Personal Post: Lilah’s Birth Story
Doing something a little different here, something I wanted to remember, something I wanted to share.
Our beautiful daughter Lilah was born on January 10th, 2019, weighing 5 pounds 8 oz, 18 inches.
Time is a funny thing. I’ve thought a lot about time in the past 3 weeks since her birth. Time during the labor. And to an extent, time in the 9 months that I carried her.
There are moments when time seemed to move quickly, and then there are moments like now, when I’m sleep deprived, and counting the hours till the next feed, that time moves so slowly.
This is her labor story - and time moved quickly.
A week before her induction, I was put on bed rest for high blood pressure. My BP had been fine the whole pregnancy, but had suddenly shot up. All other tests that I had to do the following days were normal, but the OB and other doctors were worried that this gestational hypertension could quickly become pre-eclampsia.
So I was induced. We went in the morning, waited for the OB to show up, had a cervical check and surprise no dilation, no effacement. I opted to do the foley balloon as the OB mentioned that I could get a low dosage of pitocin while on it and the foley balloon had shown to get to 4-5CM dilation by 12 hours instead of the cervadil. The insertion wasn’t that bad. The pitocin wasn’t that bad. Everything was just uncomfortable having something hang between your legs for hours.
I was doing fine, could have visitors, could still finish up work.
I started feeling contractions about 6-7 hours in. Minor ones, which I thought might be regular contractions. Silly me thought “this isn’t that bad, I don’t think I’ll need an epidural”. Kelsey’s parents visited and brought dinner. After they left, the contractions started to get worse. Closer together. The next couple of hours got worse. Our OB showed up and checked me around 10PM, I had dilated to 5CM, the foley balloon had worked. We called our doula to come. I labored for a few more hours with her coaching but it was getting worse and worse, and I knew I was in for a longer haul so I asked for the epidural. The nurse told me i had to finish a whole bag of IV before they could give me the epidural - a tactic I assume for them to call in the anesthesiologist. She finally arrived around 1.30AM, the epidural was painless and I suddenly felt relief. It was magic. I watched how close the contractions were happening on the monitor but I couldn’t feel anything.
We got some sleep. At 6AM, the nurse checked me and I was dilated to 8CM. We started to labor down, I started to feel more pressure. My water broke sometime after 8AM. I only remember this because it was a different nurse after the 7AM shift change. And I felt the gush as I laid in bed.
My OB showed up around 9, said I could start pushing soon. At 9:55, I started taking a few practice pushes. I had my hopes up because she was at a +2 station, which meant she was in a pretty good position. My doula thought it wouldn’t take too long. I pushed and pushed for an hour. But the baby’s heart rate kept slowing down during the contraction. My OB had me stop pushing to see how she reacted when I didn’t push. That 30 minutes was the worst - even though I had an epidural, I could still feel pressure down there and felt the need to push. Finally, the OB let me start pushing again. After 30 minutes, I gave myself a goal of 5 contractions to get her out. I think I got her out at 6 or 7.
After she crowned, her body followed quickly and I breathed a sigh of relief when I heard her strong lungs scream. The first thing my OB said was, “there’s two of them!” and I very clearly remember panicking and saying “ two of what? Two heads?!” And she said, “no, two cords wrapped around her”.
I remember Kelsey tearing up as I pushed. As he started to see her come out. I remember him crying as they placed her on me, and how beautiful she was. How real that moment felt, as she laid on me and Kelsey stroked her cheeks and kissed her. I remember him cutting the cord. I remember the hour + that we had with her, as she made herself down my breast. As she looked at us. The calmness that engulfed her and us as all the nurses whirled around us. I remember delivering my placenta. I remember not wanting to see any of that. I remember as my OB stitched me up, and my doula telling me that “it wasn’t that bad.” I remember not crying, just stunned that this was real now.
I want to remember. So often time passes, and we forget. But the time passed slowly and quickly at the same time - it’s hard to explain. We count the seconds and minutes of pain, but yet it passes by so quickly.