Little Baby Smith: Henry Taylor Smith.... A Birth Story.

HENRY TAYLOR SMITH

The day started like any other. I had my weekly appointment with Dr. Steinbis but this time I got paperwork and permission to be induced to have our baby!!! I came home and immediately got into bed. Taylor had the day off already and since I had worked the night before we both thought it best to get as much sleep as we could. We slept until 2pm together and got up and started getting ready. We went to walmart to get chocolate chip cookie dough to make cookies and some last minute things before we went to the hospital. We went to eat lunch at johnny's tavern for the last supper of sorts and came home to pack and get ready. I took a shower and painted my nails and toes (If I was about to feel like crap, I was going to try to look good doing it).

Then I made chocolate chip cookies, one big plate for our Labor and Delivery nurses and one big plate for our Mother/ Baby nurses. Everyone loves cookies and there is no such thing as kissing too much booty to the people about to save yours. You all thought I was joking when I said this was part of my birth plan to bring cookies. I was not.

Here is my big old belly in the car with my cookie plates. ON OUR WAY!!

Driving away from our house, our last evening as a childless couple. The sunset was beautiful but I couldn't get a good picture.

We got to Labor and Delivery just before 8pm and got settled into our room. Here are the monitors I would be hooked up to to watch Baby Henry's heartrate and my contractions and my vital signs.

Nikki was our nurse, she was absolutely fantastic!

The warmer our baby would be weighed on and measured. It was so surreal seeing this from the bed and not standing next to it to assess as new baby as a nurse like I usually do.

The clock as we were getting settled. Just before 8pm Wednesday March 19th, 2014.

I was feeling pretty dang good, crampy and uncomfortable with the contractions I had been having since 37 weeks but that was nothing new. I was just sooo excited to get the party started, get the bad stuff over and meet our son.

Taylor got settled into his horrifically uncomfortable fold out bed/chair. Poor guy was such a good sport. See the rockstar energy drink behind him. Momma thought ahead. I packed him 3 to get him through and a ton of snacks and candy.

Daddy went around documenting all the little details in the room for us.

8pm- So when we got there, I got into my gown, got my vital signs taken, blood drawn, papers filled out and IV put in (first stick! Yay!). Then they hooked me up to the contraction monitor and to my suprise I was contracting actively by myself every 2 minutes consistantly. The contractions looked good so they put in the cytotec pill to help soften my cervix and help me dilate. They checked me and I was 1.5cm dilated, 60% effaced and -2 station. That's code for ( I'm only 1.5cm out of 10cm dilated that you need to be to deliver and my cervix was only thinned 60% of what it needed to be, the baby is still up pretty high.) That is what I had been measuring the past two weeks at my appointment so I still wasn't making progress to get him out regardless of the contracting.

After the cytotec you have to wait 4 hours to let it work and then they check you again. Those first 4 hours from 9pm-1am we just hung out and talked and watched TV and talked about how excited we were to meet our babe.

10pm- My friend Kristen (who was due the same day as me with sweet baby Carson) was working down the hall in our unit and came to say hi. I wasn't really in pain yet, just kind of uncomfortable and hanging out but still contracting away by myself. Just anxiously awaiting our check at 1am.

1am- The doctor came in to check me again and see if I was making any progress, in the mean time she stripped my membranes (meaning she helped get my water ready to break and pulled it away from my uterus to help move things along). I have heard this is incredibly painful and I didn't know she was going to do it which was good because then I didn't see it coming. Youch! This got the ball rolling though so I will give her credit for that. They decided I hadn't really progressed much in dilation I went from 1.5cm to 2 maybe 2.5cm but that I definitely had softened and effaced more. They decided to do one more dose of cytotec. We needed to wait from 1-5am for this one to work and then they would check me again. At 5 they planned to start pitocin to make me contract harder and stronger to get my labor going more once my cervix was ready. More waiting.

1:15am- I decided to try to sleep a little before things got intense. HA! yeah right!

1:45pm- My contractions got more intense but mainly just more back pain and couldn't get comfortable after the membrane strip and the cytotec dose. I asked for tylenol not wanting to take anything to make me feel drugged or out of it. She offered me ambien or benadryl too to help me sleep too, but I really didn't want things to move along and me to feel sleepy and drugged so I refused and tried by myself.

2:30am- I finally asked for a dose of fentanyl to help with my back pain and it helped and I finally fell to sleep for a little bit (about 45 minutes I think but I was awake about every 15 minutes during that briefly to readjust the contraction monitor so my nurse could watch Henry's heartbeat and how I was doing). The contractions got more and more intense though. Just intense crampy feeling really.

