Samuel August Lindsey: A Birth Story

***Disclaimer: this is a slightly traumatic birth story and could be triggering to some*** 

I guess I will start this birth story with April 2nd, the day after Easter. My cousins had come up to visit and give me a haircut. I was just sitting on my hospital bed talking to them when my water broke. We knew that I was at a very high risk for this happening because all of the bleeding weakens the amniotic sac. When I realized what had happened I told my nurse and they moved me over to labor and delivery.

They gave me another round of steroids for his lungs and magnesium for his brain. The doctors told me that most women go into labor within 48 hrs of their water breaking, and that 95% will go into labor within one week. They did an ultrasound and found that baby was head down, which meant I would be able to labor normally and wouldn’t have to have an automatic C-section. They told me after the water breaks, it is very hard for baby to switch positions, so he would most likely stay head down. They watched me overnight in labor and delivery to see if I was having any contractions, and I wasn’t. They sent me back to my antepartum room the next morning. 

5 days later, Saturday April 7th, I started having contractions 3-7 minutes apart, lasting for about a minute. They were only slightly uncomfortable, but they were very consistent. They continued all night, all day Sungday, and all Sunday night. They were still mild enough that I was able to sleep most of the night, but by Monday morning they seemed to pick up a bit. It was hard for me to tell if they were actually getting more painful, or if my tolerance for them was just waning after dealing with them for so long. 

They weren’t wanting to do a lot of checks for dilation since my chance for infection was already high with my water broken. So unless my contractions started to get longer and more intense, they weren’t really treating it as labor. They even ran some tests to make sure it wasn’t a kidney stone or something else causing the contractions. 

Monday night I slept very fitfully. They gave me some Benadryl and Tylenol before bed and that made it so I could sleep from about 1030-2. Then my contractions randomly stopped for 2 hours around 530 am, so I was able to get a couple more hours of sleep before the they woke me up again at 730. 

And so it continued all day long. I would have a contraction every 4-5 minutes at this point, lasting at least 1 minute, and they were definitely getting more painful. I told Ben I felt like I needed some support and asked if he could leave work to come be with me at the hospital. He came over and we convinced them to check me around 4 pm. They said I was not dilated at all. This was hard to hear. 

Obviously, I wanted the baby to stay in as long as possible, but at the same time, I was really struggling mentally with not knowing how long I was going to have to deal with these contractions. It was to the point that I had to be listening to my hypnobabies tracks, using a tens unit on my back to help me cope, and Ben was giving me counter pressure. It was such a different labor pattern than with my other births and I just thought maybe my body had to work harder to make it happen so early since I normally go overdue. 

Finally, around 6 pm I broke down. The pain was so bad, so deep in my hips, that it felt the same to me as when I was dilated to a 10 with Charlie. I told my nurse that I didn’t understand how I could be in so much pain and not be dilating. I told her I needed an epidural or a shot of morphine or something, so she paged the doctor. 

Based on my pain level, the doctor decided she wanted to check me again. This was at 6:35 pm. This time she said I was 4 cm dilated, but wanted to know when my last ultrasound was, because she thought she felt baby’s butt. I told her it was last week, he was head down, and there was no way he could have turned without water in there. She rolled in an ultrasound machine and confirmed that, somehow, he had flipped breech. She started yelling out the hall for nurses to come help and a bunch ran in the room. The doctor told the nurses we needed to get my bed to L&D so that they could try to get one more bolus of magnesium in before doing a csection. 

I won’t lie, I lost it. I have always been terrified of surgery and I had thought I was totally in the clear with him being stuck head down without water. I started bawling and asking if they could just turn him and she told me he was too small to do a version. I was absolutely hysterical and also still experiencing very intense contractions. The next thing I knew they were running my bed through the hallways to L&D.

We get to L&D, they get some monitors on me, and start hooking up some magnesium. However, at this point I’m making some pretty weird, deep, guttural noises that I know are typical of women about to birth a baby. I look at the doctor and tell her I’m feeling a lot of pressure and that I might need to push. She checks me again and says, “Never mind, no time for mag! We need to get to the OR now!” She slams her hand on the emergency button and suddenly the room floods with people. The OR was probably 10 feet from the room that I was in, and when the nurses stopped the bed to grab something the doctor said, “No, leave it, we need to get in there NOW.” 

Next thing I know they are moving me onto the operating table and telling me they have to put me out completely because they don’t have time for anything else. They also wouldn’t be able to have Ben back there because it was too much of an emergency. Apparently, when she checked me again, I was completely dilated and one of Sam’s feet was already out. He was in a jackknifed position and they said his little legs were already bruised from it when they got him out. He was born at 7:04 pm (less than 30 minutes after she said I was dilated to a 4). 

