Olivia's birth story

I started my maternity leave 2 weeks before my due date just in case our little baby decided to come early. It was great because Vince was still on summer break so we had a whole week to relax, hang out and run errands to get ready for baby. Saturday afternoon I went to prenatal yoga, we went to church, and that night I decided I was going to indulge in a small glass of wine (I really wanted a vodka tonic but tonic water isn't recommended in pregnancy...) Around 2am Sunday morning I got up to go to the bathroom and felt a trickle down my leg, I though "oh no I peed myself!" I clench-walked to the bathroom trickling the whole way there, and once I got there I realized that my water broke! I immediately called my doctor's after hours service and a few minutes later got a sleepy call back from my doctor. I told him my water had broken but I wasn't feeling any contractions. He told me once my contractions were 5 minutes apart to call him back and make my way to the hospital, but if they didn't become regular to get to the hospital within 6 hours because I might need to go on antibiotics since my water already broke and there was risk for infection. Contrary to what you see on TV and the movies, the water breaks before contractions start only 8-10% of the time (lucky me!), usually you go into labor first and then the water breaks. So I started gathering more stuff to put into my hospital bag and then went back to the room and told Vince my water broke. He sleepily nodded and then went back to sleep (he had also indulged earlier that evening, but on rum not wine). I finally felt my first contraction at 4:21am, but the subsequent contractions were erratically spaced. I tried to go back to sleep but my mind was racing, and I was also leaking, so I ended up getting up at 6am and just wandering around the apartment. Vince got up around 7:30 and we got ourselves ready to go to the hospital.

We got to the hospital at 9:30 am and my doctor was already there waiting for me. I was checked in, put into a labor room and upon exam was only 3cm dilated. My contractions were still not consistent and at 10:30 my doctor told me that he wanted to induce labor. We could continue to wait to see if my contractions would come on their own but if in another few hours I still wasn't in labor we'd have to induce anyway because the risk of infection increased as time went on. All throughout my pregnancy I knew I wanted to try to everything naturally and have a drug-free birth, but I wanted to be realistic about it and knew that if it was necessary then I'd just go with the flow. So I decided to let them induce because if I did wait and we had to induce anyway I'd be annoyed at the loss of time. So they started the Pitocin and we waited. My sisters came to the hospital and hung out with me while we waited. And waited. And waited. At 3:00pm I was 5cm dilated and they asked me if I wanted to have an epidural inserted to relieve the pain. When I asked my doctor how much longer he thought it would be before I delivered, he said anywhere from 3-8 hours or maybe more, so I decided to get it because the contractions were becoming more and more painful, and if I'd have to endure hours more if this I may as well lessen the pain. At 6:00pm I was  7cm dilated and at 7:00pm I was 8cm and they started me on antibiotics since it had been about 17 hours since my water broke. And then we waited some more. At 11:00pm my nurse said I still had just a centimeter to go but we could try pushing to see if that would move things along. I tried for about 20 minutes but to no avail, I still wasn't fully dilated and I was exhausted, so the nurse said to take a rest and we'd try again in a little while. Around 12:30am I was finally fully dilated so I started pushing again. It was awful and I'm horrible at it. My doctor came back around 1:00am and that's when I felt like we were getting somewhere. Vincent and Rinne were still in the labor room with me and they were so supportive and encouraging, it helped when they said they saw the head because up until then it felt like I was painfully pushing and getting nothing done. And finally, FINALLY on Monday, September 2 at 1:17am, 23 hours after my water had broken, Olivia entered the world.

I was so so so exhausted and I think a little bit in shock (physical shock, not just like figurative shock) that after Vince cut the cord and they laid her on my chest I couldn't register that something wasn't right. People were suddenly moving around the room with urgency working on the baby, my doctor was still working on me and I could tell I was losing alot of blood. I don't have a clear recollection of what happened immediately after delivery but what happened was Olivia didn't cry when she came out even after they suctioned her. She was breathing too fast so she wasn't getting enough oxygen, so they whisked her away to the special care nursery where they put her on oxygen. I was losing alot of blood but my doctor quickly stopped it, he said it was probably because I had been in labor for so long, and that's also probably what caused Olivia's breathing problem. After I got into my room I gradually recovered from the shock and I got an update from the pediatrician that what Olivia had was called TTN (transient tachypnea of the newborn) - it was usually seen in C-section births but also sometimes happens with natural delivery but was only temporary and would resolve on its own, but until then they'd have her on a CPAP machine that would help her breathe. Fortunately Olivia only needed oxygen that night because she started breathing normally without assistance by the morning, but she did have to stay in the special care nursery until discharge so that the nurses could monitor her. The next two days of recovery was like a nonstop party in my room, I had visitors all day and thankfully I felt up to it. Although Olivia couldn't stay with me in the room the nurses brought her to me to feed and bond and hang out with the family, so from her first day in the world she got to experience her big, loud, loving family!

Last belly pic before going to the hospital

Olivia partying with the family