Natalie's Birth Story

I thought I would post the story of Natalie's birth, some of you have asked about it and I haven't had time to return all the phone calls. Please note that some of it might be too graphic, but if you wanted to know...here it is!

On Wednesday evening, October 17th, I was supposed to attend a book club meeting. I was feeling a little strange with some cramping and thought it would be in my best interest to stay home and spend some time with Jeff. We spent the evening watching TV and hanging out together. Little did we know that it would be our last evening with just the two of us.

At 4:00 am on Thursday, October 18th, I woke up after a restless sleep needing to use the restroom. I noticed blood and yelled for Jeff. I told him I thought today would be the day. We decided to go back to bed and try to get some sleep. I began to panic, wondering if there was anyway I could back out as I started to feel my first contractions in my lower back. I told Jeff I was too nervous and needed to get up. I got up and called my mom, she was very excited and the contractions kept coming. I walked around for an hour talking to mom and hoping the contractions would increase.

At about 5:00 am I woke Jeff up and told him to jump in the shower so we would be ready to go if we needed to. I showered after him and we got everything ready. Once we were ready we tried to time some of the contractions, but I just couldn't tell when they were coming since they were all in my back. We decided to take Riley for a walk outside to try and get things moving. We walked around the block and were almost hit by a school bus! It was too funny!

When we got back I jumped on my work computer and got some things wrapped up, changed my voice mail and turned on my out of office. Jeff couldn't believe I was in labor working. I told him hey, I have a couple of loose items I need to tie down!

We then decided to try and sleep a little more. It was so weird, when I laid down I could feel my stomach contract and lift off the bed, but I could only feel it in my back. I was so discouraged, I had heard that back labor was going to be the worst!

After about 2 hours of sleeping, I couldn't feel Natalie move and got scared. I told Jeff that we should head to the hospital, that I would rather be safe and have them send us home, than sorry. We loaded up the car and headed that way! It was really weird knowing that we might be returning with our little Natalie!

We got to the hospital and checked in. We had to wait in line at reception and when we got to the front we told the lady we thought we were in labor and she said, "Oh my God, I am so sorry!" It was pretty funny.

We were sent to the PSU (Prenatal Support Unit) to make sure we were really in labor. They checked us in, hooked us up to the monitors and a resident came in and checked us. I was at 3.5 and 90% effaced. They called our OB/GYN and he said to admit us and break my water!

We then moved from the PSU into our labor and delivery room. The room was great! It was nice and big. I was getting a little uncomfortable so Mom and I walked around the floor while Jeff brought up our 8 bags. When Jeff got back they broke my water and found really thick meconium (this is when a baby has a bowl movement in utero). After a call to my OB/GYN they started a lavage to help clean out the meconium. The also put an internal monitor on Natalie's head to watch her heart rate better and another internal monitor to watch my contractions closer. This all happened at around 1:00.

At around 2 I was really uncomfortable and because I had to stay in bed, I asked for the epidural. After I received it the resident checked me again and I was at 6. Everything seemed to be moving along.

At 5 the resident checked me again and told me I was at 9. I was still only 90% effaced.

Between 5 and 7 there was no change according to the resident.

At 7 my OB/GYN came in. He checked me and I could tell something was not right. He told me that I was only a 5, that the resident had been checking me incorrectly and that we needed to make some decisions. He said he had been monitoring me from his office and had noticed Natalie's heart rate was making a sawtooth pattern. It was not reacting to the contractions like it should. As you can imagine this was a shock to us, I mean they had already brought in all the stuff for us to get ready to start pushing.

The OB/GYN said he was thinking of doing one of two things, inducing me with Pitocin or performing a c-section. We talked for a while and the OB/GYN said he didn't feel like Natalie would tolerate the inducing so he wanted to do the c-section. He said he wanted to do the c-section based on the stress her heart was already showing, the meconium, her 2 vessel cord, the fact that she was "sunny side-up" and her one kidney. We of course wanted what was best for our baby. We headed to OR 1 at around 8:00.

The delivery part of the c-section went really well. I got to hear Natalie cry and Jeff headed over to see her for the first time. After Natalie was born and they began sewing me up, I suddenly felt everything. My epidural had worn off. The next 1.5 hours were filled with me freaking out, getting dosed with morphine and the operation being put on hold because of the pain I was going through. The OB/GYN also found out that my uterus was thin, we think due to Natalie's weight, and because of her size, I never could have delivered her vaginally. I also hemorrhaged during the c-section and lost a lot of blood. I was thankful Natalie and I made it out alive.

We finally got to recovery at 10:00. I would like to say that I remember everything and it went just like I had seen 100 times on TV, but I don't remember seeing Natalie for the first time or holding her, I only know I did because Jeff took lots of photos. We got out of recovery at midnight and were settled into our postpartum room by 1:00 am on the 19th.

On Friday we started the healing process and began enjoying our little Natalie.

We are so blessed that it ended the way it did, no one ended up in ICU or NICU and we all got to go home together.

Anyway, there it is, the story of how our precious little Natalie came into the world.