Greyson's Birth Story

As I said in my previous post, I was going to save the birth story for a later date.  While it wasn't super eventful, it definitely had it's fair share of drama.  Brace yourself, this will be a marathon post.  My labor lasted 30ish hours so it's going to take a while to get it all out.  Like I said...brace yourself.

My due date came and went, and the only sign of impending labor, was the false labor that totally faked me out for several hours.  I was really hopeful that the contractions I'd timed for 4 hours would finally start to increase and real labor would begin.  No such luck.  So we continued to wait, and wait, and wait.  I went to the appointment scheduled for the Monday after my due date for a non-stress test to make sure he was tolerating being overdue.  He was, and I was no where closer to getting induced than the week before.  A fact that was REALLY annoying and frustrating me.  I was told to schedule another appointment for the day before 41 weeks to have a fluid check sonogram.  So I did, then hoped and prayed I wouldn't make it to see that appointment.  Again, no such luck.  I made it to that appointment with very few fake contractions and absolutely NO real ones.  Everything on my sonogram looked good, so when I saw the doctor my only question for her was how much longer do I have to wait for this kid to be born?!?!  She scheduled me for an induction on Monday, March 16th. If I made it to my induction date I would officially be 10 days overdue.

My last day of work was the day before I hit 41 weeks.  I was completely over being at work, and wanted a day to spend with Griffin before his world was rocked forever.  Matthew ended up taking the day off as well, so we had one last good family-of-3-day before becoming a family of 4.  We had a breakfast date at Starbucks, then a fun morning at the zoo.

As hopeful as I was that I wouldn't make it to my induction day, I did.  I wasn't scheduled to check in until 8pm, so it was most definitely a long day of waiting.  I tried my best to rest and take it easy, but my mind was definitely preoccupied.  My sister came from Chicago, and was staying with Griffin. My parents were also on their way over.  They were going to be with Griffin while my sister was with us at the hospital.

We arrived at the hospital, got checked in, changed, IV started, etc.  The on-call doctor from my OB's office came in to see us, and explain the protocol for my induction.  They were starting me with Cervidil, which is a medication designed to help ripen the cervix.  I was only 1cm dilated and 50% effaced at the time, so the cervidil was going to hopefully help thin my cervix more before starting me on pitocin.  The major downside to the cervidil is it takes 12 hours to hopefully do it's job.  So for those 12 hours, we basically sat around doing a whole lot of nothing.  The good part was it was over night, so I did get sleep, but once the next morning rolled around, there was a lot of sitting and waiting.  At 10am they finally took the cervidil out and let me have a little break from meds before starting pitocin.  I got up and walked around, hoping to increase my contractions naturally.  Once again, no such luck.  I had been contracting all night, but they felt like nothing more than the Braxton Hicks I'd been having for weeks.  Around 12:30 they started me on pitocin.  I was barely 2cm and 60% when they started my pit.  When I went in for induction with Griffin, I was at a very similar point, so I was hopeful things would start moving once the pitocin was started.  Boy was I wrong...

Every 30-60 min they would up my pitocin.  It didn't take all that long before it was cranked to the max at 20.  I wish I could say by that point I was begging for an epidural because the contractions were horrendous thanks to the pit, but that was not the case.  I sat in bed, pit cranked for hours and still felt like nothing more than false labor.  To say I was getting frustrated at this point would be putting it mildly.  By this point it was becoming clear that there would be no baby before Griffin went to bed for the evening, so I had my parents bring him to the hospital for a visit.  I was really missing my little buddy, and was hoping that a visit would cheer me up, and help coax his brother out.

