Birth Story: Kayleigh Rose
Gosh, I LOVE BIRTH STORIES!
From the time I was a kid and TLC "A Birth Story" was a popular show, I've loved births. My entire pregnancy with Kayleigh, I kept telling everyone how I was a little nervous but mostly excited to experience labor and delivery. I have always believed in the strength and beauty of a woman's body and it's innate ability to birth a child.
My birth "plan"aka birth preferences was focused around having a natural birth and my "goal" was to deliver her without medications. Even though a natural birth was my goal, I was open to the epidural if I wasn't coping well.
I spent lots of time researching birth, following doulas online, and preparing myself.
On her due date, September 17, I went in for my weekly appointment. I was 1-1.5 cm dilated and my midwife did a membrane sweep. The sweep was really uncomfortable and I had my first contraction (wowza!). Nothing came of it and we went through the weekend with no signs of labor.
On Sunday September 20th, I started to do allllll the things to get labor going. My sister and I went for a 7 mile walk, I ate spicy foods, and did the Miles Circuit.
After the weekend, I was feeling really anxious and worried labor would never start, even though I knew most first time mamas don't have their babies before 41 weeks.
I had another check up on Monday the 21st and they did another sweep after a NST (Non-stress test) and I was 2-2.5cm (2.5/75%/-2). I went home from that appointment still feeling defeated, why wasn't anything happening? I was talking about it with one of my good friends and she said her mom had the best trick to get labor started and I should text her... so I did. Her suggestion was nipple stimulation which was the one natural induction method I hadn't tried yet. I figured why not, I'll give it a try. After a quick search, I set up my breast pump and did some stim.
On Tuesday morning at 1:30am I started having contractions (YAY!). After an hour, I called the on-call nurse line and they told me to wait until I had a 511, a contraction every 5 minutes, lasting 1 minute, for 1 hour, and to get some rest. I went back to bed and slept for another couple hours. By 7am the contractions woke me back up and were fairly consistent at every 7-12 mins. I walked around our neighborhood, bounced on the birth ball, and watched Yellowstone.
At 3:30pm we called our parents to let them know I was in labor and packing up for the hospital. At 5pm we checked into the hospital and I was at 3.5-4 cm dilated. Triage wasn't my favorite place to labor but Tim enjoyed snapping pics.
They moved us up to a delivery room. I labored on the yoga ball and in the bath tub for a while but as the contractions got worse, I got nauseous and called for the epidural.
At 8:30pm I got the epidural and was 4cm dilated. The midwife wanted to come in at 10pm to check me herself and potentially start pitocin. I asked her to break my water before we started any meds. As she did the check, my water broke and I was dilated to a 5.
This is where the drama starts... the midwife thought she felt a prolapsed cord and within 5 seconds there were 8-10 doctors and nurses in the room. I immediately panicked and got the shakes.
They prepared us for an emergency c-section and right before the OR was ready, the midwife realized it was actually the baby’s hand and arm that she was feeling. She pushed her arm and hand back down and we kept laboring from there. From 10:30pm-1am the nurse helped me switch positions using the peanut ball and at 12:30am she checked again and I was at a 9! They prepared the room and I was at a 10 by 1am and started pushing.
The midwife helping with delivery helped guide my pushing and supported my perineum when the baby started to crown. She and the nurse called out that the baby had a full head of hair and asked if we wanted to feel it. Before I could even respond, the nurse moved my hand to touch the baby's head, EEK! A push or two later and baby's head was out, then at 1:25am I pushed and we had our baby!!
Kayleigh Rose made her debut and we couldn't have been more excited! My whole pregnancy I had been having "boy vibes" and we were genuinely (and happily) surprised.
