Peyton's Birth Story

For those that want all the details (and I mean all...)... here it is... for those that would rather not know.... skip right on over :) It's kind of long and detailed... you've been forewarned...

Monday September 19, 2011
    A day like any other... 9th day of the school year so far, it was a late start, school was fine and well. I even went to a leadership meeting after school. Got home about 4, feeling tired as was normal for me now. I did school stuff for my WSU-class, Chris was working like a jillion hours a week so he hit the hay early... I remember eating peaches at my desk while reading for school. Then I got ready for bed. I lay down in bed to read for fun and I felt a strong almost like kick down in my lady parts. (about 9:30pm) Seriously my first thought was "Oh no whatever that was, I don't want anything on my brand new bed!" I probably hadn't moved faster in the last three months. I quickly hopped out of bed and conveniently the door the bathroom is literally inches away. A small gush of 'water' comes out once I sat on the commode. Then nothing... I just kind of sat there for a few thinking 'that was strange, I wonder if my water just broke' I dare take a peak into the toilet and it's kinda tinged pink. Even if my water hadn't broke, that couldn't be good... So I lean over and gently try to wake Chris up while remaining on the commode since it's kinda like the longest pee ever.... "Chris... I uh think my water just broke...." I don't know if he didn't believe me, or was that tired, but he just kind of laid there... We decide to try and see if there's any great information 'in the books' but ultimately decide to call SW medical center. After all I was 38 weeks so technically she was fully baked. I call them up, tell them that I think my water broke, they ask how far along, and say we'll see you when you get here.
     Now if you know Chris and I at all, you know we're planners... but do you think we had a hospital bag packed... no! We had all the goods purchased and knew what we were taking, but we hadn't packed anything yet. So we got that all together and headed out the door. So we got to the hospital about 10:30-10:45 ish. Silly me tells Chris it's ok to park way out in the lot and I can walk in. I feel absolutely fine... no contractions or anything... Well now that was actually quite stupid.. .see when your water breaks... you can leak like constantly and the more you move... the more you leak... so by the time we got into the hospital, I felt like I was wearing a wet diaper (I had a pad on, and they actually take it to check for amniotic fluid, can we say *thank god that's not my job*). So.... before admitting you to a room at the birthing center, they take you to 'the assessment area' where they hook you up to monitors and check things out. So we wait a bit there. The lady was really nice.. .she said they take a sample from the pad, put it on a slide, let it dry, then examine it. If it's amniotic fluid, it looks like a bunch of ferns... if I had just wet my pants, no ferns. Congratulations to me... ferns a plenty. Confirmed water breakage, baby on the way. Literally my first call was to Melissa since it was now like 11:30 and I needed her to go to work the next day. Then we made the mandatory calls to parents and siblings.
     Chris's parents had literally just left Monday morning after being at our house for the weekend. They were headed to go see Julie and stayed in Maryhill up the gorge for the night. So about midnight I was taken to a room and got all set up. Chris now had to go do the paper (he was literally training his sub that night) I asked my mom to come hang out so I wasn't alone. At this point I still wasn't really feeling anything in particular....

Tuesday September 20, 2011 (by the time I got settled in a room, it was after midnight)

