Abigail's Birth Story

I have wanted to post Abigail's birth story for so long but I keep forgetting. Here it is. I wrote this a week or two after she was born, so all the details would be correct. Beware, it's long! Enjoy!

Abigail’s Birth Story

On February 2, 2008, the day after my last day of work, I woke up at 1:00 am with cramps. I had been having cramps on and off for a few weeks, and even though these were painful, I thought they would just go away like they had before. I stayed in bed and tried to relax but had to get up about 15 minutes later. I decided to get into the bathtub. After about 10 minutes in the bathtub, and being unable to read my book (unthinkable!), I decided to get out and try sleeping again, since that had helped in my previous cramping experiences. So, I went downstairs and turned on Anne of Green Gables and tried to sleep while watching it. I was able to doze occasionally, but I was having regular cramps (now beginning to wonder if they were contractions) every 15 minutes. I laid there as long as I could and eventually went back upstairs to wake up Andrew at 2:30 am. I wanted him to sleep as long as possible, if this was the real thing. We had only gone to bed at 12:00 am because we had been at Wayne and Susan’s playing Monopoly with Jennie until then! :)

Andrew woke up very quickly. I simply had to say his name and “are you awake?” a few times and he woke right up. I told him I was having bad cramps but didn’t know if it was the real thing or not. He suggested that we both get up for a while and time them. After we finally found a clock with a second hand (in the office) and timed about six contractions, they were about 2 to 3 minutes apart! We had been planning to have a natural drug-free birth and had taken a wonderful 12 week Bradley class in preparation for the birth. We chose to use a midwife practice (they have one doctor) and to go to a birth center in a hospital for Abigail’s birth.

Andrew called the midwife, even though I thought we should wait awhile (after all, we learned in our class to stay home as much as possible). After talking with the midwife, we made the decision to go ahead and call Family Beginnings (the birth center) and head to the birth center in Dayton. It took us a while to gather our stuff (we weren’t expecting her quite so soon) and for me to make it to the car between contractions. The car ride was a bit painful for me, especially when we hit bumps during a contraction but I laid back and tried to relax as much as possible. Andrew called my mom on our way to the hospital so she could be my prayer warrior! We arrived at the hospital at 4:00 am. It was a long walk in from car to the hospital doors.

The nurse was waiting for us when we got there and we got to choose our room. I had pictured us in room 1 all along, so it was nice to get that, even though it was a little smaller than the others. I was concerned the whole way into the hospital that this was all a false alarm and that I would have to stand a painful ride home in the car. I was very relieved to discover that I was seven centimeters dilated when we arrived. I had tested positive for Group B Strep, so the nurse had to start an antibiotic right away, so I spent the first 15 or 20 minutes lying on the bed, getting the IV in and having the antibiotic administered. The nurse said that she was afraid they wouldn’t get the antibiotic in before the baby came. I was very surprised and encouraged to hear this! Since I was so far along I immediately asked if I could get in the bathtub (it was huge) so the nurse started running the water. I stayed in the tub for an hour or so. After I got out of the tub, we continued to practice relaxation techniques. I walked around the room a bit and sat on the birthing ball. Squatting was very painful for me, so I didn’t do that often. Looking back, that probably would have helped to speed up my labor and I should have kept it up. I laid down midmorning when they gave me my second dose of antibiotics and was able to doze for a while. I found the contractions to be more painful when resting like this because they woke me up and I was unprepared for the pain. This also slowed down my labor.

The midwife came by about 10:30 am to check my progress and I had only dilated to a 8 ½ or 9. My progress was stalling quite a bit, since I had been seven centimeters since arriving at the hospital six and a half hours earlier. She talked about breaking my water, but I wanted to give it a little more time before any intervention was performed. I asked her to come back again in an hour, so I spent an hour walking, swaying, and sitting on the birthing ball in my room. In retrospect, I should have walked further, perhaps some stairs, but I didn’t want to make noise or have my water break outside of my room, so I was uncomfortable to leave.

