Oliver’s birth story

12:00 am I woke up with mild cramps but I didn’t get ahead of myself because I had woken up with mild cramps before. I went back to bed 😉

1:00 am I woke up again and this time the cramps came and went about 6-7 minutes apart. I realized I had forgotten to print out the Bible verses that I had put together on a MS Word document so I quickly went and printed those out. Needless to say I was in no mood to read scripture at any point in my labor, lol.

2:30 am I woke Daniel up as the contractions were about 2 minutes apart. I was excited about the pain (mild) at this point (the only point) as I knew it was bringing me closer to meeting baby girl or boy Deane. We phoned Baby + Company, the birthing center that I was going to have my magical water birth at, and they said I should come in later in the day when contractions were longer and closer together.

8:00 am I kept having contractions 2 minutes apart that lasted for about 20-30 seconds. They were painful, but I had no idea what was coming. We phoned Baby + Company again and they said I could come in and get checked out. We had phoned my mom a little earlier to tell her that, “Today is the day!” so she could meet us there.

9:30 am We got to Baby + Company after an interesting drive. How have I never noticed laboring women in cars before? I’m on the lookout for them now! Every time we stopped at a light and I was having a contraction, I would try to put on a smile while I gritted my teeth and breathed through them while trying not to look like a crazy person.

They checked me and I was 3 cm dilated but they instructed us to go and labor some more at home. They told Daniel to come in again when I had totally changed and was no longer resembling the wife he knew. I was very disappointed because I thought the whole purpose of a lovely facility was to labor there making use of all the wonderful equipment.

The drive back was even tougher and I think my labor really slowed down at this point. My mom met us at home and took turns with Daniel bringing me drinks and helping me through contractions.

3:00 pm After what felt like forever, getting in and out of warm baths and laboring in my own bed, my contractions were still about 1-2 minutes apart and 30-45 seconds long. At this point they were pretty painful and I had a lot of back labor. Every contraction my mom or Daniel would need to apply lots of pressure on my lower back – on either side of my spine. My mom phoned Baby + Co. again and they said in order to come back again I needed to have contractions for an hour that were 1 minute long and about 1-2 minutes apart. I really just wanted to get there, especially knowing we had a 25-30 minute drive.

4:00 pm My water broke and it was the weirdest feeling. I called out to my mom that I had probably just pood in the bed, although in my head I knew it came out of a different place. Overshare. She came and took a look and said it was my water but it was yellowish/brown which was troubling. She phoned Baby + Company and told them my waters were meconium stained and they said we need to go directly to the hospital. My water birth literally went “down the drain” but I knew we would be in good hands at the hospital. They sent my records over to the hospital and I had already pre-registered just in case so they had all my information.

4:45 pm We got to the hospital after navigating some crazy traffic from South Charlotte to Uptown. This drive was WAY worse than the morning one but I had my mom in the back seat reaching over trying to put pressure on my lower back. I had heard they encourage woman to walk up to the labor/delivery rooms so up I walked. We got to the 8th floor in the elevator and the security guard held the door open for me while I had a contraction and groaned rather loudly. There were families with children waiting to go down but the gentleman kept saying, “You just take your time ma’am.” Their jaws were on the floor as I passed them on the way to the delivery room. But by this point I hardly even noticed.  There were teams of people waiting for baby and I so I felt very peaceful knowing we were in good hands.

5:00 pm I got to the room and my mom went to park the car properly. I got onto the bed and squatted facing the head of the bed, holding on to those rails. Dr. Nora Arronte from Providence OB/GYN introduced herself and told me I was 7cm dilated. I asked if it was too late for an epidural and she said it wasn’t – that it would take about 30 minutes and I would need an IV and to lie back in the bed. That sounded awful to me and so I said I only had 3 more centimeters, I might as well just take it home. I started having the feeling to really “push” and couldn’t really stop myself. She told me it was ok to bear down. At this point it felt like I was screaming. (Daniel said I was.) They checked baby’s heart rate and it was 122. About 10 or 15 minutes later the Dr. Arronte checked me again and I was 10 centimeters, ready to push. My mom came back in at this point and overheard the doctor saying that baby’s heart rate had dropped to 60 bpm. I didn’t know that, all I knew was that they were going to use the suction to help get baby out.

5:25 pm After about four pushes with the contractions, baby Deane came flying out and Daniel got to cut the cord. He also got to exclaim, “It’s a boy!” The resuscitation team whisked off our screaming baby to get checked out and I delivered the placenta which was much easier than I expected. I had a level two degree tear which I got stitched up and then they handed me our son. It was just unbelievable. They laid him on my chest and I just blurted out in soft sobs, “I don’t know anything about how to take care of you, but I’m going to try my best.” I looked at Daniel and said that this was our son Oliver Alexander Deane.

He was alert for quite a few hours and it was still hard to fathom that he was just in my tummy. I was very glad to be in the hospital where the nurses could help us suction all the sticky fluid that kept coming up in his mouth. It was so scary watching him choke on it all through the night. We hardly got any sleep obviously.

What I didn’t realize was that the labor and delivery was not the hardest part. Taking baby home on Sunday, recovering myself and being a parent would prove to be even tougher. We are having a rough time with our little “Peaceful Warrior” but are just taking it day at a time thanking God that we have a beautiful boy.

This wasn’t the birth story I was expecting but I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I had a great hospital experience and loved all the nurses, doctors and other hospital staff that helped us navigate those first 2 days.

Blogging is already a lot more challenging with a needy baby so hang tight with me guys, I’m doing my best!