Everything went black for me. Then the next thing I know, I am waking up, shaking, and telling everyone that I’m freezing and my incision hurts. They start wrapping me up in blankets and trying to figure out how to get my pain under control. 

They told Ben that I would probably be incoherent, confused, and wouldn’t really remember anything. Instead, I was totally coherent, remembered everything, and immediately started asking about the baby, and whether or not I had needed another blood transfusion while I was under. 

My mom and Bonnie had gotten there while I was in surgery, so Ben and Bonnie went to go look at him first. However, Ben had been sick all week and thought he could just wear a mask, but they wouldn’t let him. So Bonnie was actually the first person to see him and take pictures to show us. 

Once they got my pain under control, they wheeled my bed into the NICU so that I could see him on my way to postpartum. They told me he was doing really well, and I got to hold his little hand and talk to him. 

So far it has been a very disjointed experience. I wasn’t awake while giving birth to my baby, and now he is in the NICU being cared for by other people. It doesn’t really feel like I had him or that he is mine yet. It was pretty traumatic, and I feel like Ben and I will be processing it all for some time. However, it is a relief to just know that he is here and safe. Life is still going to be far from normal for us, but I’m excited to recover, get some strength back, sleep in my own bed, see more of my older boys, and watch this little one grow. 

Charlie's Birth Story: The Main Event

Getting into the car and dealing with contractions in the car was the worst. Thankfully we only live ten minutes from the hospital, there was no traffic (it was 5 AM after all) and my contractions slowed way down so I only had 2-3 on the way there. I facetimed Bonnie in the car and she helped me through some contractions and I filled her in on how my labor had been thus far. 

When we got to the hospital we weren't sure where to park, so we just parked where we did for appointments and then walked across the street to the hospital. As soon as I got out of the car my contractions started coming quick and I had four or five of them between the car and the hospital doors.

Finally we got to labor and delivery and got all checked in. At this point my body was still shaking so badly that it was making it so hard for me to relax and focus when my muscles were seizing up involuntarily. They checked me and said I was dilated to (only!) about a 6/7 and then asked if I wanted anything for the pain. I told them I had wanted to go natural, but that the shaking was really throwing me off. The nurse told me that the baby's head was really low and that she didn't think it would be more than an hour and a half before he was born. Then she went and got some heavy blankets to see if the weight would stop the shaking and sure enough it did. Suddenly I was able to focus again and I told her I didn't need anything for pain.

I got back in the zone with my hypnobabies, they dimmed the lights, and then the midwife on-call came in to introduce herself. She was so nice and was talking to me in a whisper so that I could continue to focus. She complimented me on how well I was doing and if I do say so myself, I was killing it at this point ;). I was going through transition and you would never know it. I was just laying there completely limp with my eyes closed and just humming through each contraction.

However, I started to get really hot and sweaty under those heavy blankets, I decided I needed them off, and the shaking came back. I LOST it. I could feel Charlie moving into position during each contraction and suddenly I needed that epidural and I needed it now. The nurse offered to let me get in the shower and see if hydrotherapy would help, but that didn't seem promising to me since I hadn't gotten much relief from the tub. I told her to just get the anesthesiologist. I also asked for some nausea medication because sure enough I started throwing up that dang Indian food*. 

At this point there was a shift change and my new nurse was super annoying to me. I was struggling with my contractions and she just came up in my face with her bad breath and said, "It's OK, everyone gets through this part so you will too." I didn't find that helpful at all and I wanted to punch her. Then they kept trying to get me to scoot over a few feet during a contraction so they could start the epidural and finally I had to yell, "JUST GIVE ME A MINUTE!" haha.

Finally they gave me the epidural and then they immediately lost the baby's heartbeat. They gave me an oxygen mask and moved the monitors around a bit but couldn't pick it up again. They checked me and realized that I was fully effaced and dilated, and the reason they couldn't get the heartbeat was because he was already starting to move down and it was time to start pushing.

At this point the epidural started to take  effect, but only on my left side. For some reason I could still feel the contractions on the right half of my torso and down into my right leg. This was so annoying to me because if I would have known it wasn't going to bring complete relief I would have just powered through without the epidural. I pushed the little button to administer more epidural to see if that would make my right half numb, but it didn't, it just made my legs suuuuper numb so that they were dead weight and so that I couldn't tell at all what I was doing while I was pushing.

The epidural slowed my contractions waaaay down. I started pushing, but the contractions were almost five minutes apart and I couldn't tell what I was doing at all, so it ended up being about an hour before he was born. 

