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Radios & Rattles – Well…that was unexpected!

So my baby girl’s due date October 28th, 2019. But she had OTHER plans and decided to show up 3 weeks early on October 6th at 1:30pm! So yea…that was unexpected. As a matter of fact, the entire labor, delivery and all the events surrounding with was very unexpected…and pretty funny.

Here’s my baby girl’s birth story:

As you may or may not know there’s been quite a bit of stress with this pregnancy over the past couple of months with high blood pressure, my age, blood sugar levels, threat of inducing labor…and so on. The weekend she was born we had a LOT of plans to prepare for her birth…we thought was weeks away. Friday, I had a Dr’s appt where I basically said, ‘Let’s slow down. Take things day by day and week by week. I’m at 36 weeks now and talking about inducing is scaring me’ The docs agreed to continue testing (everything was perfectly normal) and monitoring to take things 1 day at a time.

What a relief.

Friday night my husband and I went shopping for items we needed for the baby, bottle warmer, crib sheets, carrier/wrap etc etc. When we got home, we took the semi half-packed suitcase out of the car (I’d be lugging it around with some bare essentials for a hospital stay for a few days now) and reminded my husband how he needed to pack some things in it so we’re ready to go when the baby comes. I also took some time to order a couple sets of pajamas to wear in recovery (something I read in a blog somewhere of things to bring, wear and not bring to labor and delivery).

Saturday I prepared for my last wedding gig of the season (I have DJ-ed weddings with a good friend of mine for nearly a decade now). Everything went great, packed up and headed home. I walked in the door around 11pm, said hello to my husband, we started catching up on how our respective days went when I said “wait, hang on” and I made a b-line for the bathroom. I thought nothing of it except…my water broke. But I wasn’t sure. Ladies you know know what I mean…you think you peed your pants but your not really sure. It was like that. I called the hospital, they said c’mon in! At that point, no contractions, no pain, nothing. So I printed off the list of items I needed in suitcase that hadn’t been packed yet and my birth plan. Meanwhile my husband and I are shouting at each other from room to room ‘go get ___, did you find ___, what about ___’ I ran upstairs to do a quick scan of anything I may want or need and I grabbed the bottle of lavender essential oils off my nightstand, still in the box as I was told we could bring a diffuser to the delivery room and was going  to borrow a diffuser from a friend.

***Side note: This was supposed to be the weekend of ‘getting stuff done’; hypnobirthing class, breastfeeding class, car seat safety check appt, and put the carpet in the nursery. ***

Before heading out the door we managed to grab a few snacks because I know labor can go a LOOOOOONNNNGGG time. I need my energy! My husband asks ‘Do we need to stop somewhere for Gatorade so you do don’t get dehydrated? Do we even have time?!’ Again, feeling fine. No pain. No contractions. So we stopped at Market 32 for snacks. Yes. Yes we did, not full blown shopping spree just granola bars, Gatorade and dried fruit.  We get to the hospital, they run a test to confirm, yup, my water broke. This kid is on her way!

Its the wee hours of the morning and I started contracting. Nothing major, just hurt a little like cramping. I was walking them out, breathing through them, sniffing that lavender essential oil I snagged off the nightstand last minute and was listening to some peaceful music. I thought really? This is it? Piece of cake. HAHAHAHAHA oh I was so wrong.

I did manage to get a cat nap in before the motherload contractions hit and I waddled my way to the tub. I don’t know how long I was in that tub. Minutes? Hours? Who knows, who cares because that tub helped SO much. Then my midwife walked in! I had some other random midwife I had never seen before for the 1st part of labor and in walks my midwife and boy was I happy to see her. She checked to see how far I was dilated  she said 5. I said GREAT! I remember from a birthing class a nurse told me ‘if you can make it to 8cm with no pain meds,  it’s all downhill from there’.

Did she mean downhill like it got easier? Or downhill like when you’re a kid running downhill, fall, scrape your knees and tumble the rest of the way down? Because they helped me out of the tub, back into the main room and said I was 8cm, I felt like I needed to push. My body was taking over, doing what millions of women had done for centuries and I was just a passenger on this runaway train. But the kicker was I was told to NOT push. WHAT?! Part of my body was ready part of it wasn’t and my midwife told me to hold back for 4 contractions. If you’ve never held back a contraction. Let me tell you right now…I feels impossible. Seriously. Try holding back a hiccup…like that only a 1000x more difficult. So I did, I held back 1, sat up, looked at my midwife and said ‘THAT’S ONE!” She said ‘you’re really holding me to this aren’t you!’   “YES!!!” By the 4th, we were ready to go. Sorta. Baby’s heart rate was dropping. They gave me oxygen, monitored her heart rate and I heard a voice and saw face of a resident or intern or someone tell me that we may need to go to C section. To which I replied ‘Like hell’. I think the baby had the same sentiment because according to my husband just a handful of pushes and 5-10 min later…baby Charlotte Grace came into this world screaming. Which satisfied the NICU team who took one look at her and left. They were called in because by definition she was premature…by 1 day.

Over the next few days this little fighter had to do light therapy to deal with jaundice, low temp and we had to swaddle her in not 1 but 3 of those striped hospital receiving blankets. This little peanut weighed only 5lbs and 2oz but every doctor who saw her over the course of our extended stay said she was perfect. Just a little early.

So there you have it. The story, the whole story. To answer your questions that I’m sure you have rolling around in your head right now. Did I really do this with no pain meds? Yes. How? I have no idea, birthing class was supposed to be that weekend and I had to just wing it. Did we really stop for snacks on the way? Yup.

Oh…and those pajamas I ordered that I wanted to wear in recovery? Those arrived a couple days after she was born, as I got the notification it was delivered by email. But who cares, the best things in life don’t have tracking numbers…they get there when they’re good and ready.

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