Grace's Birth Story

She is absolutely the most perfect thing that has ever happened to me in my whole life.

I’ll start from the beginning.

On baby’s due date, Wednesday, November 25, 2015, I woke up with plenty of energy.  I took a 3 mile walk with my parents.  I visited my grandpa at Glacier Hills.  I took the stairs everywhere.

Then, once evening hit, something changed.  I started feeling fatigued and cramping.  I started having contractions and a lot of bowel movements.  I was going into labor on my exact due date at 40 weeks pregnant.

The contractions started increasing in length, getting closer together, and getting worse, so we called the hospital.  They told us we could come in, and we were hopeful we would be admitted.

It turned out I was completely effaced, but still only dilated to a two.  They don’t admit you when you’re dilated to a two.  BUT, it turned out my water had broken!  Sometime during the day.  It just felt like a slow leak to me (I’ve been wearing super absorbent pads).  All the doctors and nurses were like “when did your water break??” and I had no idea.

The problem with water breaking and not knowing, is that I was at increased risk of infection.  If your water is broken, they definitely don’t send you home.

So, they admitted me, and pretty much immediately we started the epidural to help with the contractions.  The epidural helped me a ton.  My labor started Wednesday at around 8pm, and ended Friday at 12:06 am.  I had the epidural in me that whole time, but the contractions kept getting worse and worse, so they had to up the dose continuously.  Sometime during the day Thursday (Thanksgiving), they started me on Pitocin.  Supposedly Pitocin can make the next part of labor (pushing) start more quickly.  It didn’t really work for me.  I kept waiting for that need to push, and waiting to become more dilated.  Finally, later in the evening, they saw I was dilated to a 6.

And finally, around 11:30 pm on Thanksgiving, I was dilated to a 10 and ready to push.  I hadn’t read much about the pushing stage, and I didn’t know much about it, but apparently I was a “champion pusher”.  I had to curl my legs up by my knees, wait for a contraction to start, and then push four times through the contraction.

After about 30 minutes of pushing, Grace Jacqueline made her appearance at 12:06 am Friday, November 27th, 2015.

Brian cried a tiny bit when he said “It’s a girl!”  It was the start of him being the most amazing father in the world.  She just stole his heart and it is honestly the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.  He will move mountains for her, and I am so lucky to have him and so lucky to have her.

She weighed 7 pounds, 15 ounces (almost 8 pounds)!!  She was 20.25 inches long.

We had a good solid two hours of skin-to-skin, and I breastfed for the first time. She latched right away. During those two hours of skin-to-skin, they spent about one hour stitching me up.  Apparently I had a second degree perineal tear.  I was in no pain due to the epidural, and I didn’t realize how bad this second degree tear would hurt.

She was absolutely unbelievably perfect.  I can’t believe she is mine.

Around 2:15 am, we let in our family members.  My mom and dad, my brother and Vidhya, and Brian’s parents.

Seeing my parents as grandparents was really emotional.  

Then finally it was time to go to bed (no idea what time).  Brian and I both barely slept.  The nurses took out my catheter and helped me go to the bathroom for the first time in two days.  It was that first bathroom trip that allowed me to see just what kind of damage had happened to me “down there”.  It was not a pretty sight, and additionally very painful.  I don’t know why, but that pain was way worse than I had imagined.  It’s been four days and I am still bleeding, and every time I go to the bathroom, it hurts.

We got to take Grace home Saturday morning, November 28th.

It was the day of the Ohio State-Michigan football game, at HOME.  This means tailgaters everywhere, and bad traffic in town.  We got her home safe and sound, but still had random friends tailgating who wanted to see the baby.

Saturday and Sunday (November 28 and 29) were a blur to me: barely any sleep, learning to breastfeed, trying to calm a continuously crying baby. It was overwhelming and intimidating. Could I be a good enough mom for this precious little one?