Lily's Birth Story

At long last...

Shocking how difficult it has become to sit down at the computer for any appreciable amount of time these days. But I finally am putting together the stories and pictures surrounding Lily's birth.

LABOR STARTS:

On April 14, a Thursday, Jacob and I went to his gym class in the afternoon and then enjoyed the amazingly warm sunshine by grabbing a treat at the coffee shop and playing on the playground. We then met Daddy at the midwife, where Jacob got to "talk a-baby" and hear her heartbeat. Jessie, one of the midwives, said I was 3cm dilated and asked if I wanted my membranes stripped (less gross than it sounds) and told me she has a 10-20% success rate of starting labor that way. So we did it - completely painless - and I started having dull cramps almost immediately. All night I was feeling very crampy, but not having contractions, and I thought, "This better start labor, because I don't want these cramps to last for the next week!"

I didn't sleep well that night, and around 5am the cramps were bad enough that they were keeping me awake. I noticed they were coming in waves and started timing them, and after an hour I had confirmed that I was, in fact, having mild contractions every 6-7 minutes. At that point I woke up Zach and told him I had started labor. We laid in bed for a long time, reading and talking until Jacob woke up and joined us.

Jacob went to his friend Kavi's house for breakfast and then Kavi's mom, Megan, took both of them to playgroup in our double stroller. He had a fun morning playing with his friends, oblivious to the changes about to occur. Meanwhile, Zach and I walked around the neighborhood, got some bagels and coffee, and waited for the "real" labor to begin. Turns out, we had a long time to wait. All day long, my contractions stayed at about 6-7 minutes apart, so we went on several walks to try to get them to pick up. We went to a coffee shop, the library, and the park, moving pretty slowly and with me stopping every several minutes to take deep breaths through the contractions. Jacob's babysitter, Sam, picked him up from playgroup and kept him entertained for the afternoon. Even though the contractions were getting stronger, we knew we still had awhile to go since they were still pretty far apart, sometimes even 9 or 10 minutes apart. For most of the day they were uncomfortable, but not painful. Finally, around 5, we went for one more long walk and they picked up to about 4 minutes apart. The midwife had said to head to the hospital when they were less than 5 min., so we thought we were ready, but as soon as I got home from our walk they slowed again.

LABOR PROGRESSES:

I was frustrated and starting to get tired - it had been 12 hours at this point. They were very strong at this point and I was starting to feel a lot of pain, but slowed down to 7-9 min again. I ate some food, did some stretching, and tried everything I could think of to get the labor back on track. Our friend Marli had come by to relieve Sam and put Jacob to bed - she was planning on staying the night at our house. At 6:30 I went into his room to say goodnight to him and I started feeling very emotional. It was the last time I would see him while he was still my only child! I started to cry, and my hormones must have flipped out, because IMMEDIATELY my contractions started to come every 3-4 minutes and didn't stop. We called the midwife and began the 10 block walk to the hospital at 7:00.

NO ROOM AT THE INN:

When we arrived at the hospital, we found a waiting room full of people and not one single open room. The delivery ward was completely full! The midwife told me she was looking for a room to examine me, but I would probably have to go to a recovery room temporarily. For about 45 minutes we sat, stood, walked, and stretched in the waiting room, my labor getting stronger and stronger. Finally, I asked Zach to go tell the midwife to hurry up because if I didn't get a room soon, the baby was going to be born in the waiting room. The midwife said she'd check me out, but I would probably have to keep walking around if I was only at 4-5cm. We ducked into a newly-vacated delivery room that had just been cleaned out, but she said we couldn't stay. Then she examined me and said, "Whoa! you're over 7cm! I can feel the baby...Congratulations, this is your room!" By the time we got checked into the room, it was about 8:20pm. She broke my water to speed things up. I was nervous, because I knew that would make the contractions much stronger, but she said, "You've been doing this for 14 hours, let's just get it done!"

A nurse asked if I wanted an epidural - it was pretty much now or never. Zach and I wanted to try a natural birth, and in that moment I still felt strong and energetic, so I told her I could do without. As soon as my water broke and the contractions got 10 times stronger, I began to regret my choice. My blood pressure started getting stronger and the nurse wanted me to lay down so that they could monitor me, but I was in way too much pain to lay down. My body wanted to move. So as soon as the nurse would leave, I would rip off the monitors and get out of the bed again. Finally, after about an hour of this (which felt absolutely endless), I felt like I needed to push. The midwife checked me and sure enough, I was 10cm dilated.

The midwife told me it was time to push, but I said, "no! that is going to hurt! it isn't time yet!" and the midwife calmly told me, "Lauren, you are about to have your baby. She is going to be here in a few minutes." I got on the bed in a side-lying position and began to push. It was excruciating. It took me a couple contractions to feel the rhythm. I was in so much pain that I couldn't feel the wave of the contraction to know when to push. But as soon as I found the rhythm, I could feel her starting to move lower and lower down. Zach and the midwife and the nurse were talking me through it and helping me count to 10 with each contraction. I was screaming in pain and at one point the midwife told me, "Lauren, stop screaming. Put that energy into pushing!" I said, "I think I need a break now. This hurts too much!" and Zach and the midwife looked at each other in confusion. "There is no break. You are having your baby NOW."

With another push, I felt her head come out, and with another push her shoulders. Then the rest of her body slid out and I heard her scream. The nurse quickly wrapped her, laid her on my bare chest, and I saw my daughter for the first time. Zach cut the umbilical cord as she lay on my chest, and we saw our sweet, strong, loud daughter laying there and looking at us. It was absolutely amazing.

After a full day of labor, a couple hours in the hospital, and 13 minutes of pushing, Lily Elizabeth joined the world. We laid together for a couple hours in the delivery room and she began strongly nursing almost immediately. After a few hours, they took her to the nursery to examine her and get her cleaned up (they come out GROSS!) and I got wheeled up to a recovery room. When they brought her back to me, I made this video of some of our first quiet moments together:

Zach couldn't stay the night, but he was back with Jacob the next morning. Zach and Marli brought Jacob to meet his sister for the first time. It was one of the most amazing moments of my entire life.

Some more pictures of the two days we spent in the hospital with Lily: