It began at home.
I was 39 weeks and 1 day pregnant when, at 12:40 AM on August 31, I had one contraction. The pain lasted for several minutes, and I tried working through the pain by breathing, laying down, pacing, and standing in the shower. When the pain eased, I attempted to sleep, but at 1:05 I had to run from my bed to the bathroom. "Dallin, I think my water just broke!" I realized. I was laughing as I stood over the tile shouting, "I don't know what to do!" My whole pregnancy I had been warned not to expect my water breaking to be dramatically obvious like in the movies, but it certainly was. I called the hospital, and they instructed me to come in as soon as I could. Although my water had broken, I was not in active labor and only experienced mild cramps here and there as I calmly and giddily went around the house finishing packing my hospital bag. Dallin poured the cats a mountain of food and then set up the car seat in the car.
Laboring in the hospital
We arrived at the hospital at 1:50 AM. After setting us up in the delivery room, they took labs and vitals which determined that I had preeclampsia. I had only learned that I had high blood pressure for the first time on Tuesday, but now I was showing other symptoms. The only cure for preeclampsia, they said, is to have the baby. They also checked my cervix, and I was not dilated at all. "Since your water has already broken we will need to induce you," they explained. I had debated not getting an epidual my entire pregnancy, but knowing that I was going to need pitocin I immediately decided to get the epidural. So at 3:30 AM the anesthesiologist came in and administered the epidural. I had been told to expect this process to be very painful, but instead of pain I had my usual vasovagal syncope that I often get when a needle is involved, causing my blood pressure to drop, nausea, and wooziness. For the next hour my body temperature was low and I shivered uncontrollably. Once the epidural kicked in, the nurses were surprised at how easily I could move my legs, although pain from contractions was numbed. At 4:30 AM I was still only dilated to a 2 and 70% effaced, so they administered pitocin.
Everything was up to and after this point was much slower than I expected. This was all different than the whole "laboring at home and coming to the hospital when contractions are X minutes apart" thing that I had come to anticipate, so now waiting for my body to go into more active labor I was 1) very unsure what to expect and 2) very bored. Although the nurses suggested I sleep, I was too excited. Dallin passed out, which was fine by me because I wanted him to be awake later in the process when more important things were happening. At 5:30 AM a my nurse came in to reposition me, but as she opened the door Dallin half sat up and said “Ahh!” She apologized for scaring him and I had to explain he was actually still dead asleep. At this point my contractions were monitoring at every 4 minutes, which was progress from being every 10 minutes earlier. At 5:50 AM I suddenly felt very nauseous, and, unable to either find my puke bag, wake up Dallin or call the nurse in time, I ended up vomiting all over myself. At 6:10 I was dilated to a 3 and 80% effaced with contractions every 2-3 minutes. I was still woozy and also felt like I was struggling to get enough air, which the nurses explained was probably because I was so petite that the contractions (which I couldn't feel) were pushing up on my diaphragm. They helped me to reposition to that I was more comfortable, could breathe easier and finally sleep.
At 8:30 AM I was dilated to a 4 and 80% effaced. At 9:30 AM the midwife put the peanut ball between my legs to help position baby. At 10:30 AM I was dilated to a 5 and 90% effaced. The midwife said she could feel baby's head better. My contractions had slowed to every 4-5 minutes but now were back to every 2-3 minutes. At this point the teeth chattering and chills had returned. At noon I started throwing up again, and unfortunately I threw up about six more times over the next several hours. I tried to stay sitting up after vomiting, but baby's heartbeat dropped really low every time I had a contraction, indicating a compressed cord. When they laid me back down, the heartbeat returned to normal, so whenever a wave of nausea came with inevitable vomiting I had to quickly pull myself up or get help. By 12:15 PM I was dilated to a 7 on one side and 8 on the other. I had been shaking pretty violently for a while now. I had started pushing the epidural button more regularly, and though my legs have lost more feeling, I could still feel contractions really intensely in my pelvic region. At 12:55 PM I was dilated to an 8. At 1:20 PM they gave me Zofran.
At 1:45 PM I was dilated to a 9, and the midwife pushed baby’s hand back out of the way. I was positioned with one foot in the stirrup. With my epidural not working very effectively, the anesthesiologist came in to pump more of the medication into my IV. One odd side effect of labor was feeling so unbearably thirsty in spite of the IV, and all I wanted to do was drink water, but every time I would throw it up. I had to eat ice chips instead.
