I’ve finally finished writing out Easton’s birth story! I took jot-notes on my iPhone throughout the entire labour, so I could remember all the details. It’s LONG and perhaps boring, but I wanted to remember EVERYTHING, so here it is! (All photos taken by me... except the one I'm in...)
On Saturday January 12th (one of our Due Dates - determined by the 9 week U/S), I started feeling regular contractions (about 45 minutes apart) around 8:00 pm, after we had finished dinner and were relaxing on the couch. I had felt what I can only describe as menstrual cramps, periodically that day, but didn’t think anything of it until they came back that evening and were starting to feel stronger. Dan had a hockey game that night and I felt confident that we had a long wait ahead of us, so I told him to go play, just keep his phone close by! By 10:30 pm, they were 20-30 minutes apart and lasting about 40 seconds. By midnight, I finally realized “this must be it”, since my contractions were now about 10 minutes apart and lasting 50-60 seconds. I decided I’d try to sleep rather than staying up all night timing them, but when I woke up at 3 am they were much more painful and 4 minutes apart, lasting for 50-60 seconds. My obstetrician had told me to head to the hospital when they were 5 minutes apart for an entire hour, so we packed up the car and headed to the hospital around 4:00 am Sunday morning (January 13th).
When we arrived at the hospital, they got us a room in Triage, hooked me up to the “contraction machine” and checked my cervix. At my previous appointment the week prior, I was 1 cm dilated and 25% effaced. The nurse told me my cervix was now dilated 2-3 cm and was 75% effaced. I was excited! Progress!!! We decided to walk around the hospital for an hour to see if I would dilate more (they wont admit you until you’re 4 cm which is what they consider “active labour”). After an hour (and some breakfast at Timmies), we were back in Triage to be checked. 3 cm and 100% effaced. Not much change. Although I was clearly in pain and having regular contractions (which were still 4 minutes apart), they recommended we go back home and come back to the hospital when they were 3 minutes apart. Why tell people to come to the hospital when contractions are 5 minutes apart only to send them home when they’re 4 minutes apart?!?! I was not impressed, but around 8:30 am, we went home anyways.
I was exhausted from being up all night, so I had a nap until 11 am, then we took Lucy for a walk. After all of that, it actually seemed like my contractions were tapering off. They were farther apart and they were definitely less intense than they had been at the hospital. A little part of me thought maybe I wasn’t in labour after all, but I had a gut feeling I would have my baby in my arms very soon!
Eventually, by noon-ish, my contractions had become much more painful and were still 4 minutes apart, so I called the hospital and asked them what I should do. Should I come in or continue to labour at home? They said I could come back to see if I had dilated any more and then they could decide what was best. At around 3 pm, we went back to the hospital for the second time, and I was still at 3 cm. The doctor said I should go home (again! grrr), take a bath and try to relax and see what happens. I was so annoyed about being sent home again, especially since there were at least 10 empty L&D rooms and no one else in triage, plus I was 1 cm away from being admitted! So stupid.
We got home around 4 pm, I had a bath, a light dinner, and tried to nap but my contractions were too painful to sleep through (or talk through, or walk through, or do anything but breathe through) so we headed back to the hospital around 7 pm. The nurses checked me right away since I think they could tell I was in a lot of pain. 4-5 cm! FINALLY enough to get admitted! Third times a charm, I guess?!
We “moved in” to our L&D room around 8:30 pm, and met our amazing nurse, Rachel, who would be with us until baby arrived! We got settled in and I bounced on the exercise ball for a bit, trying to "get things going". My parents stopped in to say a quick hello and wish me luck. I discovered the most comfortable position to endure my contractions was for me to be on my hands and knees with Dan applying as much pressure as he could to my lower back, since that's where I felt alot of the pain. I also did some “breathing exercises”, which seemed to help as well. After my parents left, the on-call doctor and resident came in to introduce themselves around 9 pm. They told me they wanted to break my water since I wasn’t dilating very quickly. I told them they could, but only after I had the epidural! The doctor laughed and told me that was a good decision, since after your water breaks, the contractions become much more intense and more frequent.
