it to notice the doctors talking, and her eyes were closed so she could not see how distressed I look. At this point, it was looking like the best case scenario was that we would have a C-section; the last 12 hours of painful labor would be in vain, and Sammie wouldn't get the natural delivery and skin-on-skin she wanted so much. The worst case, which was looking more and more likely, was that we were going to lose the baby. I doubt that Sammie's life was ever in much danger, but with her completely wasted appearance and all the bad news (and probably extreme exhaustion on my part), I worried it about it very, very vividly.

The medical professionals at this point seemed lost (I think they were mostly just waiting for the doctor that would do the C-section to be available), and I'll never forgot how alone and useless I felt. Without the doctors and nurses, and not believing in God or any other powers, I felt like I was Sammie's only connection to any hope. I talked more frantic, more positive, and with more willing of something to happen than I ever had.

Sammie was way too out of it at this point to notice much of what was going on, so I just tried to give her hope. I held her hand tight, got close, and just talked about how everything was going to be okay. She laid on her side, and mostly seemed to get by between contractions by going to a place inside where she literally didn't even know where she was or what was coming. During the contractions, she worked through them with more strength and energy than I ever knew was possible for anyone to have. I have no idea how long this cycle went on – it seemed like a literal eternity. A guess would be an hour or two.

In the end, it worked. After an endless amount of extreme contractions, Katie checked Sammie again. The check was again beyond painful for Sammie, but it brought with it good news – she had progressed pass a 7 to an 8 ½.

They had me laying on my side after this and I knew then and there that I wasn't actually working with the contractions, I was fighting them. As I laid down, realizing that the pain wasn't going to stop unless I found strength to work with them, I decided to try. Justin and I repeated the phrase, “Go Down” over and over as I thought really hard about working with my baby to get her to go down farther. There were a couple times that I really wanted to just yell out by myself, so I told Justin to stop talking once and one time that I pushed him away because I couldn't speak to tell him to stop. I am grateful that I wasn't more mean to him than that.

Trisha suggested I make low guttural sounds in sync with how much pain I was in. So, when a contraction started I made this sound that probably was very scary sounding to everyone. As each contraction grew so did my voice. Then, I really had to go to the bathroom but knew that there was no way I was getting to the toilet. Katie told me to just let it go, so I did.

At some point Justin got ahold of the oxygen and I remember thinking “What the heck, I don't want that!”. But, after one time of trying it, I grabbed for it every time I was done riding through a contraction. I had to have that oxygen, holding onto it frantically. There were a few contractions where I was shaking in agony, as I clutched to the side rails. The nurses would help, and Trisha, to push on my knees so the pressure on my back wouldn't be so bad. I remember being really scared if the nurses and Trisha weren't really close by to help push on my knees. I felt like these contractions were never ending, and I should be feeling the urge to push by now. However, I just kept riding through contractions and grabbing the oxygen, or Justin's hand to put the oxygen on me, after each one. I zoned out, and forgot about everything but the upcoming contraction between them. I had no idea that everyone was worried about us and things weren't going well. I started to feel an urge to push so Katie checked me, which brought on the worst contraction yet. That was the only contraction where I screamed and cried out in pain. I did hear that there was a lip in the way, which was devastating to hear. But, I kept going, and going.

It was then that I remember seeing people coming in and getting ready. I thought this meant that I was getting close so it brought me some happiness. They asked me to get on my hands and knees to do some pushing, so I did. I told Justin again that I couldn't do it, and he said “I was worried about you before, but you're close now, you can do this.” So, I did it, I started to push.

THE LABOR RESUMES

It took what I'd guess was another hour of this cycle for her to get fully to a ten, but the news gave us (or me at least, and I think Katie and the nurses) newfound optimism. I don't think Sammie even realized the milestone she'd passed – she was completely out of it between contractions still. The hours passed, soon it went from the early morning hours into just regular morning hours. Pearl left, a new nurse came in.

THE LABOR FINISHES

After Sammie made it to 10 cm, it was time for the pushing. This may sound bad, but after so many hours of doubt and terror, knowing everything was okay and normal at this point, I didn't even feel as bad for her pain – I was too excited, and relieved. I didn't even know relief could feel that strong or overpowering, but it did. It took about an hour for the final part of the labor. Sammie came to a bit more, tugged on ropes the nurses provided, pushed as many times as each contraction would allow, and was determined in general.

