A little background: My other births
Samuel is my 4th baby. Here’s how my other three births went:
Emma: Induced at 41 weeks, born 41 weeks and 1 day
Kate: Induced at 41 weeks, born 41 weeks and 1 day
Andrew: Induced at 39 weeks, 6 days
(I thought I was in labor, and was so disappointed to find out that it had stopped, that my doctor offered to let me stay at the hospital and begin the induction one week early.)
Needless to say, it was no surprise to me that I made it to Samuel’s scheduled induction at 41 weeks as well!
Samuel’s Birth Story
SUNDAY, 6:30 AM:
Induction day!
We were told to call the hospital at 6:30 AM to see if they were ready for us to come in and start the induction.
From past experience, we knew that we probably wouldn’t actually be going in until much later. But just in case, my mom came over the night before and we got up and were showered and dressed in time to hear…. “Call back at 9:00!”
9:00 AM
At 9:00 I called back again and was told that we wouldn’t be able to come in that morning. They would call me sometime in the afternoon if they had space for us, but otherwise, I should call back again at 7:00 that evening.
I was incredibly disappointed, and couldn’t believe that I was still waiting for this baby to be born, after being ready for him to come “any time now!” for weeks.
But we went to church, ate lunch, and tried to distract ourselves. I constantly checked my phone, just in case I had somehow missed the phone call saying to come in.
2:00 PM
We got the call!
Our other kids cheered when we told them it was time for us to go to the hospital, and I felt like cheering myself. We grabbed our bags and headed to the hospital.
2:30 PM
We arrived at the hospital, and immediately started getting settled in our room. I took a COVID test, and once it came back negative I was allowed to take off my mask.
I also got my IV. It took 4 tries and left me with a huge bruise for weeks afterwards, but I didn’t even care. I was so excited to meet our baby!
We started fetal monitoring. Since my last baby, I had switched providers, and was seeing midwives instead of doctors this time around.
I was delighted to find out that I didn’t have to be constantly monitored this time- I could take the monitors off for about 40 minutes at a time, and walk around the room or go wander around the hospital hallways- such freedom!
3:00 PM
My midwife came in to check me, and since absolutely nothing was happening on its own, she started me on a medication called Cervidil.
When it was time for dinner, Kevin walked to Taco Bell and got us some food. I read, we watched some TV… nothing too exciting while we waited for something to start happening.
7:00 PM
At some point in the evening/night, I did start having regular contractions. But they weren’t very strong. My nurse left at 7 pm and told me, “Hopefully by midnight!”
What false hope. 🤣
The night nurse was also optimistic, and kept telling me to “let her know if I started feeling really uncomfortable.” She was worried that the baby would come too fast, and she wouldn’t be ready.
She shouldn’t have worried. My contractions were so weak that I barely even noticed them. I told her that my pain level was “a 1 or a 2” and she looked genuinely shocked. Turns out Baby Samuel wasn’t coming that night.
Instead, I continued to take the Cervadil every 4 hours.
MONDAY, 4:30 AM
Yay! Time to start the Pitocin and hopefully increase the intensity of the contractions. I took a shower and ate some breakfast since I wouldn’t be able to eat after the Pitocin IV was started.
Unfortunately, the baby “wasn’t responding well to the Pitocin.” I learned that meant that his heart rate was slowing down when it shouldn’t have been. It’s called a late deceleration, and it’s bad news.
(We had actually experienced the same thing when Andrew was born, and his problem turned out to be related to the way his umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck and arm.)
Anyway, the Pitocin was turned off. We tried restarting it once, at a super low dosage, but again, the baby’s heart rate was dropping, and we had to stop.
I felt like I was making absolutely no progress. It was really frustrating.
9:00 AM
A new midwife started her shift. I had never met her before, because she was from a different office and only came in to work at this hospital once every 6 weeks.
I was so glad that I happened to be there on her once-in-6-weeks shift, because she was wonderful.
Kevin asked her at one point how many babies she had delivered, and she estimated somewhere between 2 and 3 thousand! She definitely knew what she was doing.
Since the Pitocin wasn’t working, we decided to try a cervical balloon. It was super uncomfortable, and was in for several hours. But it did its job of opening up the cervix, so it was worth it, I guess.
1:00 PM
Since I wasn’t on the Pitocin anymore, and hadn’t eaten since early morning, Kevin went to Subway to get us some sandwiches.
He told me that he asked for as many veggies as possible on mine since he thought I could use the extra nutrients. 😆
After that, I was just lying in bed for a while, napping on and off. We watched some TV, listened to a podcast, and read.
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3:30 PM
Finally, I got checked again and the balloon had fallen out (which it’s supposed to.) My midwife decided to try Pitocin one last time, and the baby was responding much better this time. (Yay!)
My nurse was able to increase the Pitocin amount until I was actually feeling slightly stronger contractions.
Birth is so weird, because it’s the only time in my life I can remember getting excited by an increasing pain level. 🤣
7:00 PM
By this time the nurses were switching shifts again (for the third time since my arrival.)
The contractions were much stronger now, and was sitting on a yoga ball leaning on the bed.
Kevin told me later that he was super nervous about the nurse changeover because he was pretty sure it was my new nurse’s first shift ever. But the charge nurse stayed with us the entire time as well, and she was fantastic. You could tell that she knew exactly what she was doing. She was also very encouraging.
7:30 PM
My midwife checked me again, and I was disappointed to hear that the baby was still pretty high up.
Since my contractions were getting super strong now, she asked me if I wanted her to break my water and I said yes.
After that, I was having really intense contractions, and the baby started having late decelerations again, which was pretty alarming.
Kevin said later that he would see the midwife and nurse exchange glances every time it happened, but that they would just calmly tell me that we needed to change positions: from one side to the other, to my hands and knees.
My midwife contacted the doctor on duty to be ready for a C-section, although it ended up not being needed.
At this point, I was asking Kevin for water because I was so thirsty, but unfortunately, the water was making me throw up (not fun!) so Kevin was giving me ice chips instead. Looking back, it seemed like this phase lasted only 5 or 10 minutes, but Kevin says it was over an hour. Yikes!
9:00 PM
Finally, it was time to push, and I was SO relieved that it was finally, finally happening. We waited so long for this little guy, and I just kept telling myself that soon I would be holding him.
And then he was here, and I just felt so happy and so incredibly relieved that I held him and cried.
Kevin held Samuel for a while, and I immediately fell asleep sitting up- I just could not keep my eyes open. I was so happy when they took us to our recovery room. I put on my own pajamas (which felt amazing) turned off the light and just SLEPT.
Video Highlights
You can see some video clips from our hospital stay on my Instagram, here.
Going home
The next 2 days were a whirlwind of doctors, nurses, needles, checks, visits from our parents, siblings, and our other 3 children. We went home Wednesday night, and have pretty much been recovering and relaxing at home with our new family of 6 ever since.
It’s been three years since I had a newborn, and I feel so incredibly blessed to be doing all the newborn things again with this new baby. He was definitely worth all the waiting!
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