Quincy's Birth Story

Quincy’s Birth Story

I have been meaning to write this down for quite some time, as I wanted to remember (well, most of it) the most amazing day of my life.  Quincy is now 6 ½ weeks old, and I’m already starting to forget the details, so to the best of my knowledge, here is how she came into the world.

First a little background of what I thought/wanted labor to be like.  I wanted a natural child birth with as little medical intervention as possible.  I figured once I went into labor I would have a really hard day and night, but would have a baby after that.  This is not what happened... 

There was some discrepancy around my due date.  According to my period, and what my midwives in Utah initially gave, my due date was November 5^th.  However, during one of my ultrasounds, one of the midwives thought that the baby looked small and moved it to the 16^th, even though no measurements were taken.  I thought it was a little odd that she could tell just be looking, but what do I know?  I was actually ok with the later due date because I really did not want to be induced.  I had done a lot of reading and knew that inductions can lead to other medical interventions and can put you at a greater risk for a c section.  Usually doctors want to induce you after 41 weeks, so the later due date would allow me to go longer if I needed. So after we moved to Delaware (and I do not recommend driving across the country pregnant, not fun!) I found a midwife and started care there.  Around 36 weeks (or 38 depending on which due date you use) I was measuring very big so they scheduled an ultrasound to make sure everything still looked ok.  The ultrasound showed I was measuring around 40 weeks and the estimated weight was 8 pounds 2 ounces.  The first thing the ultrasound tech told us was “well you won’t be calling her peanut!”  The ultrasounds have a 20% error rate and since everything else looked fine I continued to wait. 

The night of November 6^th, my contractions really started to pick up in intensity.  They weren’t super regular, but man they were painful.  They would range from 5-15 minutes apart, enough for me to not get any sleep. 

On November 7^th I was having terrible headaches (as well as contractions) and since a big storm was moving in (hurricane Sandy) and I had had some issues with high blood pressure they wanted me to come in and get checked.  I was 4 cm dilated and 80 effaced.  I was excited to see that the contractions were actually doing something.  I went home and the pattern of extremely painful yet sporadic contractions with no sleep continued. 

The night of November 8^th we went into the hospital.  I was having contractions every few minutes and really thought this was it.  I got there, was checked, and was still only at 4 cm.  And this is when I started to get super discouraged.  Nothing had changed!  I had spent the last 2 nights having terrible contractions and not getting any sleep, and I didn’t think I could do it for another night.  But I still didn’t want to be admitted.  I figured if I had to do it, I’d rather be at home where I could take baths (which is the only thing that gave me a fraction of relief).  The pain of the contractions would often cause me to vomit and I was having a hard time keeping anything down.  The next morning (Friday) I had an appointment with the doctor since my midwife had taken a vacation day. I was basically in tears.  I was dehydrated and exhausted.  Based on my condition, the blood pressure concerns and the fact that they thought she was a very large baby we decided that I should go ahead and be induced.  They scheduled my induction for Sunday.  (Although I did not end up needing to be induced).

That night my contractions started to pick up again.  The weird thing was that they never stayed super consistent (just like previous nights).  But at one point they were almost on top of each other and I was in unbearable pain so we decided to go in again.  This time I was at 8 cm when they checked me.  My water still hadn’t broken, but the nurse said she thought I would go pretty quickly after it did.  I had to get an IV of fluids because of how dehydrated I was and I decided that I would go ahead and get an epidural.  At that point I was in so much pain and so exhausted from no sleep that all thoughts of natural child birth went out the window.   I got upstairs and my water broke, which was the weirdest feeling in the world.  At my last ultrasound my amniotic fluid was high, so I knew there would probably be a lot of fluid when my water broke, but I didn’t expect THAT much. 

And this is pretty much where it went from bad to worse.  First off, I had a TERRIBLE nurse.  My sister assured me that only the nicest nurses work in labor and delivery.  WRONG!  Since I did have a lot of fluid, she had to keep changing the pads on the bed because they would get soaked (and each contraction meant more fluid).  I could tell she was getting annoyed and she just stopped doing it.  So eventually I asked her if she would change it (it’s not the comfortable to sit in sopping wet stuff) and she told me she would next time she checked on me and walked out.  Thankfully a different nurse came in while she was on break and changed my gown and bed linens.

