It's been two weeks since we've brought Acelyn into this world, and her entrance was nothing short of dramatic and amazing! We have such a crazy, intense and almost unbelievable story to tell, that it's impossible to make up or wait any longer to share!
Acelyn was born on a rainy and stormy Saturday. For the previous two days, I had been sleeping terribly at night time, waking up every hour on the hour with discomfort in my belly. I assumed it was just baby girl in some really awkward positions as I knew she was running out of room at 38 weeks, and none of the pain was timeable to consider as contractions, so I continued to roll with it and fall back asleep every hour after hour.
Saturday morning, I awoke to more discomfort, and really stopped to consider if they could be contractions or not. They still were not super timeable, but I did notice a decrease in her movement for the past 24 hours, which concerned me. She was still moving around, but not nearly as much as normal, so I knew in the back of my mind we would be taking a trip to L&D just for comfort's sake, to make sure everything was a-okay with baby... not really thinking at this point that a baby could be actually making her appearance later in the day.
Not even an hour later, I discovered I had lost my mucus plug. As another red flag, this time I decided it was pretty certain we would be making a trip to the hospital, and told Jason to pack up his things just in case they decided to admit me. We weren't sure what the protocol would be since my scheduled C-Section was just 5 days away, but I hadn't quite reached 39 weeks of the hospital's policy of admittance. Because my contractions weren't timeable still, I took my time in gathering things together, and decided to clean some bathrooms, take a shower, pack my entire hospital bag, and organize some last minute things before really heading into L&D. I purposely avoided eating breakfast or drinking anything, just in case something more was going on, I wanted to be as prepared as possible. About 4 hours later, we were ready to head out.
At this point, my contractions were about 10-15 minutes apart, and not super painful but caused me to sit down when they happened. My mom arrived up at our house to watch Nolan, and we said our goodbyes just in case we weren't coming home that night. I was afraid I was going to lose it and cry like a baby leaving him- neither Jason or I had ever both been gone overnight from him at the same time, so this was the first occasion that he would be spending a lengthy time away from both of us! Yet, I didn't cry at all, and neither did he, thank Goodness!
We got to the hospital and I joked that we needed to take a picture of me before going in, just in case this was the real deal and we wanted to compare my "right before" moment to the photo we took when we left the house when I was in labor with Nolan. I said we could take the picture once we got up to the L&D floor. Ironically enough, there were about 20 people on the 3rd floor as soon as we exited the elevator. We nixed the photo idea and were quickly greeted with, "Are you here for the tour!?" I remember being slightly annoyed for no reason and kind of snarled back, "No, I'm actually in labor having contractions", and the lady screamed, "YAY!" and sort of made a scene about it all in front of the tour-goers. She then took about two full minutes on explaining how to enter through the L&D doors, which we already knew how to do, and we continued on our way. Poor girl was nice, but I was irritated and probably made for a super awkward encounter!
We signed in to triage at 1:00PM. The triage was busy that day, and when we entered, there were two other women being evaluated. I changed into the hospital gown and we sat and waited for our nurse. We actually had the same nurse that we had met with when we came about a month prior due to preterm labor, and she instantly recognized us from that visit, also. She confirmed that I was definitely in labor with solid contractions happening about every 7 minutes or so. At 2:00PM, the hospital laborist came to check my dilation, and after the most severe check I've ever experienced, he determined I was just at a 2, but baby was "super, super low" and he could barely get around her to check my cervix. They hooked me up to an IV to see if the extra fluid would slow down the contractions and send me home or if we were actually here to deliver a baby. After going through one bag of IV fluid, my contractions were actually more intense and closer together. I had the nurse get the laborist in again so he could check my dilation 40 minutes later, because I was in quite a bit of pain and was starting to get a little worried that I would be in too much pain come C-section time. He checked and, yet again, baby was super low and I had moved up to a 3. He then said he would call in my doctor and anesthesia to let them know it was baby time! I was excited to know we would be having our little lady soon, but also got extremely nervous about prepping for the section and knowing what to expect for the surgery. We continued to wait, while my contractions continued to get stronger, and stronger....
Right after the lightening strike, around 3:30PM, my water broke on it's own and it was the weirdest sensation of sitting in my own fluid on the hospital bed. I was a bit freaked out at this point, knowing that things were starting to move a little too fast for my liking. I made Jason run out of triage and grab a nurse since they were all MIA for some reason. At this point, I was in a ton of pain and kept asking when my doctor and the anesthesiologist would be arriving. The laborist came in again to check on me and he was surprised to find that my water had broke. I asked if he could check my dilation again, because in the back of my mind I knew this was all happening too fast, but they couldn't because a risk of infection (once the bag is broken, cervical checks are a no-go).
My contractions were getting really intense and with each one, I was practically ripping Jason's hand off trying to find some way to cope with the pain. The nurse directly taking care of me at this point was nothing short of slow moving and very unmotivating, and although she was trying to help the best she could, by talking me through contractions and helping me blow through them, I couldn't have been more annoyed that everything was so delayed and taking SO long to get this C-section going! The storm and the lightening strike had caused all of the computer systems to shut down, so everything and everyone was running extremely behind... not the best timing for me!
At 4:00PM, my doctor, Dr. Brill, arrived and came to talk to me. He explained the c-section procedure and I also mentioned to him how much pain I was in. He asked the nurse how long anesthesia would take to show up, and both assured me it would be a matter of minutes. They started prepping me for the C-section, hooking up the clindamyacin to my IV (antibiotic since I'm allergic to penicillin), giving me my hair net and strapping on the leg compressions. Somehow I managed to take a picture because I told Jason I absolutely needed one before everything happened. Jason got dressed in his gown and hairnet, and I took another dose of medication to help with nausea. The anesthesiologist showed up at 4:15 and explained the process of the spinal block, and he quickly left to get ready for the procedure.
