A Little Bit of Bessie: September 2015

I promise I haven't forgotten my blog...and maybe one day I'll update it more...but for now, few and far between seem to be more my style. It's like a have 3 kids or something...

ANYWHO...almost 3 weeks have passed since we welcomed our 3rd little Wilson boy to the family, and I figure it's about time to sit down & write out his birth story! Just a little warning: this could contain some TMI...it is, afterall, a birth story! ;)

On Thursday, September 3rd, I had my last OB appointment. I was still measuring a little small, but nothing for her to be concerned about. I was 2-3cm dilated, having very random contractions & had been losing my plug slowly since week 39 (if you don't know what that means...don't look it up. Trust me). She stripped my membranes for the 2nd time (OUCH!) & we talked labor plans. Since it was a holiday weekend, she wasn't on call at all...and the only day the entire next week she was on call was Monday (Labor Day). Since this was my 2nd VBAC, I felt very strongly about having her as my doctor. She knows my history, knows my babies, knows me & I was so afraid of going into labor and getting a doctor that wasn't quite as on board with a VBAC as she was. She told us to talk it over, and if we decided that Monday was our day, we could call in the morning and schedule our induction. However, I had already decided in my head...it meant more to me to have my doctor than to wait for Finn to show up on his own, so we called the next morning and scheduled it. Monday morning at 6am we were to be induced! However...

Later that night, I started having a lot more contractions. I started timing them, and they came in no pattern what-so-ever. Some were 3 minutes apart, some 6 and some 30. It was obvious that I was in early labor, but that could last for days so there was no need for alarm. Regardless, I still got hardly any sleep Friday night because even if it is early labor, contractions still don't feel good. Around 4am Saturday morning, Christian woke us up crying, coughing & with a fever. Grrrrreat. Just what we needed, me in labor & sick kids. I had a feeling it was strep throat by the way he was coughing, so I took him to the doctor first thing Saturday morning. Sure enough, strep throat. They put him on antibiotics and told us that if Gavin were going to get it, he would show symptoms in 24-48 hours. Talk about stressing a mom out. A baby due at any time, one with strep & one that needed to be watched for strep. Side note, answering all the pediatrician's questions, while constantly contracting...not fun.

I took it easy all day Saturday (after the doc appt)...like I said, I did NOT want to go into full blown labor without my doctor on call. I was determined to keep that baby IN! However....

About 2:45am, I woke up to some very intense contractions back to back. I decided I probably needed to time these, but first I needed to use the bathroom. Upon that trip to bathroom, I suddenly realized I was bleeding. I immediately panicked...this is exactly what happened with Christian. I bled & bled and since they couldn't figure out why, I ended up in an emergency c-section that I don't remember and it was awful. I sat there cleaning myself up trying to figure out how this was happening again. Once I calmed down, I woke Dustin up and told him to call his mom to come over. It was hospital time. He also called my mom, who was in Michigan on a weekend trip & she jumped in the car to start her journey home. We packed up the remainder of our bags, I brushed the tangles out of my hair and wiped the mascara off from my under my eyes. We loaded up the car and headed towards the hospital. I was nervous, scared & oddly calm. I'd been through this before, I knew not to completely freak out.

We checked into L&D, got hooked up to the monitors & the nurses checked out the bleeding. They said it wasn't a lot, but they would let the on call doctor know what was going on. I was still having strong contractions and I was 3-4cm dilated.

About an hour later, the on call doctor came in and told me that for now, she just wanted to keep me on the mobile monitors & watch the bleeding. She didn't want to induce me or break my water, and she was just going to let my body progress on it's own. If I hadn't had the baby by the next morning, then my doctor could start the induction process as planned. AKA she didn't want to do my VBAC! I was actually relieved. As much as I was ready to get the ball rolling, I wanted my doctor.

So we spent all day Sunday walking around the labor floor, watching TV, playing card games, cat-napping & pretty much being bored out of our minds. My contractions actually slowed down, and my bleeding eventually stopped. We had some visitors bring us food & since my Sunday night girl's night was obviously not going to happen for me, some of the girl's came to visit me afterwards. Finally, about 10pm, the nurse gave me an Ambien and told me to get some sleep...Monday was going to be a long day!

