The
story of Cora’s birth actually starts on Wednesday, April 30th. I have had sickness and all kinds of
uncomfortable symptoms throughout this pregnancy. But the one thing that has kept me sane was my ability to
sleep at night. But on Wednesday,
I was uncomfortable and cramping, and nauseous and could not sleep AT ALL. The next day (Thursday, May 1st)
was my due date, so I thought maybe it was a sign that things were going to
start happening. I stayed home
from work on Thursday, and got some rest.
I had a doctor’s appointment that day at 3:30, and I was 50% effaced and
4 cm dilated, but other than that nothing was really happening. So, I decided to go ahead and go to
work the next day, rather than just sit around and wait.
On Friday, I got up and went to work. It was field day, so I spent the entire morning standing up,
walking around, and trying to control 18 crazy first graders outside in the
parking lot. When we went inside
for lunch, I started having contractions about 5 minutes apart. A few of them were so intense that I
couldn’t walk or talk through them, so I decided after lunch that I needed to
go home (probably not best to be in labor in a classroom with first
graders!). I went to tell my
principal, and she wanted to drive me to the hospital. I knew that the contractions weren’t
close enough, strong enough, or consistent enough yet to go to the hospital, so
I said no to that. But she also
didn’t want me to drive myself home, so I rested in her office on the couch
while Aaron came to pick me up. While I was waiting for him, the contractions slowed down to
about 10-15 minutes apart. We
decided to get all packed and drive to Perimeter Mall (about 10 minutes away
from Northside Hospital, since it was Friday and we were concerned about Friday
traffic) so that we could walk to try to push the contractions into something
more consistent. We walked for
hours and the contractions stayed 2-5 minutes apart, but did not really get
more intense. When we sat down to
rest, the contractions slowed to 8-10 minutes apart again. So, frustrated and tired, we went back
home around 8:00 pm.
The
contractions continued all Friday night, throughout the day on Saturday, and
Saturday night anywhere between 3-25 minutes apart. On Sunday, I woke up and the contractions had stopped. I rested and spent time with my family
all day on Sunday. On Monday, the
contractions were back, but were still inconsistent. But, about 9:00 pm on Monday they started getting closer
together. They were 7-10 minutes
apart around 9:00, 5-7 minutes by 10:00.
I decided to get ready for bed and see if they slowed or stopped like
they had every other night when I went to sleep. But they didn’t stop.
They continued and they were getting stronger. By 11:00 they were still about 5 minutes apart but getting
much stronger, where I had to breathe through them. By midnight, Aaron and I decided that we should get ready to
go to the hospital and around 1:00, we called my mom and asked her to come
spend the night at our house in case we needed to leave before the
morning. It was a good thing we
called, because in the short amount of time it took her to get there, the contractions were coming every
2-3 minutes and lasting about 1.5 minutes.
We got in the car and were at the hospital by 2:30. We had to check in, and while we were
waiting for a room to become available, the contractions were getting worse in
the waiting room/lobby. It was
finally time to go to a room, but when I got up to sit in the wheel chair to go
to the room I got very nauseous from the pain. I told the receptionist I needed to throw up, and she
grabbed me a barf bag just in time.
We continued on, and were placed in a small room (slightly larger than a
closet with a bed) while they were still preparing a room. I got into a hospital gown, and they
checked me. I was “mostly” thinned
out and 6 cm dilated.
Eventually, they moved us to a real labor and delivery room. My doula arrived. I told the nurses that I planned to
deliver without any medication, and then they connected me to the monitors and
I continued to labor for the next few hours, breathing through the
contractions. They were very
intense, and I threw up a couple times from the pain. I seemed to deal with the pain best by focusing within
myself and concentrating on breathing.
When someone talked to me or distracted me, then I wasn’t able to
breathe through the contraction as well and I would start to panic, so I had to
stay focused the whole time. I
would breathe and try to relax through each one.
Things were progressing slowly (much slower than they
thought … they were preparing for the birth to happen pretty fast after we
arrived…everybody kept saying, “this is going to go fast”). Throughout the night, I tried several
different positions … standing up, resting on my hands and knees in the bed …
to help the baby get in a better position. She wasn’t coming down because her head seemed to be turned
a little to the right. The midwife
decided to break my water so that things would progress a little faster. Shortly after that, the baby started to
experience decelerations in her heart rate during contractions, so they infused
some fluid back in to help cushion her more. When I was 90% effaced and “almost completely dilated –
except for a small lip on one side of the cervix” I kind of stalled out. I started to panic because after all
the moving around and different positions and re-infusing fluid nothing was
happening. I started crying
because the doctor walked in (I was told that I would only see the
doctor if I needed surgery, because the midwife had been taking care of me the
whole time). I was crying, “Noo, I
don’t want a c-section.” I got
myself so worked up that I threw up again. Everyone assured me that we were not at that point yet, but
I just knew that she wasn’t positioned correctly and was so worried that I had
gone through the whole thing without any medication, only to end in a
c-section. But, shortly after that
I was ready to push!
Cora Jane
came out sunny side up, which explained her positioning problem and why she
wasn’t coming as fast as everyone thought. She was 8 pounds and 20.5 inches. The midwife and doctor said that it was like I gave birth to
a 9 pounder because of her being sunny side up. They were surprised because I only had a small 1st
degree tear even with her being sunny side up. After she came out, they put her right on my chest and she
peed all over me! But I was
instantly in love, and all of the 4-5 days of false labor, 40 weeks and 5 days
of pregnancy, and all of the pain was worth it. And I was so glad that I was able to make it through the
birth without the epidural or any pain medication! I never thought I would be able to do it! The entire nursing staff seemed pretty
impressed too, as Northside has an epidural rate about about 97-98%. People kept coming in to stare at
me. The
recovery was so much easier and I have been able to move around so much better
after this birth than when I had the epidural.
Cora has been perfect.
She is beautiful and a champion at breastfeeding. Her sister and brother adore her, and
want to hold her all the time. We
are all so in love with her! She’s
the best surprise this family has ever had!
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