Although it didn't help my labor progress any quicker, having some company helped distract me a little bit.  Matthew left for a while and grabbed dinner with my parents and Griffin.  While he was gone, the midwife came in to discuss a couple of options with me.  She told me I could do another cervidil and see if it helped move things along a little more, or she could break my water and hope that plus the pitocin would really do the job.  I was nervous about having my water broken at only 2cm, but I REALLY hated the idea of sitting there for another 12 hours hoping something was happening.  She assured me that there was no concern for cord issues with breaking my water.  His head was engaged far enough that there was no worry about the cord slipping out ahead of it.  Cindy's recommendation was to do what would get things moving (in other words NOT another cervidil).  So I told the midwife that I was ready to have my water broken and finally get this ball rolling.  She and the nurse got everything together and before long, I was lying in a pool of amniotic fluid.  TMI sorry.... :o)  About two contractions after she broke my water I FINALLY felt what the contractions should've been feeling like all along.  Everyone was so happy to finally see me in pain.  I labored for about another couple of hours before finally asking for my epidural.  The anesthesiologist came in, gave me my epi, and I was happily pain-free after about 15 minutes.  

Since I wasn't in pain, I was able to sleep, which felt good because I hadn't had a lot of rest in a while. I was doing well until the shakes started in.  Between the hormone surges, the epidural and the progression of my labor, I had the shakes BAD.  This didn't come as a surprise to me at all.  I got them with Griffin too, and they're really common in labor.  It's absolutely crazy how badly I was shaking and how cold I felt.  Thankfully my labor nurse (nurse #3 at this point) brought me some heated blankets.  I had one draped around my shoulders, and 2-3 more covering me.  That finally helped tone down the shaking, and I was able to sleep again.  

LOTS and LOTS of blankets!

They checked me a few times after getting my epidural.  With Griffin, the epi was what I needed to finally make progress.  I'd moved from 2cm to 4cm, but kind of got stuck at 4cm for a while.  My midwife came in around midnight and told me she was going to head home for just a little while to get a little rest, but if anything started moving again, then the nurse would call and she'd be right back.  I had no issues with that, so she left and I got some more rest.  At this point it was VERY obvious that he would not be a St. Patrick's Day baby like we had assumed he'd be.  

Somewhere around 2:30ish I woke up because I was feeling my contractions again.  They started out not bad, Braxton Hicks-ish, but quickly started to get stronger and stronger.  I mentioned it to Cindy and she called my nurse.  The nurse came in and checked me, I was 8cm!  The only problem was, since I was 8cm, she wasn't sure they would want to re-dose my epi.  They wanted me to be able to feel when and how to push when the time came, re-dosing my epi might hinder that.  The longer she was in the room with me, the stronger my contractions were getting, and she could tell by my face. She finally asked how they were in relation to when I originally received the epidural.  At that point they were just as bad if not worse than when I got it to start with.  She called the anesthesiologist and he came in to juice me again.  Thank goodness!  Once I was good and numb again, I was a happy camper, minus the fact that the shakes were coming back.  She sat my bed upright again to let gravity continue to help progress my labor.  

Since my labor with Griffin progressed from 8cm to 10 in about twenty minutes, she called Karen, the midwife to come back, and started prepping the room for delivery, just to be on the safe side.  It definitely took longer than twenty minutes for me to finally reach 10cm, but I was glad they were being proactive.  

By the time Karen returned, I was almost 10, but Greyson was face up instead of face down.  I'd suspected this for a while because I had been having pretty awful back labor.  I never wanted to ask because I was afraid of the answer, but my suspicions were correct.  When she told me that he was face up, my reply was "that's what I was afraid of."  She told us there were things she could do to try and get him to flip so that he wouldn't actually come out face up.  She wanted to try rotating me every few minutes, that can encourage the baby to flip on its own.  So I said ok, and everyone in the room proceeded to help me flip onto my right side.  As soon as I was lying on my side, his heart rate dropped immediately.  He did NOT like that at all, so the next move was to rotate onto all 4's.  There I was naked butt (thank you hospital gown) up in the air for the whole room to see.  He didn't like that position either, so thankfully I wasn't that way for too long.  We rotated again, and I was lying on my left side.  Finally his heart rate leveled out and I stayed there for a while.  Karen checked again and he had moved a little, but was still not face down.  She told us that once I started pushing she could help rotate him.  That sounded very unpleasant, but not quite as bad as the idea of pushing him out face up.  

