Birth Stories! Isla

For our first birth story click here.
For our second birth story click here.
And now for the third...

My third pregnancy was painful.  I was depressed in a way I'd never known before.  I experienced my most embarrassing moment ever.  All I wanted was to give birth the day I hit full term (37 weeks).  It was really just about the only thing I could think about. I wanted a mid-July baby.  It wasn't meant to be.  Isla was born in early August.  Luckily, we had an incredibly overcast summer.  Every time someone would complain about the lack of summer I would actually feel guilty about it because it was exactly what I'd hoped and even prayed for since the day I found out my due date.  In other words, I felt like their loss was my gain and even partially my fault.

My mom, who actually guessed Isla's name before we even told her (based on our personal naming rules), knit Isla a beautiful sweater and even added a tag with care instructions! Yes, I needed these instructions since I've shrunk the other two sweaters she knit for our girls.  I had to take a photo of it in its pristine condition, because even though I'd like to keep it looking that good, I am not optimistic given my history.

There were some happy moments waiting for Isla, but for the most part I was very eager to meet her and get on to the road to recovery.  Every time my husband would remind me that it was statistically better for her to remain in the womb until 39 weeks, I would get very upset with him for basically willing me to be in such pain for any longer.

About a week before I actually gave birth, I thought my water had broken like it had with Ave.  I had already had numerous sleepless nights with regular painful contractions that were 2-3 minutes apart for several hours.  My doctor had us go to the hospital to be checked out.  It took six hours in the hospital to get the results of the fern test, which only actually takes less than 15 minutes to conduct.  It was negative, so yeah, still no baby.  While I was waiting to be discharged, they brought in a lady, mid-thirties, having her first baby.  She was 37 weeks to the day and had been having some slight cramping.  The nurses were telling her that she was probably not in labor and that she probably didn't need to come in for light cramping.  When they checked her she was fully effaced and 6cm dilated.  In a perfectly comfortable and calm voice, she asked if there was still time for an epidural and then asked if she could just get a C-section. She explained that she'd had a few friends who went through labor and then ended up having to have emergency C-sections and she didn't want to have to go through all of the labor part.  She'd rather just opt for the C-section.  The nurses told her talk to the doctor first as they wheeled her to a labor and delivery room.  I couldn't help giving her the bird from behind the curtain.  This pregnancy and labor brought my darker side to the surface.

The night of my due date I finally went in to labor.  I know plenty of you go way, way past your due dates and I was late with my others, so I know it sounds crazy to act like I'd waited an eternity, but this one was excruciatingly long in coming.  There was no way I was going to let this just be another painful, sleepless night. I told my body to get on with it, or else.  I sat on the couch weathering out the contractions until 5:30 in the morning.  I know that my mom often gets up at that time to run, so I wanted to wait till then to call her.  I woke up my husband at 5:15 and told him to get ready and to call my mom at 5:30 on the dot.  Something in my mind was set on waiting until that 5:30 time, but I didn't want to wait any longer at that point.

When we got to the hospital, we parked the car ourselves rather than using the valet. I wanted the extra time for my body to do what it could before I had to fight off those bags of Pitocin. We eventually made our way upstairs.  I kept stalling at every corner hoping I wasn't going in too early into the labor.  All the carpets on the maternity floor had just been shampooed and the damp smell blown into our faces by the giant industrial fans was a bit nauseating.  We got checked in at the front desk which we hadn't done with either of our other deliveries, so that felt new and strange. With the other deliveries, they had just done all of that stuff in the room.

We got a fabulous room and this time I could see the ocean from my bed!  There was a photo hanging across from the bed taken from underneath a pier.  It was a strange sort of tunnel of pilings and cross beams to be looking down during contractions and later during the pushing phase.

When we got to the hospital, the nurses were just switching shifts.  This was the first delivery where we had the same nurse through the entire labor.  With the others, I would just start getting used to a nurse and then there would be a shift change and the new nurse would have a whole slew of new questions and procedures she thought would help and I would find annoying.

My nurses gave me kudos for waiting till I was 5 almost 6cm dilated before coming in.  Of course I wished it was more like 9 or 10.   It didn't take long for them to bring in a bag of Pitocin.  I told them not to get near me with it until the anesthesiologist had been in.  I couldn't believe it when they actually listened to me and set it down across the room in the baby warming bed.  Next time I may be brave enough to tell them not bring it in the room at all.

One thing I still find amusing was that with this delivery they actually allowed me to drink fluids during labor.  Apparently the hospital rules on this had been changed just that week.  If I had given birth the week before, when we were in for the fern test, I would have only been allowed occasional ice chips.

After the epidural was in place and after the on-call doctor broke my water, my labor started to pick up.  An hour or two later, Isla's heart rate started to drop so they began to pump in more fluid because they thought it might help ease any pressure on the cord.  In the future, if we have another, I'm going to request that they don't break my water.  Since this was the second time we had issues with cord compression.  They only had me on Pitocin for a short time because Isla's heart rate continued to drop.  Once they stopped the Pitocin I started hearing mumblings about a C-section and I tried to ignore them as well as the fetal heart rate monitor.  It is hard to ignore that darn beeping.  I noticed the slightest changes even when it was on the lowest volume.  At one point they turned it all the way down for me, but then, since I knew her heart rate was slowing, I couldn't help craning my neck to see the monitor.  It was difficult to not feel defeated.

They checked me and I was only a 7 or an 8 so they went to deliberate. Not even a minute later, I felt like I was ready to push so I paged the nurses. Right then my doctor arrived for the first time that day and the nurses came back in with her.  She asked them where I was and they said 7 or 8.  I told them I felt some pressure like I was ready to push.  They just looked at me and repeated that I was a 7 or an 8.   After a few minutes, my doctor came back to check on me herself and found that I actually was fully dilated and ready to go.

Isla's heart rate was fine through the 3 contractions it took to push her out.  What a difference from the 5 and half hours of pushing it took to get Ave out!  I cannot express the relief I felt at escaping a second C-section.

The first thing I noticed about Isla was that her head seemed perfectly shaped.  I don't really know what a "perfectly" shaped head looks like, but I think this might have qualified.

After an hour or so we were transported to the mother-baby room and a little while later my parents brought the girls to meet their baby sister.  Noa had fallen asleep in the car and woke up beaming.  Her poor little cheeks must have been sore that evening she smiled so intensely.  She was happier than I'd ever seen her.

Ave, on the other hand, was not feeling the hospital.  She seemed to feel a little abandoned and she seemed a bit upset with me for not being there that morning when she woke up.  Luckily, that uneasiness wore off after we were all home for a few days.

This was the first time I stayed at the hospital by myself.  I felt that it would be helpful for Ave to have one of us at home with her that night since she seemed so unsettled.  Boy did I miss having my husband with me.  If there is a next time, I'm hoping I can keep him there with me because that night by myself was difficult.

Since we left the hospital the next day and everything seemed to be moving rather quickly, we decided to not have my parents bring the girls back to the hospital.  Originally the plan had been to have them drive home with us and their new sister, but at the time it just seemed like too much work.

Isla is a sweet baby.  She smiles easily and sleeps soundly.  She is content most of the time, but she has the most adorable pout just before she starts to cry.  Heartbreaking, but beautiful.  She's a keeper!


For further reading, check out this post which is a collection of my favorite birth stories from around the web.