The day that changed our lives forever

Our Birth Story:

1:00pm - I decided it was time to leave work and start my maternity leave. The office was an uncomfortable 83° F, and Jeff, who is filling in for me while I’m on leave, was already at the office and there wasn’t enough work for both of us. I also figured I could use any time I had between then and when the baby decided to show up to clean house and continue getting things ready for his/her arrival.

5:00pm - I met my friend Corynn at her house before heading to Uptown for appetizers during Happy Hour at Stella’s Fish Café. There we met Michelle, Meg and Jamie S.

7:00pm - Corynn and I headed over to The Herkimer to meet up with Josh and Jeff. I planned for some friends to meet up with us there for dinner to welcome Jeff to Minneapolis. Jeff is from Tennessee and was just working for MSAADA in Uganda, so I thought it would be nice to introduce him to a few people and show him around Uptown. Also joining us for dinner were Brian, Erin, Shane, and Ben. The Herkimer is always a good time with good food (especially those sweet potato fries!).

8:45pm - After I’d finished eating I got up to use the restroom. When washing my hands, I paused and realized my water was breaking! It started out as a trickle, so I went out and whispered in Josh’s ear, “We gotta go! My water is breaking!” Soon everyone at the table knew, and we were scrambling to pay our bill and get out the door. It was quite the excitement! By the time we made it to our car I felt like I had wet my pants and the contractions started coming. Josh had picked up Jeff, so we arranged for Corynn to take him back...except Jeff left his keys in our car, so we quickly met up with them, got Jeff his keys, and continued to head home. I called the clinic, told them my water broke, and they proceeded to instruct us to head straight to the hospital and check in.

9:15pm - We arrived home, changed clothes, brushed my teeth (I wasn’t about to go through labor with leftover dinner taste in my mouth!), Josh packed up all the last minute stuff and got everything in the car, and off we went! I was so worried that I just ate a big meal after first having appetizers. They told us in class to eat something light when you first go into labor. All I could think was, “Great. I just ate a chicken sandwich and french fries.” (The picture at the top is of me soon before heading to the hospital.)

9:45pm - We arrived at the hospital and started meandering the hallway to the elevator. I didn’t make it far before some hard contractions hit and had to wait it out before walking again. Thankfully some hospital workers were passing by and noticed what was going on and retrieved a wheelchair for us. By the time we made it to the Maternal Assessment Room my contractions were three minutes apart and the towel between my legs was soaked. The nurses decided to skip the assessment and instead got me checked in right away and then wheeled me off to a labor and delivery room. As much as we were anticipating meeting our baby, we couldn’t believe it was actually happening!

Time disappeared after arriving at the hospital. In our room, we met our labor and delivery nurse Angel. She was the sweetest, most understanding and most helpful nurse we could have asked for. We quickly got settled into our room, and at first assessment discovered I was dilated to just 3cm and was 50% effaced. I was 2cm at my 40 week appointment a couple days earlier, so I was a little surprised I wasn’t further. Anyway, we continued laboring as Angel discussed our birth plan with us. 

Soon after Angel hooked me up to the fetal monitor, she explained that our baby’s heartbeat kept dropping during every contraction. Sometimes it didn’t drop too much, but other times it would go from around 150bpm to 50bpm. Angel was in and out of our room, but it never failed for her to show up when the baby’s heartbeat would start plummeting again. She said this was probably due to the baby putting pressure on the umbilical cord. She called the doctor right away and had her come in just in case we needed her in a hurry. 

In just a couple of hours at the hospital, I quickly dilated to 6cm. By this point my contractions were at most 2 minutes apart, and sometimes it seemed they were back to back without a break. I tried the birthing ball, but quickly decided it did not feel as good as the instructor of our labor class said it should. I started having a hard time controlling my breathing and couldn’t relax. Angel had me breathe through an oxygen mask to make sure the baby was getting enough oxygen since it’s heartbeat continued to drop during contractions. I decided at this point that I really wanted an epidural. Thankfully I didn’t have to wait long. The anesthesiologists were quickly in our room and explained all about the epidural. Before this point I was scared of getting an epidural and really didn’t want one, but it all sounded fine and dandy when I was in such horrible pain! Angel also started pumping saline into the amniotic sac to help relieve pressure off the cord and help baby’s heart rate stay higher.

Angel got increasingly concerned about our baby’s heart rate. She never mentioned c-section, but I could tell it was looming. As long as baby’s heart rate continued to climb back up after each contraction, we were doing okay. Since I wasn’t so focused on my pain by this point, I was nervously asking Josh with each contraction how our baby was doing. Not much time had passed before I was dilated to 8cm. Angel started bringing all sorts of things into our room. Josh curiously asked her what she was doing, and she replied, “getting ready for delivery!” It seemed like we just got there not that long ago! By the time Angel had everything set up and ready I was dilated to 10cm. She even had me start pushing before our doctor arrived (this was just a little before 2am). I pushed through just 6 contractions and our precious baby boy was here at 2:39am. Our little miracle was all purple and pruned, but beautiful in every way.

Josh cut the umbilical cord as I held our little guy. The next couple of hours are all a blur. Our little boy was wide awake for the longest time. It was amazing to see him with his eyes wide open, so innocent and sweet. We hadn’t decided on a boy name yet but decided we should go ahead and call our family to let them know our news. It was kind of fun to wake everyone up at 4:30 in the morning!

They didn’t have a recovery room ready for us for a while, so we tried to catch a few winks of sleep and had breakfast in our labor and delivery room before being moved to the maternity recovery ward around 8am. What a night!