At this point my epidural was wearing off again.  It never once crossed my mind to tell them and ask for more.  I don't know if I just assumed they wouldn't give it to me, or if it was simply because there was so much going on that it really just never occurred to me that I'd need it.  At this point I was fully dilated, but my cervix wasn't completely gone yet.  I wan't thrilled to hear this because I figured that meant more waiting.  Karen told us that it shouldn't be a big deal.  Once I started pushing it should help the rest of the cervix thin out.  So the next thing I knew, she told me I could push any time I felt the need.  It wasn't long before my next contraction started so here we went.  

I honestly do not, for the life of me, know how women push for hours and hours on end.  I was so lucky both times that it did not take me long to push either of my babies out.  Griffin was 25 minutes and Greyson was 33.  I do know that both times though, I would've bet anything that it had been over an hour or more.  It seemed to take FOREVER!  With Greyson being quite a bit bigger than Griffin, I felt like I was pushing and pushing and not getting anywhere.  Thank goodness everyone in the room was so encouraging.  Every push they were cheering me on and telling me what a great job I was doing.  By this point my epidural was gone.  I could feel EVERYTHING.  I'm sure it was still probably slightly better than if I'd never gotten it to start with.  It probably was still helping some, but I definitely felt way more of this kid's birth than I ever intended to.  In hindsight it was probably better.  I was able to push more effectively, but at the time, holy cow.  

Everyone kept telling me they could see his head.  After hearing that several times, I finally asked if he was crowning yet.  I thought for sure I was feeling the dreaded "ring of fire."  Karen told me that he wasn't crowning yet, but he was getting closer.  Every push a little more of his head was emerging, so within the next push or two he should be crowning.  She asked if I wanted to reach down and feel his head, if it would help motivate me to push more.  My answer was "no I don't think so, I'm fine."  At that point everyone in the room burst out laughing and my nurse asked me how in the world I was so polite at that point in my labor, and I had to be the most polite patient she'd ever had.  That made me laugh too, until the next contraction came along at least!  Pushing continued and before long he really was crowning.  What I thought was the ring of fire before, was NOTHING compared to the real thing.  Oh.  My.  Word.  Karen told me when his head was out, and was helping Matthew because he was going to finish delivering Greyson just like he had Griffin.  He wasn't able to do quite as much this time around.  Greyson's shoulders need some help maneuvering around my pubic bone, so Karen needed to do that part.  Once his shoulders were out, I kept thinking ok he should be out soon, but he kept coming and coming and coming.  At one point I thought why do I still feel this kid!?!?!  Finally he was completely out, and I was able to get some relief.  

Karen had Greyson get checked out right way instead of immediate skin to skin contact.  He was pretty purple and didn't cry right away, so she wanted to make sure he was fine.  Thankfully he was.  As soon as the nurse got him to the warmer and suctioned him out he started crying and his color returned just fine.  While they were working on him, I delivered the placenta.  Once that was done I felt SO much better.  I couldn't believe how much pressure I still felt before the placenta was clear. They brought him to me for skin to skin and Karen worked on getting my bleeding under control and sewed up the two tears I had (thanks Greyson!)  I was able to snuggle my little man and he worked on breastfeeding. 

Sweet Baby Greyson

22.5" = one HUGE baby!

Once the shakes were gone I was having MAJOR hot flashes!

Snuggling my sweet little man

It's amazing how quickly the previous 30 hours (well really the last 6 weeks) vanished from my mind the minute I held him.  He was so perfect.  All 8.2 lbs and 22 1/2 inches of him!  He was most definitely a lot bigger than his brother, but when you're 12 days over due, I guess that's not too surprising.  We all commented on how much he looked like Griffin.  They could've passed for identical twins.  

Everything got cleaned up, I survived my first trip out of bed and into the bathroom (yikes!) and before long we were being wheeled up to the postpartum unit.  We were so lucky to have such wonderful nurses the whole time I was on the labor floor.  All three (yes three) of them were great.  I kind of hated to leave.  Thankfully all that I had endured resulted in an absolutely perfect little boy.  We could not be more in love with him.  He's been the perfect addition to our family.  Everyone, big brother especially, absolutely loves him!

Holding his brother for the first time.

"I love my Greyson."

He just loves his little brother!