*Editors Note: The following contains elements which are graphic in nature (it is of course a birth story!) But if you hang around it's a pretty great story.
Saturday the 15th I felt pretty run down and tired all day. I'd had an OB appt the day before and she thought I still would make it to my due date (9/26.) We were supposed to do dinner and a movie with friends (one last hurrah?) and I cancelled on them and we had dinner at my parents house instead. I really did not feel like getting dinner ready. I'd been freezing all day and both my parents didn't think it would be long. After we got home I was super cold and Nick was kinda like, "It's really warm in here, not sure what your problem is." So I took a hot shower, wrapped up and went to bed.
At midnight I woke up still freezing cold but decided to take my temperature since I was just feeling awful and it was 101.8º I called in and the doctor said to take some tylenol and see how it helped and if I wasn't better by morning I would probably need to come in.
By 1:30am it was still just over 101º and I moved out to the couch since I couldn't really get comfortable in bed. I slumped over and fell asleep. At 2:30am I startled awake and yelled "Oh no!" and jumped from our couch off the carpet and onto the hard wood floor just as my water broke in a gush! I started calling out Nick and he just kept sleeping lol! I ran to the bathroom (when did I become so agile?!?) sat down and banged on the adjoining wall telling him it was go time. We really weren't anticipating water breaking at home and had absolutely nothing for protection for the ride to the hospital (an hour away.) Then I remembered we're using Fuzzibunz diapers, grab a couple inserts! Nick got some stuff together while I showered. Decent contractions started and I was sitting on a ball while Nick was showering when gush number two hit...wow, I was not prepared for that at all! Note: Fuzzibunz are NOT meant for adult consumption! They did little to nothing in keeping my clothes clean.
We drove to the hospital and contractions were 5-1-1 if not closer the whole way there. I was super excited to meet our little girl, this was clearly no fake labor! On top of that, I knew my OB was on-call later in the day, so she would be there for the birth. :) We got there at approx 4am and they checked me and I was closer to 2cm than 3cm. Mentally I adjusted and was like, "ok long haul, let's do it!" I had tested positive for Strep-B so they got the IV going, but since I had fever the wanted me to stay in bed for the time being. On top of it both mine and baby's heart rates were elevated.
Contractions kept coming steady and we were getting through them great. My doctor got there and checked me at 7:30am and I was not quite at 3cm. I was super tired and pain had started to get up into the 6 level (pain in the legs is awful!) so they gave me something through IV for the pain so I could get some rest. It kinda helped, I was at least able to get a little bit of rest. About this time my mom and sister got there. They were encouraging and were there when I needed them and left when I was done having anyone but Nick with me. Mom heard me legitimately swear for the first time ever and Michelle helped me accept that it was ok if things didn't go quite how I wanted.
It was really important to me to get up out of bed and get in that tub. The birthing team was nervous about it because baby's heart rate was dropping after each contraction, but both of our heart rates were a little concerning. They finally let me up and gave me 15 mins in the tub, and it was so great. I could've stayed there all day and been so happy! After that I was kept in the bed for the rest of the time. Definitely NOT how I wanted it, but I had that little Mommy check in my gut and felt things were probably more serious than they were letting on. My doctor knew how important it was to me to do it all natural and was trying her best to make that happen.
After we got back to the room, I would sleep for 3-4 mins, wake up with a contraction for 1 min, then go back to sleep. Nick was REALLY awesome during this period. I was starting to mentally get exhausted and and the pain was getting worse. At 12:30pm they checked me again and I was still only 3cm. My doctor brought up pitocin but wanted to be cautious because of Karyanna's heart rate, so they wanted to do internal monitoring to make sure there were accurate readings. It was about an hour or so before this I told Nick that if they're thinking this was headed to c-section I just wanted to get it done and not waste time. My awesome doctor wanted to stay conservative and not go there unless totally necessary. I knew with pitocin would be too much for me to handle, so I asked for an epidural and finally got an hour of sleep. It was really great. While sleeping they did some monitoring and her little heart rate kept dropping after contractions and it was decided she wouldn't be able to handle any more labor.
Very shortly we were whisked away into surgery. I had an all female team in there. It felt like I was in some high-power, pro-women television show. It all went really great. Nick got pictures. Once they opened me up we discovered she was face-up. Even more reason I'm glad we went c-section. They cleaned her, weighed her (8lb 2oz), Nick put the diaper on and then layed her on my chest while getting stitched up. She latched straight away and it was all so incredible. She was the most beautiful thing ever! Both our hearts have been great since. She originally lost a little too much weight and got down to 7lb 3oz, but she was already up and over 8lb 10oz by her 2 week appt.
It wasn't the birth I wanted, but I could tell that day how it was gonna go and really I have no regrets and no disappointment. Even before surgery my OB was saying on the next one we can totally still go for all natural (my brother-in-law called that job security lol) and that there was just odd circumstances with this one and that it was in no way because I gave up. The shocking thing to me is that I never felt that way. All I wanted was what was safe for Karyanna. I'm lucky because my recovery has been AMAZING!
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