During this time the pain was still super intense during my contractions even though I had had an epidural.  I kept mentioning to the nurse that it didn’t feel much different and I wasn’t really having any relief from the pain.  To which she quickly snapped at me that an epidural doesn’t take away all the pain and that is not what they are for.  But finally after suffering through a few more contractions I insisted that I wanted to talk to the anesthesiologist again.  It was a different doctor this time and she gave me a “boost” of the medicine and said that I would definitely feel relief right away…nothing!  So the doctor came back and determined that the epidural was not placed right and so I wasn’t getting any of the pain medicine.  She redid my epidural and I was in HEAVEN.  I instantly felt better.  I still get angry thinking about that nurse.  I swear she wanted me to be in pain.  I just wish I had insisted on seeing the anesthesiologist earlier (and asked for a different nurse!)

Several hours after checking into the hospital I was checked again, with no change.  Still 8 cm dilated even after my water broke.  We waited a bit longer and then the doctor on call (more on that later) came in to talk to me about starting some Pitocin.  He said I should have been making more progress and that my contractions needed to be regulated (they were still varying in the times they were coming).  This is when the discussion of a c section started.  He said we would try Pitocin for a few hours and hopefully I would make progress otherwise we would have to think about doing a c section.  So I was on Pitocin for a few hours, rechecked and still no progress.  There had been no change and I had been 8 cm dilated for over 8 hours.  I was pretty upset; the last thing I wanted was a c section.  But when the doctor plays the “we don’t want to endanger your baby card”, there’s no arguing with that. 

On a side note, my midwife said that the hospital calls her once I check into the hospital and that she was going to try and be there for the delivery.  However when I got there they told me I would be seeing the on call doctor.  I was in so much pain and so out of it that I didn’t question why my midwife wasn’t there.  I figured she must have been out of town (especially since she wasn’t in the office the day before at my appointment).  Well it turns out that they listed me as someone else’s patient when I checked in, so she didn’t even know I was there.  She showed up Sunday thinking I was being induced that day only to find me already there with Quincy. 

Christian did give me some comforting words.  He let me know that after praying he felt ok and that this is what needed to happed to bring our baby girl into the world.  As soon as the decision was made, everything moved very fast.  Within 10 minutes I was being prepped and another 10 minutes after that she was here.  It’s a pretty weird feeling having something literally pulled out of you, lots of pressure! I was a little nervous about being completely numb, especially since I had trouble with the epidural the first time around, but everything went fine.   

I will never forget the moment I heard her for the first time.  I know everyone says it’s life changing…and that’s because it is.  I honestly don’t know how to describe it other than it was the best thing I have ever experienced.  I still get goose bumps when I think about it.    

Afterwards I went to a recovery room with Quincy and then we went up our hospital room on the labor and delivery floor.  I had to stay 4 days because of the c section.  The first day Quincy was with me in the room and the next day the pediatrician came in to check on her.  They said she had aspirated a little bit of meconium at birth and was now breathing pretty fast.  Long story short she had to go to the NICU for 48 hours for observation (to rule out pneumonia or infections).  It was so sad to see her hooked up to lots of wires and IV’s.   

This was a rough time for me physically and mentally.  The NICU was 2 floors down and quite a walk (especially if you just had major surgery).  They would call me every time she would wake up to come down and feed her.  I was in a lot of pain during those 2 days continuously walking back and forth.  They also scared me by hinting that Quincy might need to stay in the NICU for even longer; 2 days was the minimum that she would need to stay there.  Besides wanting to get her home as fast as possible, they were going to discharge me after 2 days and I didn’t want to leave without my baby!  Everything ended up being ok and her breathing slowed down.  We ended up both being discharged on the same day and went home on Tuesday, November 13^th. 

I still get sad sometimes when I think about everything that happened leading up to the c section, and play a lot of “what ifs” in my head, but then I remind myself that it doesn’t matter anymore. The most important thing is that she made it here and we are both safe and healthy. 

And that is the incredible story of how Quincy came into our lives!