Healthy Chicks

Welcome to the world, sweet Isabella Rose. From the moment we saw you squirming around on your first ultrasound as a tiny sesame seed, we were completely in love. Then on Sunday, August 26th at 7:43pm just as the full moon was rising, you came into our lives and took that love to a whole new level. You are absolutely perfect and worth every minute of the crazy, long beautiful (and yes painful) labor process as well as the rocky journey to pregnancy. Mommy and daddy love you to pieces, you are so worth the wait.

xoxo,

Mommy 

Two weeks ago, we welcomed our beautiful Isabella Rose into the world three days before her due date, and today on the blog I wanted to share my birth story. Before I continue, I want you to know this is my story, and everyone’s story is different. I 100% respect every woman’s choice in how they go about labor and delivery, and I also know that sometimes it’s out of our control and you just have to ride the waves.

As I mentioned before, pregnancy was hard, labor was no joke and motherhood is next level, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. With all of that said, here’s our little — well not so little — story of how we became a family of three.

Making Progress – Cervix is Dilating

{39 weeks + 1 days pregnant!}

It all started at my 38 week checkup when I was told I was 2cm dilated and 50% effaced. My OB said I was making great progress, and up until then I only had one random night of some period-like cramping for an hour.

The following week on August 23rd at my 39 week appointment, we were surprised to find out I was 3.5cm dilated and 75% effaced, with no further symptoms. I was psyched to know I was making progress without any pain! “This baby could come any day!” my OB said with excitement, and she was right.

Later that night, I was up with dull, sporadic cramping every 10 to 30 minutes, but it were not consistent nor growing closer together. Hubby kissed me goodnight and said, “This could be our last full night’s sleep in a while.” Boy was he right!

Bring on the Contractions!

After a decent sleep, I woke up on Friday August 24th at 4:30am to those cramps again, except this time they were a tad more painful and more consistent coming every 10 to 15 minutes. We thought today could very well be “the day,” so hubby went into work early and put our hospital bags by the door.

He then head out the door with his work bag and a towel. “What’s the towel for?” I asked. “In case your water breaks on the way to the hospital later!” he said with excitement.

When hubby left, I ate some breakfast and tried to relax as much as I could, which included lots of binge watching Friends. I also texted my doula Emma to tell her things seemed to be picking up a bit, and we kept in touch throughout the day as the contractions moved a bit closer together to every 10 minutes, then every 8 minutes.

Later that day, she had me try The Miles Circuit, a series of gentle poses to get baby lined up properly and potentially move things along. I absolutely loved it, especially the side lying position and bouncing on my yoga ball!

Things were picking up in the early evening and we wanted to make sure I ate a good dinner, so hubby got me a humungous gluten free chicken gyro. I then bounced on my yoga ball on our porch in the (almost) full moonlight with my birth playlist in the background — one of my favorite moments throughout this process — before I attempted to “go to bed.”

It wasn’t until the middle of the night that things really started to pick up, with contractions so strong that I actually had to jump out of bed and could no longer lay or sit down for them. I was walking around my apartment moaning, and would take breaks holding a chair or bending down over the couch during contractions to help manage the pain. (Funny story: hubby kept accidentally referring to my contractions as ‘transactions!’)

This continued for a few hours, until my contractions were steadily 5 minutes apart. At this time, I woke up hubby and called my doula to tell her I was ready to have her come over. By the time she arrived around 3:30am, my contractions were between 4 and 5 minutes apart for a couple hours straight, getting stronger and closer together. At 5:30am on August 25th, we decided it was time to head to the hospital, and we texted our family that today was the day!

False Alarm & A Scare at Triage

We checked into the hospital, and they brought me to the triage room for a quick 20-minute monitoring of the baby followed by a cervix check. I thought we’d be in and out of there in no time, but we ended up being stuck in that room for 3 stressful hours!

Fortunately, everything was fine with the baby and she was moving around happy as a clam, but my blood pressure was a different story. I’ve always been one to have high blood pressure readings when I’m nervous or in the presence of doctors, so sometimes they’ll have to take my reading a couple times until it’s accurate. In reality, my blood pressure is actually pretty perfect but it’s wild what nerves can do to you!

Unfortunately, with all the monitors hooked up to me, bright hospital lights and loud thump thump of baby’s heart beat, I simply couldn’t relax. Someone then came in to draw blood, and they left me hooked up on all the monitors for a couple hours as I lay there panicking not knowing what was going on. I was so fortunate to have my doula and husband there to calm me down, hold my hand and give me little sips of water or apple juice.

After a very long wait, the doctor on call came in with bad news. “So first of all, you’re not in labor. Your contractions aren’t making any progress, and you’re still 3.5cm dilated,” she said, which was devastating to hear. “But more importantly, you’re showing early signs up preeclampsia. Normally I’d send you home, but I recommend an induction today, which unfortunately means we can’t really stick to your birth plan.”

I was in complete shock, shaking my head in disbelief and fear of the unknown. This was everything against my birth plan (no epidural, natural progression, limited monitoring) and I hadn’t prepared for this type of road bump. “You’re shaking your head, but this is serious and could kill you.”

I started shaking, and told the doctor that I’m prone to high blood pressure in these type of settings but I could barely spit out the words. Luckily, my doula spoke up and said, “We have time to talk this through.” I then asked if there were any other options, and if they could monitor me for a bit more to see if it’d come down (especially since my blood work all came back normal).