At this point, things got crazy. I was in excruciating pain, and I was very sternly explaining to the nurse that with each contraction (that were much closer together at this point) I felt like I had to push. She blew my concerns off and didn't bother to check anything or even relay this information to my doctors. I knew this wasn't normal but I still hadn't processed or even thought about how I would most likely have to deliver this baby. In my mind, I was seconds away from being wheeled to the C-section, and was so upset and crying that things weren't moving faster! In an instant, a team of 2 other nurses and Dr. Brill walked back into triage to see why things weren't going faster... they began pushing my bed out of triage into the hall, when our original admit nurse heard me say how I needed to push. She looked back at me and said, "Wait, did you say you felt like you needed to push?" And thank GOD she said that, because it led Dr. Brill to push my entire bed back into the triage bay, put his hand down to check what was going on, and said, "Your baby is RIGHT THERE... I'm touching her head!"
As soon as he said this, I started bawling. I begged him to do the C-section, pleading with him to cut me open and wheel me to the operating room. It finally clicked that I was going to deliver this baby naturally, with no time for pain medication, and I was terrified, to say the least. He explained that the risk of the C-section was much higher now than actually delivering vaginally, and that we had no time to give an epidural or any medication and that I could do this and have her out in minutes and the pain would be over. Throughout processing this news in a matter of mere seconds, I was having contractions minutes apart from each other with the worst pain and zero control... my body had taken over and was pushing the baby out itself. The team of two nurses suddenly turned into a whole group of nurses, running around like mad and pushing me down the hallway to an open delivery room. With zero shame, I continued to contract through the hallway, screaming with pain and probably creating mass fear amongst everyone on that hospital floor.
I was wheeled into a delivery room where more nurses were prepping things, and I was in utter disbelief that I was about to have a VBAC. I was SO scared of how much more painful things were about to get, and was terrified I wouldn't be able to push her out on my own. I felt exhausted and mentally unprepared, yet my body continued to push that little baby out with each contraction I had. With three contractions and about 6-7 pushes later, little lady had made her debut into the world at 5:01PM. It was UN.BE.LIEVABLE. It was incredibly painful and I cried my way through the whole thing. I looked down to see Acelyn... and couldn't believe I actually birthed her on my own!
They placed her on my chest instantly and she had the best, healthiest little cry. Our first reaction upon seeing her was how much she looked exactly like Nolan when he was born! Jason was able to cut the umbilical cord while another nurse took pictures for us. They allowed Acelyn to stay with me for a decent amount of time, and then took her over to check her out, weigh her and analyze her APGAR scores. She weighed in at 6 pounds, 8 ounces at a gestational age of 38 weeks and 4 days, and measured 18 inches long. The nurses were extremely quick to offer me water, ice, apple juice, and graham crackers to snack on. I found it oddly entertaining that I was able to eat and drink all in a matter of minutes, and all while I was continuing to get stitched up!
We were transferred to the new wing for our recovery room, where my Dad met Acelyn and shortly after, my mom and big brother Nolan came to visit. Nolan was thrilled to finally meet this little sissy we've been talking about for SO long, and was even more thrilled to find a cool new gift waiting for him, from his new little sister! He instantly wanted to open it and freaked when he saw it was a cool garbage truck (current obsession)! He asked to hold his sister, so we let him get up close to meet her and he loved watching her sleep and touching all of her little features. Seeing him meet her for the first time will be one of the best memories in my lifetime, and I know he's going to be a sweet big brother who will want to protect her for life.
Later that evening, Acelyn had her very first bath, and slept and ate so well for us her first day (and still continues to).
The next morning, I snapped some pictures of my newest little babe in all of her cuteness. Nolan and my mom came by again the next day to have lunch with us, and Nolan rushed in to see his sister and was the first thing he asked for. They continued to bond and he absolutely loved holding and snuggling her again.
We were supposed to be discharged a little after 5:00PM the day after Acelyn's birth, but again, there were slow-moving nurses that delayed this from happening (up until we really, really complained) and we finally were able to go home around 10:30PM.
It was an incredible and intense 48 hours that we experienced, and I'm often asked how the VBAC compared to the C-section. Unfortunately in my situation, everything happened SO quickly and I was SO unprepared for the VBAC, that I was more traumatized with the experience rather than enlightened by it. My recovery has actually been rather rough for a vaginal birth, and when everyone always comments how easy this should be compared to the C-Section, I'm a tad bitter at how much pain I'm still in 2 weeks later. I had two stitches due to 2nd degree tears, and after a week of worsening pain, I decided to get checked out. Sure enough, my pain was completely abnormal, and one of my stitches had torn, which now I need to let heal on it's own naturally (which believe me, is no walk in the park). I am absolutely proud that my body did what it needed to do and I couldn't have been happier that I wasn't in pain for very long... I literally went from being dilated at a 2 to giving birth to a healthy baby girl in a matter of 3 hours. I'm fortunate to be able to experience both types of births, and I know one day I will appreciate the VBAC and the power and strength I had through this entire experience... But for now, it's still a little too fresh in my mind!
Acelyn is such a sweet baby and we couldn't imagine our life without her. Nolan is adjusting to his little sister, and is learning to share the attention and time away from his Mama. Even through all the huge changes for him, he still is very sweet with his little sissy and always asks to hold her and kiss her, and wants to help out as much as he can. Jason goes back to work tomorrow, so it will be our first day as a trio on our own... we'll see how that goes!
Our family feels entirely complete and we are enjoying the newborn cuddles and loves along with the well wishes we've received from family and friends! We'll continue to update as much as possible when I can!
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