Disclaimer: this is long and will probably bore most people. But, I definitely don't want to forget it!
At the beginning of this pregnancy I knew one thing for
sure: I wanted a second VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarian). Trey had been a VBAC, and the experience had
been a very smooth one, other than a massive tear that caused a recovery nearly
as painful as my c-section. As we had
moved since Trey was born, I was not going to be able to use the same Dr. or
hospital as my other two births. I
decided to use a Midwife and after meeting her, learned she was extremely
supportive of a VBAC attempt and never seemed to question that I would be able
to have one.
With Trey’s
pregnancy, I was stressed a lot because my Dr. had originally told me that I had
to go into labor on my own before 40 weeks for a VBAC to be possible. I did not have a lot of confidence that this
would happen. I was induced with
Evangeline at 40 weeks, 1 day and was sure I would have gone two weeks past if
not for the induction. My Dr. allowed me
to be induced anyway at 40 weeks 1 day by breaking my water and giving me a low
dose of pitocin, and four hours later he was born.
This
pregnancy was a lot different from my first two. At around 30 weeks, Annabelle started
measuring small. At 25 weeks she was
measuring 26, at 28 she was measuring 28, and at 30 she was still measuring
28. She remained two weeks behind until
the last two weeks of my pregnancy, at which point she held steady at 33
weeks. After an ultrasound concluded her
growth was okay, my Midwife determined she was just in a different
position. Turns out the position she was
in was LOW. (My unprofessional opinion is that she still was a little small
anyway, given her eventual birth weight).
At my 35 ½ week
appointment I was already 1 cm dilated, still thick, and she was at a -1
station, which was pretty low for that early.
It was exciting because with Trey I was never anything and knew I needed
to be something for an induction attempt.
The next
week (36 ½ weeks) I was 1 ½ cm, 70 % effaced, and baby was at zero
station. Then, my Midwife said the words
I wished I had never heard: “I think you’ll deliver in the next two weeks.” I laughed and told her I didn’t believe
her. But, that was enough to absolute
start driving me crazy. Every night from
that point on, I was on pins and needles wondering if I was in labor or not. I was anxious, nervous, bored and didn’t feel
like doing anything but going to the hospital and having a baby. And I felt guilty for thinking that since it
was still so early! I was only 37 weeks,
barely full term. It was more than just
her telling me that, though, that gave me the crazy thoughts. I could tell something was up with my
body. Something I had never experienced
before. She also just felt really low,
though it was never particularly painful.
Sunday
night (Jan. 6th) at 36 weeks, 6 days I started having contractions
in church. Something about sitting down,
especially in cars or church pews, always caused me to have contractions with
all three pregnancies. With Evangeline
and Trey, they were simply Braxton Hicks.
These hurt somewhat! They were
coming so much that I even downloaded a contraction app during the middle of
Drew’s lesson and started timing them.
The
contractions went away after I got up and started walking around. I had a few more sporadically throughout the
evening. My strategy on figuring out
whether or not I was in actual labor was to go to sleep and if I woke up the
next morning, I probably hadn’t been in labor.
Monday I
only had a few contractions, but Tuesday they started again: a few here or
there all day. Tuesday evening I had some
almost consistent ones, but they faded away.
I had so much nervous energy I didn’t know what to do! Tuesday started off wonderfully with a
surprise baby shower at my Bible study, but by that afternoon I was going
crazy! I was in pain from contractions
that weren’t consistent enough to do anything with and beginning to feel
depressed and like I didn’t feel like doing anything. One thing I did want to do was walk and I
made a pledge to myself that I would walk every day until the baby was
born. I managed to walk Sunday, Monday,
Tuesday, and Wednesday and had every intention of going walking in the rain
Thursday when I opened the door and heard the tornado siren going off and
decided against it! When people would ask how I was doing I wanted so badly to
tell them that I thought I was going to be having the baby soon, but then I
felt so silly. What if I didn’t? I do
remembering saying that I was “ready” a whole lot to people. It felt weird saying that even because I was
still early. And with the others I was
definitely NOT feeling ready at 37 weeks!
I had made a plan with my Midwife that we would induce on the 25th,
(Evangeline’s birthday!) mainly because that was a Friday and Friday felt like
the perfect day to have a baby with my babysitting situation.
Wednesday
was a lot better of a day than Tuesday because I stayed busy. There’s nothing like a trip to Winn Dixie
with two little ones to take your focus off of impending labor. Plus, it was Drew’s birthday, and we enjoyed
a family birthday lunch with Poppy at La Pinata. I also decided it’d be nice to make cupcakes
for the kids at church in honor of Drew’s birthday and barely managed to pull
those off in time before running over and teaching choir and TeamKid. Wednesday evening I had more of the same:
painful contractions happening here and there.
Went to bed and woke up with no baby and no more contractions.
Thursday
morning was a fun day at MOPS, and I was looking forward to my Dr.’s
appointment that afternoon and hoping my Midwife would have something to say
that would help my nerves. I was 2 cm,
80 % effaced, and baby was now at +1 station.
I was also still measuring 33 weeks, which was 4 ½ weeks behind! She offered to strip my membranes since I was
so close to labor, and I let her. I had
always heard that that hurt really bad, but it didn’t hurt me at all, likely
because of how much progress my cervix had already made. I was not optimistic that it would do too
much, though. I had begun to prepare
myself for another two weeks of pregnancy and was trying to get energized to
make it through.