About 5am, the nurses came in to check my progress (4-5cm), hook me back up to all the monitors & fluids and start my very low dose of pitocin. With me being a VBAC, I can't be induced with a regular amount of pitocin, because it increases my risk of a uterine rupture. Once the pitocin started, my contractions got a lot stronger. Around 7am, I felt a huge gush of something come out. I told Dustin I didn't feel like it was my water breaking, so we called the nurses and sure enough, it was not my water breaking. It was blood. And a LOT of it. They called in my doctor to come check things out. She immediately let me know she did not like this amount of blood, so she wanted to break my water to make sure that didn't have blood in it as well. Luckily my water was clear, so she told me we were going to stop the pitocin, put in my epidural (in case we had to be rushed back for a c-section), watch the bleeding & keep an eye on both of our heart rates. If anything started looking bad, it was going to be another c-section for me.

At 8am, they gave me my epidural. At 8:45am, they came in to check my progress and put in my catheter. I was at 5-6cm.

For the next couple hours, things went slowly. The epidural seemed to be taking well, I got a couple more little naps in & had some more visitors. Around 9:40, she checked my progress again & I was at 6cm. At 11am, I was at 7cm. I also started to notice that my epidural was wearing off on my right side (deja vu...this same thing happened to me with Gavin), so I asked Dustin to help me switch to my right side to help get it numb again. For some reason, my body does not take well to me being on my right side during labor, because I started getting nauseous, threw up a few times, lost my vision & my blood pressure bottomed out to thirty something. They moved me off of right side & slowly I started feeling better. About this time (1pm), my doctor came in to check things out. I was 8cm and 75% thinned. The bleeding had slowed down and I was getting close! I decided to take another little nap while Dustin chowed down on some chick-fil-a (jerk!). About 3(ish), I started feeling some pressure & asked to be checked. My doc came in and said I was ready! They started getting the room ready & it was time to kick my family out. However, I started getting really emotional when my mom left, so I asked Dustin if she could stay for the birth. He is Mr. Privacy, so I knew it might be a battle, but after a small hormonal meltdown, he went and got my mom from the waiting room. We had also asked our friend Celia if she would stay in the room and take pictures with our camera. So we had our labor crew, the doctors & nurses and it was time to push!

Pushing was a lot harder this time because 1: I was completely numb and couldn't feel my contractions coming (with Gavin, the epidural had worn off on one side). and 2: Mr. Finn decided he wanted to come out face-up! A sunny-side up baby. In case you weren't aware, babies are supposed to be born face-down...and pushing them out face-up causes a lot of bruising and a much harder time getting them out. Because I couldn't feel my contractions coming, the nurses would watch the monitor and let me know when to push. In between pushes, we were joking and laughing like nothing was going on. However, because I wasn't on pitocin or anything to make my contractions come faster, it was taking forever in between contractions. After about 20-30 minutes of pushing, they started my pitocin again to get the contractions coming more frequently.

After about 40 minutes of pushing (and we think about 7 actual rounds of pushing), she pulled out a huge, swollen, chubby, dark-haired baby boy! They put him on my chest and the amount of emotion that came with it is just indescribable. You would think that after 2 babies, I would get used to the feeling of meeting this new little life, but everytime it's just as emotional and you have an overwhelming love for this little creature you just met.

Since he was face-up, his poor little head was so mis-shaped! But luckily that went down quickly & he had very little bruising, which surprised everyone. He also surprised us all by weighing in at a whopping 9pounds, 5ounces! I had been measuring small, so no one expected that big of a baby! I'm not sure where he was hiding out in my belly, but I'm going to take a wild guess & say my ribcage. ;)

While the doctor was sewing me up and all that fun jazz, she let me know that I was losing a lot more blood than she would like, so she was going to have to do some "scraping" to make sure my placenta hadn't detached. All I'm going to say is thank GOD for epidurals! Because of my blood loss, once the adrenaline of having a baby wore off, I was weak, light-headed & (obviously) exhausted. They put me on iron for 2 days and by the 2nd day, I was feeling a little stronger.

Overall, it was another amazing birthing experience. It definitely had it's scares and ups & downs, but I feel so blessed to have another healthy boy & another VBAC under my belt. We were in the hospital for a total of 4 days & were elated to go home and start our life as a family of 5. Gavin & Christian have done surprisingly well (Gavin WAY better than expected) with the new adjustment and we are all working to find our new normal. I have PILES of laundry that need to finished, a forever dusty & dirty house, dishes everywhere & toys are the new home decor, but it means my house is full of love and life, and one day, the chaos will be so missed!