At 9:45 pm, I got my IV and received the epidural. I also got a bladder catheter, which was news to me! Nobody told me to expect that! Yuck. I was TERRIFIED about getting the epidural, but it actually didn’t hurt at all… all I could feel was the sensation of a cold liquid being poured down my back, and my feet felt like they were asleep. The IV was actually the most painful part!
At 10 pm, the resident doctor came back in to break my water with her ‘crochet hook’ type contraption, and then her and the nurse laughed at me because apparently I had copious amounts of amniotic fluid…. Good thing my water didn’t break in public! At this point I was 5-6 cm dilated, 100% effaced and baby was in the ideal LOA position. They said it shouldn’t be much longer now!
By 1:30 am on January 14th, I was still 5-6 cm, so the doctor decided to put me on the lowest dose of Oxytocin (Pitocin), to help speed things along. Shortly after it was administered, I was 6-7 cm dilated.
At 2:30am, the worst 30 minutes of my life began. My epidural ran out, while my nurse was on her break and the stupid break coverage nurse decided it would be a good idea to go and get a new bag and then PLACE IT ON THE TABLE BESIDE ME AND LEAVE! Um… am I supposed to hook it up myself?! The pain was so intense I started feeling nauseous, began sobbing like a big baby, shaking like a leaf (I felt very cold but Dan said I was sweating), and just altogether freaking out! Dan was trying to get me to relax, but with no nurse in sight and a full epidural bag staring at me from the bedside table, that was easier said than done!
Just before 3 am, my nurse Rachel came back from her break and could tell right away, by the terror in my eyes, that I must be in the transitional stage of labour. She checked me right away, and sure enough I was 10 cm dilated! She felt awful that she wasn’t around to make sure my epidural was topped up when I needed it most, but sure enough I had survived the journey from 7-10 cm, without it! She got the epidural topped up right away, and by 3 am, I was back to my (mostly) pain-free bliss. (I say mostly because I had a “patchy” epidural, so the left lower portion of my uterus remained “unfrozen” I guess you could say, and I felt all the contractions in that one spot).
At exactly 3 am, I started pushing and about 6 or so contractions in, I started feeling nauseous again, and began throwing up. The nurses called the doctors in right away because apparently my body relaxed so much while I was being sick, Easton’s head started crowning and was pretty much out by the time the doctors made it there! At 3:30 am, the doctors arrived and by 3:38 am, after 10 hours of active labour and 38 minutes of pushing, Easton was born!
I’m not nearly a good enough writer to describe to you exactly how I felt when my baby boy was placed on my chest all wrinkly and covered in white goop, but it was an absolutely surreal and incredible moment. He was so perfect and beautiful and amazing and he was ours! Dan cried, I cried, Easton cried. Our hearts were full of love, and our family was whole!
He stayed on my chest for maybe 2 minutes while I took it all in, and then Dan cut his cord and the nurses whisked him away to be assessed and measured and weighed. He scored a perfect 9/9 on his APGAR, weighed in at 8lb 5oz and measured 21 inches. A big boy! The nurse brough him back to me and helped me feed him, we took a few pictures of our new little family, and then we got him all wrapped up and around 4:45 am, my parents and Dan’s mom and sister came in to meet him! Everyone was enamored by his adorableness and took about 1000 photos, but they didn’t stay long because we were exhausted. Time for some well-deserved sleep, since we all (Easton included) worked very hard getting to this point!
After a night of little sleep, lots of “how do I do this?” moments, and multiple checks on Easton, and myself, we got discharged the next day, around noon and our little family of three went home to start our new life together :)
Our first day at home!
I hope you enjoyed reading about Easton's birth! I'll try to keep up writing the blog on a regular basis, but it might not be weekly, as it was throughout my pregnancy. We'll see how much free time the little guy allows me!