Finally, at 930 AM Charlie was born and I pulled him up onto my chest. My first thought was that he looked just like Henry but smaller, and to be honest this really confused me. We also didn't have a name picked out yet so I just kept looking at him thinking, "Who are you?" 

They let the cord stop pulsing and Ben cut it, and then they let me cuddle and nurse him for an hour before they even did any tests or measurements on him. It was sooo nice. I loved that they didn't just whisk my baby away from me as soon as he was out. 

He ended up weighing 7 lbs. 1 oz and was 18.5 inches long, which seems like SUCH a little guy to us. He is healthy though and that's all that matters. My recovery was a breeze (I only got one stitch), and I was dying to get home after only a day in the hospital. 

So far Charlie has been pretty mellow, but in the past few days we've noticed he gets reaaaalllly cranky if he gets overtired, so we have to be watchful of that. He usually sleeps fairly well at night, sometimes waking up as little as twice (day sleep is a different story). He is having trouble gaining weight because of his lip tie (which also caused me to get mastitis), but we are getting it lasered off this week and I expect breastfeeding to get much easier after that. 

Henry is so sweet with him, always giving him hugs and kisses, and getting down in his face to smile at him. He has kind of taken it in stride, although I know he misses the amount of attention he used to get from me. 

Overall I am very happy with my birth experience and I just love my two sweet little boys. I am slightly sad that I got an epidural when I was so close to the end, and I'm positive that if Bonnie was there to help me I would have been able to do it. For some reason it is just something I have always wanted to do and sometimes I even ask myself why??? And I'm not even sure that I would try again if we have another, but I said that after Henry too and here we are. But it really doesn't matter either way because the experience was still lovely and had a healthy outcome. 

Now to just get past our breastfeeding problems, survive the newborn fog, and get out of the house on occasion ;). 

The End

*Guess what my first two post-birth meals in the hospital were? Saag paneer and chicken tikka masala. Ohhh the irony. 

Charlie's Birth Story: Laboring at Home

At this point I hadn't told anyone I was having contractions, so both Ben and my mom went to sleep while I put in my hypnobabies and silently worked through them laying down. I tried to sleep, but started to feel like I needed a new position to labor in. I sat on my birth ball and stacked a bunch of pillows on my bed so I could lean on them and relax. I'm not sure how long I stayed like that because time flies for me when I'm in labor, but after awhile I decided I wanted to try laboring in the tub.

I was excited to get in the tub because I always hear people say how good it feels during labor and how much it helps with the pain, but I have to say it didn't work that way for me. It helped me relax and focus, but there was no reduction in pain. I sat in there for awhile (again, I don't know the times of any of this) and then I decided I should probably get out and have Ben start timing some contractions so we could figure out when to head into the hospital.

When I got out of the tub, my body started shaking, and originally I figured it was just cause I was cold and went back in our room. While Ben was timing my contractions he commented on how bad I was shaking and then I remembered hearing that some women shake as they go through transition and I started to get a little nervous that I was more progressed than I realized. I told Ben to call labor and delivery and give them the status of my contractions and to see what they thought. When they heard I was a second time mom they told us to come in (Later the nurses were joking around and said, "You've gotta come in sooner next time cause those third time moms sneeze and their babies come out.").

Ben started running around grabbing all of our bags and things and loading them into the car, and I went into the kitchen to try to get some last minute nourishment to keep my energy levels up. My contractions were coming about every three minutes and lasting about a minute to a minute and a half at this point, and Ben was getting really nervous. He came into the kitchen saying, "What are you doing? Get in the car! These are getting intense!" (Also, he was really annoyed that it was garbage night and that he had to move the garbage, recycling, and compost out of the way to get our car out, and then put them back before we could leave... haha.) So off we went to have a baby!

Charlie's Birth Story: Preamble

I wanted to quickly write down some things about this pregnancy since I haven't and this is mainly for my own records anyway. It was so different from my pregnancy with Henry. I was convinced that I was having a girl this time around because it was completely opposite. I had no morning sickness, plenty of energy (but still took a daily nap;), no awful hip pain, I slept great the whole time, and most importantly... no PUPPS! It went by so fast and I felt great even at the end.

There was some debate about my due date (mainly by me), as my early ultrasound put it at September 4th, but because I track my cycle by temping, I knew it was at least September 9th. I figured I would be overdue again because I was with Henry, but I figured it would only be a few days rather than 8 like last time. However, at my 36 week appointment they realized that my belly was measuring small and ordered an ultrasound to check the baby's growth. After this they decided that the baby was healthy and growing, but they wondered if my due date could possibly be off because he was on the smaller side. Nevertheless, they kept my due date as the 4th.