   So the first midwife comes in.... (Kaiser always has a Dr. and a midwife on staff, and if you're low risk you get the mid-wife) So she says... we'll I'm not going to check you because your water broke and we don't want to risk infection, but I would like to start you on a pitocin drip to get things going since most women whose water breaks still need help inducing contractions... Whoa! Hold the phone... I just got here... and you want to start an intervention Already! So I tell her... look, I'm in no rush... my husband just left to go work, I don't need anything to come any faster... perhaps we'll readjust once he returns, but I need no help 'speeding things up' thank you very much....
   Oh they also asked my 'pain management' plan... I said, well haven't done this before, so I'd like to see how it goes... I'm open to trying to deal on my own, but I'm not ruling out meds either so I'll just keep you posted. I did get an IV line in, way back in the assessment room. That's pretty 'standard.'
    So now the waiting... I tried to get a bit of sleep, but the contractions eventually started rolling in... not so bad at first. Kind of like a really tight annoying cramp (which I don't normally get many of anyway). I just 'breathed' through them like in childbirth class. I walked around my room a bit, tried sitting on the birthing ball, tried laying down...etc. Probably about 4ish, I was about done with the whole contraction thing... I decided to try a bath... That always looked lovely in the videos....
    What a bunch of HOOEY! Now to be fair, it was quite nice laying in nice warm water when I wasn't having a contraction, but when the contractions hit, they hurt just as much wet as they did dry.... Chris eventually wandered back in about 4:30am... (and my mom left) I said, done with this, sign me up for that epidural thing, and let me change back into the hospital gown thanks. I wasn't having fun anymore... now I know you're saying duh Jennifer, it's childbirth, not supposed to be fun... but I didn't want to be in such pain that, that was all I could focus on. I tried all the breathing (I almost made myself sick because of my breathing) and I tried a bath, I went in with no delusions that I would be 'med free' so I wasn't like letting myself down or anything... I knew that might be awhile, but thankfully they weren't busy, so I was taken care of quite quickly. The required reading and signatures before signing up for those things... sheesh!
    So getting an epidural... They have you sit on the edge of the bed, and they raise it way up so the guy doesn't have to lean over. They stick this mat on your back and sanitize you all up. Then they ask you to sit extremely still (oh, they hooked something up to my IV so I wouldn't feel the epidural going in as much) ok back to sitting still... ok woman going through contractions, scared silly that if I move wrong I'll get like paralyzed or something... So that was tough. Chris was right there with me though.
   Ok epidural check. relaxing begin! Now it's about 5:30 or so once that's all taken care of... I figure I'll get some sleep before having to get this baby out. Contractions are like a thing of the past. Well can't leave well enough alone. Apparently baby's heartbeat dropped a bit after being put on epidural, they want me to wear an oxygen mask to be sure she's getting everything she needs. Ok fine, sleep with mask.. oh wait, can't lay on either side for too long or meds pool there... So really sleeping was not happening. Now thankfully my epidural worked really well (I know some women have all sorts of trouble with it). In fact, they came to check me with an ice cube and I was pretty numb all the way up to my chest. They turned it down so that when it came time to push I would be ready, you have to feel the contractions to know when to push. I don't remember ever being in pain though even when they turned it down. And bonus, I never completely lost the ability to move my legs. It was like the magic dose, no pain, and still control of my appendages. Well in the mean time that crazy midwife returned a time or two and checked me, I was progressing just fine on my own (so HA, no pitocin needed thank you very much). I was also checked by a nurse learning something or another and some family medical nurse learning something or other. ALL sense of privacy is lost at this point... ya sure go ahead and poke your fingers up in there... let me know how things are going ...
   Well probably about 7:45 they ask how I'm doing and I say I have this strange pressure in like my butt... Oh turns out that is baby's head pushing down. They check me again and even Chris at this point can see her head... however... shift change is at 8am... do I want them to call for the midwife or wait, let baby get a bit further on her own, and do it after 8am... Well, since I wasn't super impressed by this lady, I thought I'd roll the dice and wait for shift change. (couldn't have made a better decision)
   Shift change rolls around... gals start getting things prepped. Sidenote, it was kind of cool, the nurses work in a team of two and one was kind of newer to the whole delivery process (she was some other type of nurse) and so I got to hear all about what they were doing and why in the set up since the other nurse was teaching her. Now enter Bridget Dorsey, midwife for Kaiser  (ironically, she was the first doc I saw at my 8wk pregnancy appt, then we switched to get a 'real dr' instead of a midwife... and who ends up delivering baby!) We did a few 'practice pushes'. The nurse gal was great, she said no one really knows the best way to describe what I am supposed to do, so just push as if I am having a really big bowel movement... ok got it...
     So I probably started pushing about 8:20 or so... I remember it being tiring, but not really 'hard' like I said my epidural was great. I would push when they said, break when they said, Chris was on one side, a nurse on the other. They asked if I wanted baby on me when she came out. Uh Yes Please! They moved my gown aside and prepped. Baby's head came out... small break, then shoulders and body. Poof, baby no longer in my belly, but on my belly! Amazing! Beautiful baby Peyton was born at 8:46am. She weighed 7 lbs and 1 oz and was 19.5 inches long. Chris cut the cord, and then they took baby aside to clean her up and wrap her up. Then Bridget began the rest of her work. Many women don't know, that you still have to push out the placenta (not a big deal, but it has to be done) and then the repairs... yes I did have some tearing, but I was still numb from the epidural so she stitched me right up. They also come up every ten minutes or so and push all across my abdomen to get my uterus to contract and keep pushing out all the 'left-overs' um eww... They did give me a pitocin drip AFTER Peyton was born to keep my uterus contracting and apparently natural red heads are known to bleed more after and apparently pitocin helps with that too...
    So all repairs made, 'cleaned up' (yeah that's a process) and baby is great. Now I was RAVENOUSLY hungry. Remember I had those peaches at like 9pm and now it's like 12 hours later and I just pushed out a baby. I ate some hospital meal that real life me would NEVER eat. Some sort of crepe like item with apples and some sort of cream cheese all warm and mixed together. (I know, how dare they mix) but I was seriously ready to eat a hippo or something... And now, relaxing family time! We snuggled, worked on feeding her, and started sending out the mass texts to let everyone know that Peyton had arrived.
    Who knew they did so much work after baby is born too... they came and checked both me and her like every 20 minutes for quite some time. She got a bath, goop in her eyes, shots, and pokes. At some point Peyton's lung was sounding a bit off so they called in a neo-natal nurse. She was assessed and watched for awhile more, but she never had to leave my room. I got to go in the bathroom and get cleaned up, with some help. (I had to be assisted to the bathroom at least twice since I had the epidural) It was great though, I felt great and could walk fine shortly after she was born.
   Then the steady stream of family came in and out for the rest of the day, cooing over how cute she was! We took lots of pictures, changed diapers, ate when we could, and enjoyed our new family. Chris got to go home, take a shower... and maybe a nap... It was a wonderful way to welcome a baby into the family. No complications or drama! And we've never looked back!
   I hope for friends that are still waiting to have kids, that this is a breath of fresh air...  water broke at home naturally, contractions came on their own, got an epidural about 5 hours into contractions, pushed for only about 25 minutes and bam baby. yes tearing, but no like long term damage... no horror stories to tell, I had a rather pleasant experience, and I'd do it again :)