Since I am horrible with remembering things, I figured that it would be best to record as much as I remember about Brooklyn’s birth. There may be some rambling involved, so just be warned :)
Brooklyn’s due date was October 8th and we decided in advance to have me be induced on that date if she didn’t come before then. We thought that would be the best decision because we wanted Matt to be available as much as possible, so if Brooklyn could be born on a Saturday, then Matt could be with James while I was in the hospital. The entire month before she was born I was having about a dozen contractions a day, but nothing too serious (they would stop as soon as I rested my body).
October 8th came and we called the hospital at 6 am and they told us to come in at 8 am. We immediately got a room but weren’t seen until 10 am by the doctors. At 10 am I was only dilated to a 2 (what I had been for the past 2 weeks) and not effaced at all. The doctors decided that if I hadn’t progressed in the next two hours they would put a pill in me that would speed things along. I wasn’t familiar with that pill because with James they immediately gave me pitocin- these doctors said they prefer going with the pill route first because it is safer. I agreed and with no progression from 10 am – noon, at noon they gave it to me and I immediately started feeling regular contractions. One side note is that with this pill, I wouldn’t be allowed to start pushing for four hours. From noon until 2 I walked around the hospital with Matt (walking REALLY helped bring the contractions on). At 2 I ate lunch and then rested. At 4 pm they checked me and I progressed enough to receive the pitocin (if I wouldn’t have progressed they would have given me the pill again and I would have had to wait another 4 hours). I started the pitocin (the labor inducing medicine) and about an hour later I needed an epidural….
SIDE NOTE: I HATE needles and the epidural was the WORST part of the entire day!! With James, the anesthesiologist had me lay down and he gave me the epidural- I didn’t like it, but it was over before I knew it. With Brooklyn’s anesthesiologist, it was COMPLETELY opposite! She had me sit up and wanted me to hunch over, but it felt impossible because every 30 seconds I would have a contraction that would tighten the muscles and I couldn’t move like they wanted me to. Before she started she mentioned that she shouldn’t have any problems sticking me because I wasn’t overweight (she said it is harder to get the needle in the right place if the person is overweight). She put the needle in my back and I could just feel the needle moving around. She kept telling me to hunch over, even though I was hunching as much as I possibly could. She was back there for literally more than 10 minutes, trying to get me stuck in the right spot. By this point I was crying in pain. She said she had to pull the needle out and stick me again because she couldn’t find what she was looking for. She moved up my back and restuck me- same story with same ending. I am crying, snot is coming out of my nose and the nurse is trying to keep me composed. The anesthesiologist explained that she had never run into this problem- rather than having too much fat, I had too much bone and she kept hitting my bone instead of the spinal cord area. She had to call her supervisor to come and he then was able to stick me. After 3 sticks, 30 minutes and many tears I finally had the epidural.
Once the epidural was in (about 5:30) I basically just rested until about 10 pm. The doctors came in at that point and explained the options. We decided to have the Dr. pop my water and hopefully that would help my body progress. The Dr. washed his hands and literally right before he was about to break it, it broke on its own! Within 2 minutes of my water breaking, the contractions got DRAMATICALLY worse and I felt the need to push (it felt like I had a baby size poop that was pushing on my booty hole wanting to go out- LOTS of pain but the pain was relieved as I pushed). I told the nurse this and said that I am think she is coming now, and the nurse was pretty passive. I insisted that the baby was coming and she then agreed to get the doctor. When the doctor came in he looked at me and said, “Oh there’s her hair”. Within 20 minutes from my water breaking, Brooklyn was born!
The two main differences between Brooklyn’s and James’ birth are the epidural and the actual pushing. With James, the doctor had to tell me when to push because I was so numb and I never felt James coming out. With Brooklyn, like I mentioned, I felt the urge to poop and the need to push to relieve the pain. I also felt (sorry if this is TMI) like my skin was ripping and that pain helped me push harder because I just wanted to get the pain over with. With James I really didn’t know how to push and it took me a LONG time to figure out how to push (the only way I can explain it is: with James I continually tried to push with my abs and front muscles and the correct way is to push like you are trying to poop- with your booty muscles). With Brooklyn I knew how to push so I was able to get her out really quickly.
Enough with details; here are some pictures (she was born at 10:30 pm on October 8th)
The nurses cleaned her off and gave her to me before weighing her (James was weighed first and then given to me):
I will blog more about James’ first time seeing her tomorrow :)
