Rosie's Birth Story - Lifestyle with Leah

Two weeks before Rosie’s due date (July 10th) I had random strangers telling me, “oh you’ve dropped” and “oh you will probably have your baby arrive any minute now.” This made me so excited and nervous and I didn’t want to leave the house in fear my water would break all over Walmart’s floor or something like that.

Awkward.

But in all seriousness, my husband and I thought she would arrive earlier than anticipated.

Well… a week before the due date, my doctor and I scheduled a date for induction in case she decided not to come until after the 40-week mark. The induction date was July 11th (free Slurpee day = the best birthday). Rosie was definitely comfortable and did not come at the 40-week mark so we knew I would be induced. The plan was to go to the hospital on July 10th at 8:30 pm and start the induction process.

Right around 6:00 pm on that day I was starting to feel (what I thought) was gas pains in my lower back. They lasted only a few short minutes and appeared once an hour.

Little did I know that these were contractions.

Chris and I headed to the hospital and I got ready for the whole process.

When my first nurse came, she told me I was about 3 cm dilated and she inserted a gel into me to help ripen my cervix. She told me that she would continue to insert this gel every three hours until morning, which is when they would start the Pitocin. She also let me know that I could ask for an epidural at any point but of course, I decided to wait since I didn’t really feel any contractions.

Once my nurse was done, Chris, his father, his father’s girlfriend and I went to get dinner in the hospital cafeteria. As I sat down to eat I started feeling these painful cramps in my back again but more frequently and much more intense.

It was then that I realized I was having contractions!

After dinner (about 11:30 pm), Chris and I headed back to the room and the contractions were starting to get more and more painful. Chris kept telling me to get the epidural and I kept telling him I didn’t need it yet.

After about 15 minutes it was hard to talk and my contractions were coming every few minutes so I called in the nurse and asked for the epidural. She let me know that I had to go through a bag and a half of IV fluid before getting the epidural and THEN getting epidural took about 15 minutes PLUS my body wouldn’t take to the epidural quickly.

All in all, after I asked for the epidural it took a total of about 2 hours before I was able to relax and go to sleep. It was about 1:30 in the morning. Unfortunately, I barely got any sleep as the nurse kept coming in my room to check my vitals and the epidural made me super itchy.

At about 2:30 am I was 5 cm dilated and was informed I would not need any more gel because my body was reacting quickly and I was going to be pushing in the morning. She also said there was a good chance I would not need any Pitocin!

At 7:30 am a new nurse came in and at first, I was unsure how I felt about her. She proceeded to tell me that I would be having quite a big baby and would probably need a c-section. I straight up told her that I was going to push this baby out! I also told her I was feeling contractions again and would need more pain medicine and she said “that wouldn’t help me” since the baby was on a nerve.

She was right about that!

At 8:30 am the doctor came in and said I was 10 cm dilated and ready to push! My contractions were coming every 1.5-2 minutes and I pushed for an hour while feeling serious nerve pain in the back of my neck and lower back but luckily I felt no pain “down there.” I kept telling myself, once Rosie comes out there will be no more pain!

My doctor asked if I wanted a mirror to see the baby and I was all for it. It was awesome! I even got to touch her head while she was coming out.

I know a lot of people are scared to look at the mirror but honestly, it is such a beautiful thing to see and it helps speed up the pushing process.

Once Rosie came out it was the best feeling in the world. I was suddenly a mother and responsible for this precious little baby.

She arrived at 9:37 am weighing 8lbs 4oz and 22″ long.

Unfortunately, Rosie swallowed some fluid while coming out so she had to go to the NICU for 5 days. Now, this was something completely unexpected to us.

When we did our hospital tour the guide showed us the NICU and it never crossed our minds that we would have spent some time in there with our sweet girl.

A BIG shout out to all of the Neonatal Intensive Care Units out there who work so hard to keep our babies healthy and strong!

Here is the short story of what happened:

When she first came out she was a bit purple and they had to suction out as much fluid as possible. I was busy laying on the table getting stitched up (tmi maybe… but hey, we’re all friends here) and was kind of out of it. I didn’t understand why they didn’t put her on my chest right away or why I was unable to hold her.

I remember seeing about ten nurses coming into my hospital room and surrounding Rosie. I kept asking Chris if everything was alright. Not fun. A nurse informed me that Rosie swallowed some fluid (possibly meconium) and would need to get looked at by the doctors in the NICU. That was it. The first day I only got to see Rosie for a short time. That was H A R D.

Over the next couple of days we were able to visit her, feed her, change her diaper and so on. Unfortunately, I was unable to get much skin to skin time or breastfeeding time but what mattered to me was that she was recovering quickly.

We were able to take her home on Friday, July 15th and it was the best feeling in the world.