My sister Bonnie was coming out to be my doula, but she could only stay for a week, so I decided to have her come September 5th-13th so that if I was a few days over either due date, she would be there. Once she got here, we started doing a few things here and there to try to encourage labor, but I didn't want to go too crazy because it can get stressful and frustrating if you try a bunch of stuff and it doesn't work. So I bounced on the birth ball, ate some pineapple, drank red raspberry leaf tea, but mainly we just enjoyed keeping each other's company and I soaked in my last little bit of time with Henry as my only child.

The week wore on and nothing was happening, so at my appointment on September 11th I had the doctor strip my membranes. That was also the night my mom was flying in, so I figured it would be perfect if I went into labor that day so my mom could be with Henry. That night as I was going to bed I started having contractions. I was so excited that it was happening while Bonnie was still here! I paid attention to them for about an hour and decided they were happening about every 5 minutes. I decided I was probably in early labor and I should try to get some sleep. Imagine my surprise when I woke up the next morning and the contractions were gone.

I was starting to get desperate at this point. I was 8 days overdue according to my doctor's due date, they were pushing me for an induction by the 17th at the latest, and Bonnie was leaving the next day. I really didn't want to be induced and I really wanted Bonnie's help, so I decided we would be a little more aggressive in trying to help things along. We went to the mall and I started running up and down the stairs, power walking, and doing squats. It did nothing other than make me sore and tired. Finally, I decided I would use the breast pump to try to stimulate contractions. It worked! I started having contractions and they lasted for 4 hours, at which point I decided to try to get some sleep. Yet again I woke up the next morning and my contractions were gone.

Bonnie left, I was depressed, and I decided I would just have to wait until it happened on its own. I went to another prenatal appointment on the 15th, and the doctor stripped my membranes again because, according to them, I was coming up on 42 weeks and it was my best shot to avoid induction.

That day, my friend Alicia was in town for business and she wanted to bring us some food and visit. I was craving Indian food, so she brought me some chicken tikka masala and saag paneer. As I was eating it I was thinking that I would probably go into labor that night just because I was eating something that would be awful to throw up (I always throw up when I'm in labor). Then later that night we realized it was the Masterchef finale and I stayed up late watching it. As I was watching it I was thinking how I would probably go into labor that night just because I had stayed up late and wouldn't be well rested.

Well, sure enough, when I was putting Henry to bed I had a few contractions, then a few more during Masterchef, and then by the time I went to bed I was having contractions regularly. I could tell that this time it was real. It was go time!

Lullabies

As I sit and rock my baby to sleep at night, I sing two songs to him. One of these songs I heard in high school and promised myself I would sing it to my children one day. However I never expected the effect that the lyrics would have on me...

"They didn't have you where I come from...
Never knew the best was yet to come...
Life began when I saw your face...
And I hear your laugh like a serenade...
How long do you want to be loved?
Is forever enough is forever enough?
Cause I'm never gonna give you up...
Is forever enough is forever enough?"

I always start to cry at the second line because it is so true. I never realized how much I would love my little baby. If I would have known, I might have had kids sooner.

I love being a mom.

Things I've learned about being a mom

1. You can function off of 2 hours of sleep.Who knew.

2. Breastfeeding is boring and it is all you do. Listen to Harry Potter audiobooks to pass the time.

3. If your baby is cries out as if in pain and lets out a grown man fart, buy some mylicon and reevaluate your diet.

4. If you get to brush your teeth and wash your face before noon, it is a productive day.

5. If your baby pees through every diaper you put on him, move him up a size in diapers. It will save you a lot of time and laundry.

6. Umbilical cord stumps are gross.

7. If you have to be somewhere at noon, start getting ready at 9. By the time you feed the baby, change his diaper, pack the diaper bag, get yourself ready, and feed and change him again, you will barely make it on time.

8. Giving your baby a bath for the first time is scary. Invest in a baby tub.

9. Having a little person be so completely dependent on you is amazing and terrifying at the same time.

10. You really will love your baby more than you ever thought possible, and just like everyone says, it is hard but you wouldn't have it any other way.

And some pictures for Ashlee...

Henry's birth story: Part 3

At this point, I woke Ben up because I was really needing to focus through the contractions and I also felt the need to stand up and lean against him as I swayed and tried to breath through them. I told him to call my mom and tell her to come to the hospital since she wasn't originally planning on coming until later since we thought the induction would take awhile.

