One Step at a Time: Adelyn's Birth Story Part One

Now that she's over 3 weeks old I figure it's time to write this thing down before sleep deprivation erases all the details from my mind. I just never want to put her down long enough to write this out...so we've compromised and this is what we're doing right now:

I was holding her in my lap and she started randomly screaming until I put her on my chest. Baby girl loves cuddling.

So I guess the story starts early on April 4th. I started having early labor contractions at some point in the early morning hours. April 4th would have been my grandpa's 100th birthday so we were really rooting for a baby that day but no such luck. The contractions lessened in intensity during the day and got worse at night after I'd been asleep. This continued until Sunday night. Around 10:30 or 11 I started having worse contractions but I tried sleeping until midnight and then I woke Jake up and we started timing them. They were 7ish minutes apart...then 6.5...then 6...then randomly shot up to 10 minutes for awhile. And then down to 4 minutes. We kept this up until about 5am. They started hurting so unbelievably bad...they hurt all through my stomach, lower back, and were spreading down through my thighs. I called my midwife and she said to go to the hospital and she would see me around 8:30 when she got there.

The whole 40 minute drive to the hospital my contractions were 3-4 minutes apart. We got there around 6am and I was 5 cm dilated and the nurse said we weren't leaving without a baby. This both relieved me and freaked me out. Since I wasn't 39 weeks yet they couldn't give me anything to start labor or break my water so I had to go naturally. I was afraid that I wouldn't be dilating and would have to live with those painful contractions until Friday when I would be 39 weeks. Thankfully, labor was progressing just fine.

They monitored the baby for awhile and then told me I could get up and walk around to help move things along so I put on a robe and walked about 5 feet down the hallway before I started having another contraction. As Jake was asking me if I wanted to walk through it or stop and rest, my water broke. Everywhere. A nurse walked out of the room next door and I just stared at her and then turned around and walked back in my room to get cleaned up....not the most glamorous experience to say the least.

The nurse came in and checked me and I was 7 cm dilated. I think it was about 8 am by this time but I have no idea. There was no concept of time at this point. Things got real, really quickly after this. My midwife came in and suggested I move to a chair and sit backwards on it and rest my head on the back of it. This helped ease a little bit of the contraction pain. I went into labor knowing I wanted to have a natural delivery...and right around this point I regretted that decision :) I started feeling this intense need to push but I was still only 7 cm dilated. There was so much pressure with every contraction and it honestly felt like my body was pushing without me doing anything. This really freaked me out and I lost sight of the end goal for awhile. Thankfully, Jake was there to keep me focused and level headed (as much as you can be when you're giving birth). I was so tired at this point and just wanted to sleep, which obviously was not an option.

I sent Jake out to get the nurse probably 3 or 4 times because it felt like I had to push. Apparently at one point I told him I wanted a C-section and made him go tell the nurse. I don't remember that. She came in and had Jake coach me to pant every time I felt the pressure to push because it would stop the urge. It was hard and painful but eventually she checked me and said I was 10 cm and my midwife had just came back from the office. I finally got to start pushing. As weird as it sounds, it was painful but it was almost relieving to do what my body had been wanting to do for hours at this point. I finally got to give in to the pressure and after 30ish minutes of pushing, our baby girl was finally born at 11:06am. It was the most painful and rewarding experience of my life. Jake got to pull her out and put her up on my chest. We were both full of adrenaline and completely in love from the very beginning. I couldn't have done it without Jake there coaching me.

And that's about all I have the attention span to write at this moment. More about Adelyn's birth day and our hospital stay to come! I'll leave you with a few hospital pictures for now :)