Pushing begins
At 2:40 PM I was finally fully dilated, but baby hadn’t descended quite low enough. We did two practice pushes. At 3:20 PM my midwife suggested I tried pushing for real this time. My nurse held up one leg and Dallin the other, and when I contracted they had me curl forward, take a deep breath and bear down on the count of ten, three times, while the midwife checked baby's head. After several attempts I was so fatigued, nauseous and shaking so violently, which was taking any remaining energy out of me. Along with this, the baby's head was more sideways than we wanted, so with all those factors they decided to have me rest for 45 minutes. I finally fell asleep.
At 4:30 PM, I felt well rested and the shaking had subsided, and with some sugar water in my IV I felt energized enough to start pushing again 3x per contraction as they had instructed earlier. As I progressed they had me add a fourth push. The epidural didn't take away the pain in my upper rib cage from pushing, and it was very challenging not to tense up my neck and face while I pushed. I agreed to use a mirror to watch my own progress, which was so encouraging as I could see the baby's head getting closer and closer.
Baby's entrance
And then at 5:44 PM I pushed him out. The midwife could see in that last moment that cord was wrapped around his neck one time, and as she tried to unwrap it, the cord avulsed (tore completely in half). I knew something must be wrong because all the staff in the room jumped, completely startled, as blood spattered across the room. The midwife said she had never seen this happen in 20 years of practicing and that the cord had felt thin. They placed the tiny baby boy on my chest and instantly went to work clamping the cord on my end and his end before whisking him onto the table. He was not crying. Luckily the respiratory team was already there as a precaution because of my SSRI use, and Dallin said they were incredible as they went to work on the baby.
I was completely clueless as to what was going on--my body and mind were so relieved and happy that I had finally pushed the baby out after 17 hours, and I think I went into this defense mode telling myself that "it will be alright" and "they know what they were doing" even though baby was struggling. Poor Dallin was in tears watching the respiratory team do all their interventions. Meanwhile the team of nurses blocked my view of Beckham, and I had my own little team around me helping me to deliver the placenta and stitching two minor tears. I had hemorrhaged about 600 mL of blood. I could hear the nurses talking about dropped APGAR scores for the baby, but I was so clueless and even asked one of my nurses to move the placenta, which was placed on a table right next to Dallin, so that he wouldn't faint. (He was quite annoyed that I was so worried about this--he had come a long way in being able to handle gross things in the past 17 hours.). Once the baby was stable enough, they placed him on my chest one last time before taking him to the NICU with Dallin. I heard one tiny baby whimper, and while the baby was on my chest his eyes fluttered open just briefly. I was told he was 6 pounds, 8 ounces and 21 inches. It was later explained to me that following a normal delivery with a typically clamped cord, babies are automatically able to switch from relying on the placenta to breathing on their own, however, our baby needed more help because of the cord avulsion.
Afterwards
I was mostly by myself. By 7:10 PM I received an update that the baby was stable and they were going to see how he did when taken off the breathing machine. A nurse helped me into a wheelchair and moved me to the room I would be in for the remainder of my hospital stay. My parents were driving up from Arizona, and though they had been on track to arrive before visiting hours ended, they were now having car problems. They managed to arrive in the nick of time, and the moment my mom entered my room I started bawling. Dallin had sent me a video of the baby free of machines, his lips in an "oo" while he cooed, and that had just sent me over the edge emotionally. It was the first time I could see what my baby looked like, really, without blood and machines. He looked like me when I was a newborn. I had delivered a baby, but I was not with him. It wasn't until 8:50 PM, three hours after delivery that he was discharged from the NICU and I was finally able to hold him again. I cried so much holding him.
The next two days were a huge learning curve. My mom, the nurses and the lactation specialist helped me learn how to feed the baby. He was routinely monitored, which we were grateful for because his temperature kept dropping and he was very pale. He also was very stiff (hypertonic) as a result of the traumatic birth. For me it felt impossible to eat and terrifying to sleep after everything that had happened, but he kept doing better and better and better! The pediatrician assured us he was healthy and ready for discharge after 48 hours.
Eventually it was time for Dallin and I to decide a name for the baby, who up until this point had really been called "the baby." Over the course of the hospital stay we wrote a dozen first and middle names on a whiteboard and discussed each of them. We really liked the middle name Thomas, which is Dallin's middle name. On our last night we decided on a first name, but after being up with the baby during the night and continually wanting to call him Beckham instead of the other name we had chosen, Dallin and I decided that his name would be Beckham Thomas Urness.
We love our little Beckham so much!
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