Joy after Loss

Cortney and I grew up in the same school together. Many of our afternoons were spent in the school gym playing basketball. She was such an incredibly hard worker then, that I have no doubt she has taken to motherhood like a pro. After miscarrying she has been given such a sweet blessing in her son. Her story is such an inspiration.  

Having lost my first pregnancy you could imagine my nerves when I found out a short two months later I was pregnant again. However, I am glad to say my pregnancy was great and I loved every minute of it! I was fortunate to have no nausea or any of the other typical pregnancy symptoms. Now I had always been scared of labor because of the fear of an epidural. I have always hated LOATHED needles. Obviously, it’s a choice but one I’ve always known to be taken by the majority of women in labor. I was DETERMINED to not cave. My next best pain relieving option was a water birth; which I had an A+ pregnancy to have one. Only problem was my labor didn’t go as I planned and things changed.

About a week prior to labor I got sick, like cold sick. I couldn’t breathe through my nose for anything. I read that this could be a sign of upcoming labor. I also ate Mexican the night prior. Coincidence? Who knows! Take it as you will but on November 30th sometime between 4-4:15am my water broke and we were going to have a baby! I had tested positive for GBS. (Which by the way isn’t as serious as what you read about online, or at least my midwives and nurses didn’t act too concerned about it.) Since my water broke and I tested positive for that I did need to get to the hospital ASAP to get the antibiotics pumping to protect little man from contracting the bacteria and getting sick. A blessing in disguise because the antibiotics gave him a 1 in 4,000 chance of getting the cold, for example, for a year! 

My husband and I got to the hospital between 5-5:30. They tested the amniotic fluid and admitted me. To my extremely pleasant surprise my favorite midwife was on duty! She cleared more of my sac and water to see if that would help get things going. At the time I was dilated 3cm. My non painful contractions were everywhere….for 6 hours. After being checked I was still dilated 3cm. Talk about disappointing. We discussed Pitocin to get things going because the longer we waited the more dangerous labor becomes after your water breaks. The only problem was once the Pitocin was administered if my body couldn’t do keep going without Pitocin then water birth was out the window. I started off with a small dosage around 11am and built up until my contractions were regular. I had dilated to 5cm when she checked sometime between 2-3pm, which gave me hope. We could start decreasing the Pitocin. (Something to know about Pitocin, it makes contractions much more intense and I was definitely feelin em!)

Once it was decreased my contractions started spacing out so I started becoming more relaxed and the contractions became easier to deal with. Around 5pm I was still dilated to 5cm. They upped the Pitocin, which was extremely discouraging. As it increased my exhausted body started going into shock causing me to have uncontrollable shakes. I could no longer relax through the contractions. Not to mention it had now been 24hrs since I had eaten. Around 6:30pm it was determined I could not come off the Pitocin. Sadly, this meant my water birth plan was out of the questions. At 7pm I threw in the white flag and wanted an epidural. I got the magical juice around 7:30pm and even though she had to do it twice the anesthesiologist was awesome and I could not thank her enough for giving me such a wonderful experience with that horrid needle! I now felt nothing! It was great! I can’t even tell you how relieved I felt after being on Pitocin for 8 hours. I was able to sleep and regain some strength for two hours. 

Now I was dilated to 9 ½ cm around 9:30pm. Around 10pm I was the full 10cm. I was so excited and nervous because that long awaited moment was finally here! My awesome, sweet nurse made me practice push and get his head pass the pelvis bone.His face was turned slightly up so they made me turn on my left side and put my right leg in the holster to get him to turn and it worked!By the way, it’s not a walk in the park to push when you’re congested! That burned about another thirty minutes and I got some extra rest between pushing. I don’t remember exactly what time it was my midwife came in and suited up, but after a couple of pushes he was here at 11:29pm! A sweet 6lb 11oz, 19 ¼ in bundle of long awaited joy was finally here and my life will never be the same! Every long minute, every second of pain was totally worth it.

I learned TO NOT BE SCARED OF AN EPIDURAL. You can have a birth plan, but you have got to be open to whatever happens. Our ideal plan isn’t always the way baby wants to come or how our body wants to cooperate. I also felt that if I were to give-in to an epidural that I would be disappointed in myself. That wasn’t the case. Sure I really, REALLY wanted to experience a water birth but that’s just not how I received my bundle of joy. No matter how the plan goes the end goal is to have a safe delivery, mommy, and most importantly baby. No disappointment here because I have the best little boy in the world now.

I’d do it all again in a heartbeat and even joke to my husband that I could be the next “Mrs. Duggar” with 19 kids! He doesn’t think my joke is very funny ;) But for now I will enjoy and soak up every quickly passing minute I have with my baby boy.