Drew had
told me that morning that he thought I would go into labor that day because
there was a low pressure system coming through.
And, he was right (about both!).
Not sure if it was the storm or not, but I started having strong
contractions around 4:00 that afternoon.
I would have a strong contraction then about three others every 8-10
minutes afterwards and then about a thirty minute break before another strong
contraction. This went on from 4-11. Sometime around 11:30 I finally fell asleep
and then woke up at 12:11 with a super strong contraction. I had three more about 8 minutes apart, my
same pattern so I thought. Since they
kept coming and I didn’t want to wake Drew up, I decided to change
positions. I walked around the house and
had another. Then I thought a bath would
be nice. In the tub they started coming
about every 4-6 minutes. Hmmmmm. My original goal was to wait it out til
morning (5 or 6) and then wake up Drew and call my mom. Then I decided if I could make it to 3:00
before bothering anybody, that’d be really good. I made it to 1:20 because as soon as I got
out of the tub, they started coming every two minutes. And they hurt A LOT. I was definitely having
to breathe through them and focus on other things. I stink at relaxing while my body is in
pain!
I woke up
Drew and told him I was having strong contractions every two minutes. He said, “okay,” put his arm around me, and
went back to sleep. One minute later I
had another contraction and it was that that woke him up enough to go ahead and
take a shower and get ready. I called my
mom, though at this point I still wasn’t 100% certain I wanted to go to Labor
and Delivery. If they stopped, or
decreased, I was gonna wait it out. They
kept on every 2 ½ to 3 minutes until we FINALLY left for the hospital at
2:00. I was so thankful for my mom’s
quick response and that she (nor Drew) never questioned me about if I was
REALLY in labor. My mom said she never
doubted that it wasn’t the real thing, especially after she saw me pacing
around the kitchen moaning. It’s not a
good thing to be dreaming of an epidural while you’re still at home and
realizing it’s going to be a while before relief will come! The only person doubting if I was actually in
labor was myself. Looking back on that I
think “you had to be crazy to not know that was really labor!).
I told Drew
on the drive to the hospital (between contractions) that even if they said I
wasn’t in labor they better give me something for the pain! Also, if this wasn’t labor I didn’t think I
could do it again and I just wanted to sign up for a c-section.
The
question over whether or not I was really in labor was quickly answered as my
water broke as I was literally walking through the doors of Labor and
Delivery. It was a relief to know that
it wasn’t a false alarm and I would really be staying to have the baby. I think that relief helped me to calm down and
my contractions honestly weren’t as bad.
The worst part of my labor was the time spent pacing the floors of my
house!
I asked for
something, anything for the pain as soon as I could get it and just knowing
meds were coming helped me, too. My
water breaking turned out to be a huge blessing because it was immediately
apparent that I was, in fact, in labor and the nurses could then start an IV
soon and request a dose of stadol for me, which I happily accepted. I discovered that singing was a good coping
method for the contractions and Drew and I sang selections from Mary Poppins in
honor of Evangeline. Our nurse even sang
along some. The singing helped with my
breathing and also gave me something to focus on since I don’t know the words
that well.
The stadol
cut the pain in half and made me fell super loopy. I was very pleased with how quickly the
anesthesiologist arrived to place my epidural.
I had briefly considered trying to labor with only stadol, but then
decided I’d had enough pain. Getting the
epidural this time around was much more pleasant than with my other two (especially
Trey) because the anesthesiologist was so calm.
Definitely won’t mind paying him his bill! I think the stadol helped that experience, as
well.
When I was
first admitted I was 4 cm. The second
time she checked me I was already 9 cm.
It took a while for me to make it to a 10, though. I stayed at 9 ½ for about an hour. It turns out that I still had a bag of water
in front of her head that was preventing me from dilating the rest of the
way. The bag of water was a relief, because
my nurse had originally felt her head and said she was bald. The baldness turned out to be a water
sack.
Even with the
water intact, I still was able to push.
She came out super quickly (after about 5 minutes) and on the second to last
push the rest of my water broke. My
initial thought was that my baby had exploded, but then I told myself babies
don’t explode and I felt okay!
Annabelle
Margaret Dabbs was born Friday, Januray 11th at 6:45 a.m. and is
super tiny (5 lbs 13 oz and 18 ½ inches), but perfectly healthy! She is so much smaller than my other two 8
pounders, but it’s fun having such a little one! My mind is still blown by the fact that she
was 2 ½ weeks early and I went into labor on my own and my water even broke on
its own! With each child’s birth I feel
as though I’ve had a new life experience.
With Evangeline I first became a mother.
Trey gave me the experience of a vaginal birth that I thought I’d never
have. And, Annabelle gave me going into
labor naturally. I told Drew that if
there’s a fourth, I don’t think I want to add the experience of a natural
delivery. I’m so very very thankful for
a beautiful baby girl and delivery.
Other than running a fever Friday evening and having a pretty yucky
night, my recovery has been wonderful!
No stitches at all, and I haven’t even had to have any pain medication! God has been so good to us! I wish I could’ve seen the end result during
all this week of worry! He definitely
had things under control- I even got my wish for a Friday baby!