My mom got to the hospital around 830 AM and by that point I was entering transition. People really mean it when they say that transition is the most intense part of labor. At this point I threw up a couple of times and was needing Ben to give me counter pressure with each contraction. I would lean over on the bed and say, "Higher! Lower! Harder!" as Ben pushed against my tail bone.

The counter pressure helped a lot when I could find just the right spot for it, but the contractions were coming so fast now and I was so exhausted that I was really struggling to get through them, and then I would practically fall asleep in the fifteen seconds before the next one. I kept saying, "I just need a longer break. Henry just give me a little break, please." I had read birth stories where contractions had stopped for women around this point as if their body was giving them a break before pushing, and in that moment I just really wanted to be one of them.

I had told Ben that if I ever got to the point that I said, "I can't do this anymore," it meant that I was in transition and that he needed to help me push through it. I was right. When I uttered those words I was dilated to an 8, but Ben was not about to make me push through it. I asked him for his side of that story and he said, "I know that's what I was supposed to do, but I don't believe that any husband could bear to make their wives push through it when they are experiencing that kind of pain and exhaustion."

My midwife came in and when she saw how I was doing she said, "Sydney, you've done an amazing job, especially enduring everything that you've already had to endure. You've made it all the way to an 8, but my concern is that you are not going to have the energy to push. It's just a suggestion, and you don't have to do it, but I think you should get an epidural." I thought about it and I realized that she was right. It had been a week since I had had more than two hours of uninterrupted sleep at a time and I didn't want them to have to use forceps or a vacuum to try to get him out of me, so I said, "OK. I want an epidural." I think Ben was more relieved at this point than I was.

They made everyone else leave the room during the epidural which I hated because I really needed to lean forward onto someone's shoulders if I was going to sit down during contractions and they made me just grab onto a pillow instead. I remember the anesthesiologist saying, "OK you have to hold really still if you have a contraction while I'm putting the needle in or it will go too far and become a spinal." HA! Holding still during a contraction makes it 17 trillion times more painful...

Once the epidural took effect I was out like a light in a matter of seconds and I was able to get about two hours of sleep before they woke me up and told me that I was dilated completely and it was almost time to push. They went to get my midwife and while we waited for her I suddenly became much more aware and self-conscious because I wasn't turned inward to work through the pain. I realized that my friend Betty, who I had asked to take pictures of the birth, was there and had been since shortly after my mom got there. I also realized that I still had pink calamine lotion slathered all over my body and that I hadn't washed my hair or face in two days because I'd been so consumed with the PUPPS. Suddenly I wasn't so sure that I wanted those birth pictures after all ;).

My midwife came in and asked if I wanted her to turn off the epidural for pushing and I said yes. I started pushing, and for awhile I still couldn't feel anything, but eventually it wore off and I was able to push a lot more productively. The time came that I felt "the ring of fire" and I think that was the worst part of the whole labor for me. I had wanted to push slowly to reduce my risk of tearing, but when I felt that "ring of fire" I couldn't stand to not push through it.

I pushed for about an hour total before Henry Doc Lindsey was born on Wednesday, August 22, 2012 at 1:51 PM weighing in at 8 pounds 1 ounce and measuring 20 and 1/4 inches long. My midwife pulled him out and said, "Mom reach down and grab your baby," so I did and I pulled him up on my chest, holding him close, examining every inch of him, and telling him how much I loved him.

It's hard to describe how I felt in that moment. I always thought I would cry, but I didn't. Instead, I just felt complete, as though I was saying, "Oh there you are, I've been waiting for you."  I instantly felt like his mom and I instantly loved him.

I finished the delivery, they clamped the cord, and then some mean nurse took him away from me to wipe him off, wrap him up, and stimulate him because he wasn't crying a lot. Ben got nervous about him not crying, but I knew that he was just fine and was annoyed that she took him from me. I kept saying, "Wait, can I do skin-to-skin with him?" and one of the other nurses had to say, "She wants to do skin-to-skin," so she finally brought him over and laid him back on my chest.

During all of this I was bleeding more than what is normal and Ben was pretty freaked out about it. I only had a first degree tear but apparently it was in a very vascular spot and so it caused me to bleed really bad. My hemoglobin dropped four points and they were almost going to give me a blood transfusion but they didn't because I wasn't exhibiting other signs of needing one. I was pretty blissfully unaware of all of this at the time because I was just soaking in my new little baby.

Things didn't go as I originally planned. But I think that everything happened exactly the way it needed to and I'm very happy when I look back on my birth experience. Things are going really well at home with my sweet little boy, he already knows and loves his mama.  Both Ben and I are absolutely smitten with him. And my PUPPPS rash is still around in some spots, but definitely not near as unbearable and is getting better every day.

The End.