The Story of Ezra's Birth

As I sit here clicketty-clacking on my laptop keyboard there is a squishy ball of perfect curled up next to my hip on the bed.  Grateful doesn't even begin to describe how I feel to have this little kiddo safe, healthy, and on the OUTSIDE of my body.  He's been here for 7 weeks. AAAAnd, we love him. 

5 days old

I like reading about other people's choices regarding birth.  I love home births and hospital births and birth-centers and midwives and doctors and doulas and such.  It's fascinating for me.  While I have my own opinions on each, I would say that I wholeheartedly support and love the fact that we have CHOICES in the matter.  I am all for each woman deciding what is best for themselves and their babes.  I have (at one time or another) considered each and every one of those for myself.

I didn't post Nolan's birth story, or Cecily's, but they're both written down.  Part of the reason I didn't  was because of all the judgment that seems to swirl around people's decisions these days. Would people think I was weak for getting an epidural?  Would my choice of having a CNM be looked at as irresponsible?  I was afraid of judgment.  Good thing I've grown up and gotten over some of that in the past 3 years. 

Here's his birth story, in case you like that sort of thing.

Friday, May 31, 2013
7am- I called the hospital from Mike's cousin's house to ask if they had a bed for me.  I'd talked with my midwife earlier that week and decided that I was ready to be induced.  The pelvic pain and pressure was getting so bad that I was having trouble walking (or standing... or sitting... or lying down... or moving at all really), so I wanted to coax the baby out asap. 

They had a bed!  Hooray!  I was going to have the baby THAT DAY!  Elation! Joy! But, mostly relief.

9am- I check in to the hospital and go through mountains of paperwork, shed a few anxious/, extremely hormonal tears, got a blessing of peace from my husband, and got an IV. 

Part of the reason I've looked in to having babies in a birth center is because I have a deep deep deep deep hatred and simultaneous fear of Pitocin.  We are not friends.  But I needed the baby OUT of my body.  REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEALLY bad. (I got really whiney about it towards the end- just ask my friends).

11am- My nurse Christine started me on Penicillin (for group b strep) and Pitocin.   The penicillin made the veins in my arm burn like acid was being pumped in to them.... so that was fun.....

3pm- Contractions are not really painful, just annoying.  The monitor (another reason I hate Pitocin- constant monitors that slip and slide and beep and drive. me. BANANAS) would not stay in the right spot, so Christine kept coming in and trying to find his heart-beat.  And, while she was really nice, it took her FOREVER to find it every time.   

3:15 My midwife comes in to check me.  I'm only at a 2.  A TWO.  I'm irritated that the hospital won't let me eat, so I circumvent the system and talk to my midwife, and she ok's it.  Once again, this re-affirms to me how much I love midwives.  I really enjoy the "To hell with the stupid hospital rules" attitude. 

Mike got me a salad and some hummus and it was fabulous.  I felt my bounce come back.

4pm- Contractions are getting painful, but are really irregular.  They up the Pit drip. 

5pm- The pain is steadily getting worse with each contraction, but there are tons of irregularities.  Sometimes the contractions are close together, sometimes they last a long time, sometimes they peak fast and back off fast. 

5:45- The pain is really bad at this point.  With every contraction I am pushing against mike's hand and tensing up my face and arms and body to try and combat it.  Not what the books tell you to do, I know.   What's even more frustrating is that the contractions are still wildly irregular.  Like my body can't figure out what to do or how to get a rhythm going.  The contractions start peaking and only backing off a little between each.  I'm not even getting a break to relax between them.  It sucks. 

I ask to get in the tub.  I can't get in the tub because I am on Pitocin and the wireless baby monitor.....is......broken.  Broken, along with my heart (ok, maybe it wasn't that dramatic.... but it felt that dramatic when they told me). 

6pm- My midwife checks me.  I am ...... a 3.  After lots of painful contractions, I'm only a 3. 

I start to cry.  How can I be a 3?  I'm in so much pain and I'm having contractions right on top of one another? 

My midwife gently suggests the possibility of an epidural. 

"I can see your body fight and tense up every single time you have a contraction.  I think maybe if you get the epidural your body will relax enough to have this baby."

I start crying.  Again.

"I feel like such a wuss.  I really thought I could do it. I am trying so hard."

That's when my superman Mikey stepped up and said the right thing at the right time.  He told me that it was entirely up to me.  That he knew I could do it without an epidural if I wanted to.  That I was strong and brave and all those things a woman wants to hear when she's in the process of giving birth.  He also said that if I got an epidural I would still be strong and brave and just as wonderful of a mother.  Truth, people.  He spoke truth.

6:15- I get the epidural and I am immediately so grateful that I did.  I want to take a nap, actually.  I can still move my legs a little, feel the contractions when they happen (although without intense pain), and I can gleefully wiggle my toes.

7pm- My nurse comes in to check me again. I'M A NINE AND A HALF!
(PS- a similar thing happened during labor with Nolan-  I went from a 3 to a 9 in less than 3 hours).

For some reason, the machine on my epidural started beeping around 7:05.  Since I was so close to delivery, and with the last two I've only had to push I few times to get them out, I told them it was fine to shut it off to stop the beeping.  I thought the babe would be out before it wore off........

Honestly, the next 45 minutes are a little blurry, but I'll do my best.

I know the baby nurse came in at some point. 

My midwife comes back and asks the nurse to "break the bed".  She started watching the baby heartbeat monitor closely and says to me "Wendy, I think we should start pushing.  I think the baby is needing to come out.  His heartbeat is decelerating during your contractions." 

Freak-outage in my brain ensues.

"I don't want you to worry at all, it's coming back up between contractions." 

I calm. A little.

I start pushing, and at some point my midwife decides to put a heart-rate monitor inside on my babe's little scalp.  She keeps saying reassuring things like "You're doing great!"  and "The baby is going to be fine" because I am continuously asking "Is he ok?  Is he ok?

Once again I go in to freak-out mode when I hear the nurse and midwife conversing quietly about how they can't get a reading on his heart-rate.

"He's turning." she says.  "It's ok. The first one is broken, I believe.  We just need another heart-rate monitor." 

I keep pushing and pushing, but for some reason he isn't coming out as fast (or as easily) as my other two.  By this point my epidural is wearing off a bit and I can feel not only pressure, but pain. 

After 20 or 30 minutes of pushing, my midwife looks at me and says, very calmly "Wendy, his heart-rate isn't coming back up between contractions.  I need you to push him out.  Now.  You can't push with contractions anymore, just push until he's here."

At that point I was no longer in freak-out mode.  I was in I'm-getting-this-kid-out-this-minute-and-nothing-will-stop-me mode.  The only moment of fear was when Erin (my midwife) quietly said to the nurse "Page the NICU, please."  I knew she tried to keep her voice down, but I have bat-like ears, apparently.

 In a whirlwind of pushing, grunting, screaming, yelling, and crying, Ezra Michael Vincent was born at 7:43pm in the evening to the sound of his fathers voice yelling "He's ok, babe! You did it! He's good!"

He weighed 8lbs 2oz and measured 21inches long. 

Despite all the fuss about his heart-rate, he ended up absolutely fine.

They asked Michael if he wanted to cut the cord, but he was so emotional from watching me give birth and the few intense moments surrounding it that he was too overwhelmed to do it.  This birth was so different, but it was wonderful in it's own way.  As cheesy as it sounds, it brought MSV and I closer.

Everything from there was calm and peaceful.  I nursed, I recovered, we left the hospital a few days later. 

Bliss.