The doctor agreed, and our super sweet nurse dimmed the lights and turned me onto my left side. My doula also put on calming music and held a cool lavender-infused towel by my face. Sure enough, after a few abnormal readings, my blood pressure quickly came down into the normal range…and I was sent home.

They also scheduled an appointment for me to come back the next morning for a Non Stress Test (NST) to make sure everything was OK with baby. I bawled my eyes out the entire ride home, and couldn’t believe we were back where we started!

I’m Throwing Out the Birth Plan!

I was not prepared for what was to come next. While I thought my contractions the day before hurt, things quickly picked up into high gear and I was experiencing super painful back labor (where you feel the contractions in your butt and lower back).

I was heaved over in pain, crying my eyes out and could barely breathe or talk through the pain! My poor hubby felt terrible for me and wished he could do something to help. “I wish I could take on some of this pain for you to give you a break,” he said through tears.

We called the doula to tell her what was going on, and she quickly came to the rescue! We tried all sorts of funky positions to help get the baby into a better position (as we had an inkling she was “sunny side up”) like “shake the apple tree” and I even did some type of yoga like inversion, with Emma’s assistance of course. The pain didn’t go down, but I did experience less back labor with these interventions.

During one of the breaks between contractions, I looked at my doula Emma and said “I can’t go through another day of this. Can you please talk to me about your experience with inductions and epidurals so I can be prepared?” By the end of our talk, I decided to throw out my birth plan and be open to anything and everything to get this baby here safely. Bring on the epidural! Bring on the induction!

We’re Having a Baby Today (For Real)!

The next morning at 8:30am, the three of us head back to the hospital once again. “I’m not leaving here without a baby this time!” I joked. When they hooked me up to be monitored in triage, I was actually secretly hoping for an abnormal blood pressure reading just so I could stay and have this baby!

However, after a few readings, my blood pressure was perfect and we finally got some surprise good news from the doctor. “Good news, you’re 6cm dilated, fully effaced, and the baby’s head has dropped to 0 station. Let’s have this baby!” She then told me everything on my original birth plan looked great, other than that I’d need an IV because I was dehydrated with ketones in my urine. I gladly accepted, changed into my robe and checked into my labor and delivery room!

Along with my angel of a doula (who stayed with us through it all), we were assigned the most incredible nurse who was training to be a Naturopath so she was super on board with my natural birth plan!

They created the most dreamy experience for me with dimmed lighting, pressure point foot massages between contractions, electric candles, eucalyptus essential oil diffusing for opening things up, cool lavender towels for my forehead and my labor playlist in the background. I also had the freedom to walk the halls, change positions and go to the bathroom, which was really important to me!

After a couple more hours of labor, I hadn’t progressed, so the doctor broke my water. That’s when things went into high gear! The contractions quickly intensified, and I couldn’t lay still. At one point, I got on all fours, held onto the bars on the bed and started vomiting. At this point, they checked me again to find I was 9.5cm dilated — in transition — and almost ready to push! I was super relieved that we’d be meeting our little girl very shortly…or so I thought.

Unfortunately, I got stuck at 9.5cm for nearly 4 hours, with just the slightest lip left of my cervix so I could not push after all. While they didn’t show it, my support team started to get worried for me as I hadn’t slept in nearly 3 days and they wanted me to have the energy when it came time to push.

The doctor recommended a small dose of Pitocin to help push things along, since she said my uterus was likely very tired, so we tried that. The good news was baby girl was never in any distress, so we had a bit more flexibility throughout the process with no real rush!

When I still wasn’t progressing, my nurse recommended I try meditating through the contractions as a last ditch effort, coming up with a mantra to get through. So for the next hour straight, I went into a completely silent meditation to a far away place on a beach and during contractions would repeat “Bring Bella Down, Bring Bella Down!”

When I snapped out of the meditation, the doctor checked me and I was finally a 10. “It’s time to push!” she said, the words I’d been waiting to hear for hours. Suddenly, I was overcome with a surge of energy, and loved finally having control. I listened to my body, and used the contractions as stamina to push our little girl down.

After 40 short minutes, our little girl came out screaming at 7:43pm on the full moon, to Krishna Das’ Baba Hanuman playing in the background. She was absolutely perfect, weighing in at 7 pounds 5.6 oz and 19 3/4 inches long. I later found out that the cord was wrapped around her like a sash (which could have been the reason for the slow progression), but the doctor calmly unwrapped it with no issues.

The nurse immediately put sweet Isabella Rose on my chest for skin to skin, hubby cut the cord, followed by an hour of breastfeeding (which is all now a blur). While hubby was crying, I was in complete shock and didn’t shed one tear. I simply couldn’t believe this little being was ours, and that the sweet face we saw on the ultrasounds and little kicks I felt in my belly for months was now wrapped up in my arms as a tiny little human.

 

After one of the best showers of my life and skin to skin with daddy, my family came charging in bearing gluten free pizza and sushi, which I devoured! It was truly the most epic way to close out the night.

 

So there you have it. Three days, 60+ hours of contractions and a whole lot of craziness later, we now had our little girl and nothing else mattered. Sweet baby Isabella Rose, you were so worth the wait and we love you to the full moon and back.