I had originally planned not to watch the birth itself (gross!), but I ended up in a position helping Sammie for the last couple of contractions where I had a clear view. Katie could see the head from her 'special vantage point' before the rest of us, but eventually a few hairs would peek out after each push before retreating back in. After every battery of pushes, more dark black hairs would peek out a bit, then slip back in. Finally almost the whole head was out (in a disgusting mess of blood and birthing fluids... eeick!) before sliding back in, and the next battery of pushes got it far enough that Katie was able to pull the rest of the baby out. I was quite surprised how after so much effort over the previous 16 ½ hours of labor, and how it took nearly an hour to get the head crowning, the entire baby popped out all at once.

The pushing stage of the labor was pretty difficult. I felt small urges to push in the beginning, but in a short amount of time the urge to push and the amount of pushing I had to do was extreme and intense. There were about 5 or 6 people helping me at this point. There was a nurse on each side of me, holding my legs up and one other nurse who was holding onto a towel with knots in it with me standing behind Katie, who was sitting in the delivery zone and then Justin holding my hand and putting oxygen on me between pushes.
I pulled onto that towel with everything I could as I looked at that nurse who kept telling me to keep pulling. After a long time of pulling and pushing, they put my hands on these handles on the side of the bed and I pushed as they were holding my legs up still and I curled down, with my chin to my chest. The pushing stage lasted forever it felt like. Just as with all the other stages, it felt like it was lasting so much longer than it should have. Katie kept telling me that we needed to have this baby, and I felt like we needed to as well. Looking at the clock, I remember wanting to have my baby before 10AM, so I pushed harder and harder. There was a nurse on the side, holding my leg and foot that coached me through each push. I listened and focused on her. If she told me to push, I pushed with everything I had. Near the end, everyone was telling me to push hard and that my baby was almost here. I remember feeling like there was no way I could push harder, but then I did. They were asking me if I wanted to feel her head, but I felt like that would put me over the edge, so I said no. I just wanted to focus what energy I had left, on pushing her out.

AFTER THE LABOR

As fast as she came out with the last push, the team of doctors was even faster. I think they had the cord clamped in two places and cut before she even finished popping out! They had her on a little incubator with oxygen within seconds, because of their worries about her breathing. It only took a few seconds though before Avery was crying (quite loudly), and it was evident she was okay. They gave her a quick clean and did some medicinal stuff I couldn't see too well, but within a minute or two she was able to go back onto Sammie's chest. Sammie was only able to hold her for a little bit because of how tight she was squeezing while Katie finished her up, but she did get some of the skin-to-skin she wanted so bad about as close to immediately as you can get.

After that I took her over to the couch, and held for about 10 minutes. She seemed happy, or at least content, and I tried to get a few pictures of her. After Sammie's finishing stitches were done, she took her back as a lactation consultation came in to help her with her first breastfeeding, and I fell asleep on the couch exhausted.

When she came out, I felt a tremendous rush of relief. The respiratory team took care of her and Katie started to stitch me up. When they brought her to me, they put her on my stomach and put a heavy blanket on both of us. I pushed out the placenta, which oddly enough I wish I could have seen, and Katie took care of it. Justin took Avery after a while because I felt like I was going to crush her, my muscles were still aimed on pushing. Justin immediately took off his shirt, which kind of surprised the nurse standing next to him, and held Avery skin-to-skin on the couch next to us.

After the lactation consultant left, I did need to go to the bathroom. It is true what they say; right after giving birth, you need help going to the bathroom for the first time. It was pretty difficult to say the least. I felt like I definitely had been run over by a very powerful train. After that, they put me in a wheelchair and we moved up to the recovery room. I wasn't sure how I looked physically, so I was pretty self conscious when there were suddenly people from outside the hospital that were coming in to see new babies in the hallways and elevators.

The hospital food was amazing, I just have to say. I had chocolate molten lava cake for my first dessert and I ate it so fast I had a sugar rush, shaking for about 15 min. afterward. Their food was first rate, and the nurses and doctors were first rate. I am so grateful for all of the wonderful people that helped us, because we could not have done any of it without them. And, this whole experience, though difficult, was one that I would do again in a heartbeat if I knew it meant getting to be with my little girl. 

Avery on Justin's chest