Baby Noble: A Birth Story

Disclaimer:  This story is incredibly long and has honest details about giving birth.  

My last scheduled doctor's appointment was Monday, the 8th.  My doctor stripped my membranes as part of the exam, which I was not expecting but it was the next step since I was officially over my due date.  It was uncomfortable and made me feel incredibly crampy.  He said we had a 50/50 chance of it working but if we hadn't felt anything by Wednesday morning that it wasn't going to work and the next step was induction.  I hadn't progressed any further than I was the week before and we decided to schedule an induction date for Thursday, the 11th.  I was so disappointed.  I had such strong feelings against being induced and I so badly wanted to feel how labor was meant to feel naturally.  I wanted to feel contractions and labor at home for as long as I could. Induction seemed so forced and unnatural.

Tuesday night, we went to Barnes & Noble and read for a few hours.  I mentioned on our way home that my stomach was kind of hurting but I didn't think anything of it since I had been dealing with so many cramps over the past 2 days.  At about 11:45, I felt a very strong cramp that felt totally different than what I had been feeling.  I tried closing my eyes and falling asleep but in a few minutes, I felt another strong cramp.  I downloaded a contraction tracker app on my phone and waited for 2 more to pass before I woke Carson up.  I started crying because they hurt pretty bad (and I remember thinking "geeeez this just the beginning and they hurt like this!?") and because I was so happy that she got to come on her own.

We hopped out of bed and both took showers.  As we got our things ready for the hospital, whoever was closest to the phone would start timing when my contractions started.  From the get go, they were about a minute long every 5 minutes.  We knew we needed to have 2 hours of contractions 5 minutes apart before we could head to the hospital and that time FLEW by.  I tried sitting on the exercise ball like our birthing instructor recommended but I felt each contraction so much in my butt that it was pretty uncomfortable for me to sit.  Standing and moving around were the most comfortable ways for me to handle the waves of contractions.

We got to the hospital right at 2:00 am and they took us up to the birthing center immediately.  I was 4-5 cm dilated in my initial exam so they went ahead and admitted me.  We settled into our room and dimmed the lights, started playing relaxing music, and Carson began massaging my back.  I had initially requested to not be hooked up to an IV, but when I came in they said I was a little dehydrated, so I had to receive some fluids.  

When they took me off the IV, I was able to walk around for about 30 minutes.  I tried to use the exercise ball again, but every time I moved, the heart rate monitor would slip around and an angry nurse would come in and tell me if they continued to lose the heart rate, I would have to stay in bed. I lost the heart rate enough times that I eventually gave up and just got back in bed.  As soon as I laid back down, I got incredibly nauseous and threw up, which resulted in being hooked back up to the IV.  I was stuck in bed from that point on.  My labor seemed to be progressing pretty quickly though.  Carson continued to massage my back and every hour or so I would rub some lotion on my hands and I would hold them near my face when I had a contraction so I could inhale the smell.  Believe it or not, it was a huge help.

My doctor came in to check on me around 6:30 am.  I was around 7 or 8 cm dilated and he wanted to go ahead and break my water to progress things along further.  It felt like gallons of water left my body.  They were anticipating that I would give birth by noon.  I was also informed that if I wanted any pain meds that this would be my last chance.  I didn't even give it a second thought. I had made it this far drug-free and I wanted to keep it that way.

I entered into the transition phase of labor and someone must have told me that it should last an hour because I watched the clock faithfully for that hour just waiting for it to end.  I didn't even make it an hour before I started feeling the urge to push, which is one of the craziest feelings that I've ever felt.  It was like something else took over my body.  There was absolutely no relaxing during that phase.  My nurse checked me again and said I was 9.5 cm dilated and that I could start to push when I felt the urge.  I rolled over at one point and the baby's heart rate shot down to 80-90 bpm which was a major cause for concern.  They put an oxygen mask on me to help her heart rate stabilize.  

Soon after that they called my doctor in and they turned me flat on my back and prepped me for delivery.  It felt like my contractions almost came to a standstill.  I would push for a little bit at the beginning and then the contraction would go away.  I think being on my back completely stifled them.  Each time I pushed, the doctor and nurses kept telling me to push more and more but it felt so wrong because there was no feeling to push.  In between contractions, my doctor continued to stretch me, which felt completely miserable.  After a few contractions, I finally had her head out.  I remember thinking, "I thought it was supposed to get easy after her head came out..."  Her body certainly felt worse to me, but that might have been because I forced it, pushing it out without a contraction.

Allison Faye was born at 8:49 am.  She was 7 pounds, 10 ounces, 20 inches long, and had a true tight knot in her umbilical cord--something only one in 2,000 babies has.  We are incredibly blessed that we never experienced any complications from her knot.  It’s kind of impossible for me to put into words what it felt like when I saw my daughter for the first time.  She’s just the most perfect thing I’ve ever seen. 

Carson was such an incredible coach.  I would not have been able to do it without him.  During our birthing classes, we practiced relaxing and attempted to practice on our own but it never seemed to really do much.  Whatever he was able to do for me during labor was just something that I don't think we could have practiced.  It just kind of happened.  It seems cheesy to practice encouragement, I think.  But boy, does it make a huge different to hear someone you love so much tell you how great you're doing at something that is so incredibly hard and painful.  The best thing he said to me was "your body was made for this".  I truly believe that I wouldn’t have been able to go through the whole process without any drugs if he hadn’t been with me.