The midwife came back in at 11:30 am and broke my water. The water was clear, so that was a good sign that the baby was doing fine. I hadn’t progressed at all from an hour earlier. The contractions started to get pretty intense after she broke my water. The midwife explained that the worse the pain was, the better it was, because it meant the baby was moving down. She encouraged me to sway a lot during contractions, even though that was against everything in my being, because it would help move the baby down the birth canal. It was hard to do that, since it felt like I was inflicting more pain upon myself! She also had me lay down on my side with my leg up on the birthing ball. This position was supposed to help the last lip of my cervix pull back but in my case, it didn’t help. I also lost my “lunch” (cranberry juice) at this point. That was probably the most painful experience ever, throwing up while having a contraction. At about 1:30 pm (according to Andrew), my cervix was still not fully dilated so she suggested that since she could see the baby’s head pushing on the cervix, that she try and hold the lip back while I pushed the baby’s head into the birth canal. That was an extremely painful experience. Once I started pushing (no urge, but just pushing the baby past my cervix) it started to feel good to push against the contractions.

I got back into the bathtub, this time with Andrew supporting behind me, and pushed for some time. After about an hour and ½ of pushing, the nurse asked me to get out of the tub and see if a different position would help to speed things up. She asked me to sit on the toilet for a few contractions, even though sitting on the toilet felt excruciatingly painful. The pressure was intense. After just two or three contractions on the toilet, the baby had made significant progress. The nurse said that we’d better get set up for this baby to come. So I slowly made my way to the bed. I could now feel the baby’s head. I got set up on the bed and continued to push. I kept thinking how I wanted Andrew to sit behind me and help hold my legs (I was holding my own legs) but I couldn’t really vocalize this. He told me later that he asked me if I wanted him to sit behind me and I said no! :) I could feel the baby’s head crowning or getting ready to, and another nurse popped into our room and asked the midwife to come to room 2 to deliver a baby. Everyone left the room, except for Andrew. This made me extremely uncomfortable and I kept thinking that Andrew was going to have to catch the baby!

After about 10 minutes my nurse came back in and picked up the phone to call the midwife back into our room for the birth, but she came before the call was made. Abigail was born at 4:00 pm on February 2nd. I wish I could say that I was silently pushing her out but that wasn’t the case. I was making lots of noise and didn’t let up on the pushing at any point. I just wanted her out! My only regret at this point was that someone didn’t tell me to open my eyes to see her entrance into the world, so my eyes were closed when Abigail was born. She was born with her hand up by her face. I had a 2 degree tear. Abigail was placed directly on my chest for the first few minutes of her life. She let out about one lusty cry and then was quiet. I immediately asked if she was a girl for sure and Andrew told me “yes”. I also thought that she looked just like me but I could really only see the top of her head. Her apgar score was an 8 and a 9.

I wanted her to try and breastfeed right away but I was lying on my back and felt very unsure of how to pick her up. Her head and neck seemed so fragile. Eventually the nurse asked Andrew to hold Abigail, while I was being fixed up. Since we needed to regulate her body temperature for her for the first few hours of life, he took off his shirt, so they could be skin to skin. It took the midwife a good hour to fix me up. I immediately asked for motrin. The stitches hurt but I kept telling myself that at least it didn’t hurt as badly as labor and the birth did! We were absolutely enthralled by our daughter. I was also very hungry, so we called for some “room service”. At about 6:00 pm, I realized that we should probably call our parents. We just had simply forgotten before this point. We had our first visitors at about 8:00 pm. They were Great Grandma Myers, Great Aunt Carol, Aunt Jennie, Grandma Susan, and Grandpa Wayne.

The next day, Abigail was seen by the pediatrician and had her hearing test. Both visits went very well. We dozed and watched TV during the morning hours. We were finally able to go home about 4:00 pm after Abigail had her PKU test done. She slept all the way home. We learned a lot of things from this birth experience and there are several things on our list to do differently next time (if there is such a time). I think the most important thing we learned was patience. The birth process takes lots and lots of patience and even though we had a midwife (which helps with the patience aspect of birth) there was still mention of time and progression. In retrospect, there were many things I should have been doing to progress my labor but instead we chose an intervention, having my water broken. I'm not at all disappointed by this experience but it is good to look back and learn things that could be done differently.

This was definitely the most challenging, painful, empowering and beautiful experience of my life. I wanted to let my body do what God had designed it to do and that was an amazing feeling when everything was over. I also wanted to give my daughter the best possible start in life. We are so thankful to have our happy and healthy daughter with us. We both desire to raise her to share our faith in Jesus Christ and to be a blessing to those around her. We love you Abigail!