5am- The doctor came in and checked me again to see how the cytotec was working. I was still dilated to 2.5cm but my cervix was super soft and making good changes so she felt comfortable starting the pitocin to get me contracting stronger since my own contractions weren't doing much obviously. The contractions I was having at this time hurt alot but mainly in my back. I couldn't get away from the pain. Taylor was sleeping from about 2-5ish. When he woke up I was on my hands and knees over pillows deep breathing and making ssssssssss sounds to get through each contraction. Poor guy had the crap scared out of him when he woke up and saw me like that, he felt terrible for sleeping through my pain but there was not much he could do up until that point and it was ridiculous to keep both of us awake and miserable if he could sleep. He could be more useful to me when I really needed him if he got sleep so I just let him be until he woke up to my noise. I was googling labor pain techniques on my phone while trying to deal with the pain, talk about a day late and a dollar short. Taylor got up and held counter pressure onto my lower back while I contracted which helped alot actually but they were only getting worse.

5:45am- The nurse came in and turned my pitocin off. I had only been on it 45 minutes total. My contractions were just super intense and super painful in the 45 minutes it was on and my body was going crazy. The contractions were every 45-60 seconds and lasting 30 seconds or more. Basically it was non-stop. I couldn't get a break from the pain and Henry couldn't get a break from the squeezing pressure a contraction causes and neither could my uterus and that is a recipe for disaster. Both of us were in bad shape. They put oxygen on me to help Henry keep his heartrate up and kept turning me side to side to get me into a position that his heartrate responded to the best. I was so uncomfortable. I got another dose of fentanyl and Taylor was helping me the best he could. I was writhing around in the bed and they needed me to stay still for Henry and to keep the monitor on.

6:30am- I was bleeding alot more and still having intense back labor contractions so they checked me again to see what progress I was making. I was only 3cm which was disappointing. I thought for sure I was making more progress with how much pain I was in. The nurses were asking me if I wanted my epidual, I wanted to hold out because I wasn't dilated well at all and I was afraid it would stop my labor or slow it down. The nurses told me that if I was going to be in too much pain to sit still enough to let them put it in then I wouldn't be able to have it. Lord knows I needed drugs at least at some point during this. They also told me that if my body had a chance to relax from me being tense through the pain of the contractions then I would maybe be able to dilate sooner. I decided it was time and I'm glad.

7am- The anesthesiology team came in to do my epidual right at shift change, I felt horrible because that is mean to do to both nurses since they were trying to do report and go home but I couldn't last anymore and she was the one who talked me into getting it at that time. My body didn't have a shift change clock and I was sitting on the edge of bed ready for them to start but ready to crawl up the walls in back pain at the same time. All I felt was one tiny sting and a burn and that was it for pain. SOOOOO WORTH IT! They got it in, my legs felt kinda funny and I laid down and within 20 minutes felt relief from all of the pain! All of it. It was incredible! Laurie was my day nurse and she was wonderful too. She made me excited to have this baby regardless of the pain.

8:15am- Dr. Steinbis came to the unit (she had clinic that day with patients) but I heard her say in the hall. "I'm here, room #1 is mine, nobody touch her but me." That was reassuring :) She came in to check my progress and see what was going on. I was already 3.5cm dilated, 80% effaced and she broke my water (which was great because I didn't feel a thing). They put a monitor inside to pick up Henry's heartrate better and I immediately fell to sleep. I wanted to rest while I could. I slept for 2 strait hours pretty much interrupted. I had oxygen on and off and had to lay on my right side because that is where he was doing the best. I felt pain in my left groin and wanted to move around to shift the epidural medicine to that spot (it's gravity dependent) but he wasn't tolerating it. It just felt like a ton of pressure on my hip and pelvic bone. (turns out he was trying to turn and once he got turned the right way he slammed down into my pelvic bone and has the knot and bruise on his head to prove it.)

10:15am- I woke up and the nurse told me that Dr. Steinbis would check me again at 10:45. They kept moving me around and putting oxygen on and off to help Henry. I just wanted him to be ok so I did whatever they said no matter the discomfort. The pain in my groin eventually went away by this point and I could feel my baby bump was lower on my torso. He had come down! yay!

10:45am- Dr. Steinbis came in and checked me and she was sitting on the end of the bed and said "I have good news for you.... you're 9cm, completely effaced and +2 station. This baby is ready to come out." I was shocked! It had only been two hours and I slept the whole time! I was praying in my head she would say 6cm dilated just praying to be as far as a 6 but nope my body was ready and way past that. She decided to let me "labor down" for another hour to finish dilating all the way and let baby fall down more so I didn't have to push as much or as long. I was fine with that and soooo excited. Taylor and I got ready for the best moment of our lives. The nurses and aids started getting our room ready for delivery and we were just in a state of euphoria. I tried to rest a little before pushing because I had no idea what it would be like or how long it would take.

11:38am- Dr. Steinbis came in and we got everything ready and she had me start pushing with contractions. They were talking me through how to push and I did a few practice rounds, then we started rolling and within 5 contractions (about 15 pushes) our beautiful baby boy was brought into this world. I only pushed for 18 minutes, felt no pain and had the best moment of my life.

Taylor got this picture the minute Henry came out and they put him to my chest to dry off and stimulate. He cried immediately and turned pink really fast. I was bawling the second he came out. My baby was finally here!!

Check out the new daddy selfie.