Hannah's Birth Story

( an e-mail nick sent out after I had the baby) 

Dearest Family,

Early this morning, Amber started having consistent contractions. We left our home around 2am and dropped Matthew and Lizzy off at Amy and Scott's house. We got to the hospital around 3am and successfully were triaged around 3:20 where Amber was at a 4.5. Amber had 3 really strong contractions on the walk from triage to delivery. She refused to lie down when we got to the delivery room. Her water broke 10 minutes after getting to the delivery room (still refusing to sit down). The nurses made her lie down, despite her stubbornness, and finally got a look at how far she had progressed since triage (20 minutes earlier). They immediately called the doctor because she was already at a 9.5. The room flooded with nurses preparing everything while Amber and I were in shock. It was too late for an epidural. The doctor showed up around 4:15. After 2-3 big pushes, Hannah was here at 4:31am.

We are so grateful for Hannah and her safe arrival to our family. She weighed in at 6 lbs 9 oz and is 19.5 inches long. She has very dark hair. Amber did a great job, especially with an unexpected natural delivery. For those in town, we are at Banner Gateway on Higley and US 60 in room 1124. Feel free to come by at your convenience, if you so desire. Please text either Amber or myself () if you do plan to come by so we can plan. For those out of town, you can FaceTime  or Skype .

Love,

Nick & Amber

    Well, I'm finally getting around to writing Hannah's birth story, even though she is now 7 weeks old. I hope that I remember everything that happened and how I felt. I have been thinking about it a lot since then, so I'm sure I will remember the important things.This labor and delivery were the total opposite of my last two, so I was not expecting it at all.

    Tuesday March 18th I had a drs appt, my final one. We set up an induction appointment for Sunday because I did not think that I was going to go into labor on my own. Dr. Huish was fine with it but was hoping that it would happen on its own. At my appt I was 2.5 cms and 70 effaced and the baby was super low.  My doctor would always comment on how low she was, so I was hoping that it meant I would go into labor sooner than my due day, no such luck.

   Tuesday and Wednesday I went about my normal schedule and routine, I even set up a babysitter for Friday night so that Nicholas and I could go out before the baby came. I was totally set on being induced on Sunday and having the baby then.  

   Wednesday night at about 10pm, we went to bed. Nick went straight to sleep but I couldn't. I had been having contractions but I was pretty sure that they were Braxton hicks. They were however keeping me awake and were annoying. I decided to get up and walk around the house. I tried to sleep on the couch and get some rest but it was just so uncomfortable. At midnight I decided to start timing the contractions on an app on my phone, just in case this was the real thing because I had never gone into labor on my own so I wasn't really sure what it was going to be like. ( kind of funny seeing as how this was my 3rd child and I didn't know what it felt like to have non pitocin contractions.)

   When I started timing my contractions were anywhere from 7 minutes to 10 minutes apart. They dropped real fast to being 4 minutes apart. I decided to get into the bath tub to see if it would help with the pain or if it would stop it so that I could decide if this was real or not. The bath tub sucked. I don't know why people say that it helps them, it was the most uncomfortable thing for me. I was probably in there for like ten minutes because I couldn't handle it. It was so much easier to stand during the contractions.

   After I got out of the bath tub, is when the contractions started to become things that I needed to breathe through. They still felt like bad menstrual cramps but it felt good to breathe through them and swing my hips from side to side.  They were consistently getting stronger but I still wasn't convinced that I was in labor. I didn't want to go to the hospital and get sent home.

   Well at about 130am, Nick comes down the stairs looking for me because I had told him that I was going to take a bath and I wasn't there. He said that he woke up all of the sudden and said that he needed to find me. He was wide awake, which if you know my husband, takes awhile. I think that he was woken up by the spirit to get me to the hospital because the baby was coming.

He came down the stairs and asked how it was going. I showed him my phone as I breathed through a contraction. He said, you're kidding me right? Your contractions are like 3 minutes apart. I told him I'd call Amy to make sure that I was in labor.I got Amy on the phone but had to hand it to nick because contractions were getting to the point that I couldn't talk through them at all. Amy told him to pack the kids up and get them over here because I was definitely in labor.

      So we spend the next 30 minutes getting the bags in the car, getting the kids in their seats and me getting dressed and getting the last little things together. Thinking back on it, I shouldn't have spent so much time packing things. Like I got the marshmallows that I promised Matthew he could have the day before and I put the brownies in the car for Amy that I baked and packing snacks for Nick. Of course this all took a long time because every couple minutes I had to stop for a contraction. I really thought I would be in labor forever at the hospital.

     We get in the car and head to Amys. Contractions and the car do not mix. Like at all. They hurt so freaking bad in the car. I kept turning up the music in the car every time I had a contraction because I thought it would help drown out the pain. It helped me concentrate on something else, which in turned helped me breathe.   Luckily, the contractions had slowed to ten minutes apart, but the intensity and length of them had not.

   After dropping the kids off we got to the hospital at around 3am, according to Nick. Honestly I had no idea what time it was. All I could think about were the contractions and getting an epidural and just making it to the hospital.  From the car to the check in office, I had one contraction in the parking lot. Then while checking in and being asked a whole bunch of stupid questions I had one and then from that office to the triage room I had another contraction.

   The nurse had me change my clothes in the hospital gown in between contractions. The nurse then tried to get an IV in me so that she could get a bag of fluid going so that I could have an epidural. She checked me and I was at a 4.5cm and announced that I was staying. I said Yay, I was so afraid you were going to send me home. ( I obviously had a warped sense of what real labor was going to be like because I always thought they were going to send me home ) The nurse laughed and said no, you are definitely staying. She asked me a whole bunch of more questions and then we headed to the delivery room, and this is where things got fun.

I started walking down the hall to the delivery room and bam, had another contraction. Once I got through that one I started walking again but stopped because I felt like I was going to vomit, and I did, right into the towel I was holding and right next to the nurses' station. They all jumped up and got me a garbage can to throw up into. So there I am standing next to the nurses' station, in a hospital gown, vomiting into a trash can, and trying to get through another contraction. In my head I was so embarrassed but at the same time I didn't care at all what anybody thought about me because I was in so much pain. All I wanted to do was get to the room and get that dang epidural.

    I finally got into the delivery room and the nurse wanted me to get up on the bed so she could check on the baby. But right at that moment another contraction hit me. I leaned on the side of the bed with my head down and tried to breath but it hurt so bad. It almost felt like an out of body experience. It was then that my water broke. All over the floor. I don't remember it but nick said that nurses came and cleaned everything up right away.

    The nurse then made me get up on the bed so she could check me. I fought her on this, a lot. I did not want to get on that bed, it hurt so much more when I layed down, I just wanted to stay standing until I got an epidural, but she won.  She checked me and said I was almost complete, 9.5. She then went to call the doctor and told me not get off the bed because if I did, that baby would be coming out and I could no longer get an epidural. In my head all I could think was, are you kidding me?!? I was just at a 4, how could go to complete in 3 contractions. I just wanted an epidural.

     At this point, tons of nurses came in getting things ready, and moving things around. This was all a blur to me. All I remember is laying on my left side in a fetal position. I had the nurses hand in my left hand and nick's hand in my right hand. I would have a contraction and It would take everything within me to not let my body push the baby out. My body was literally pushing her out without any help from me. I breathed deeply and squished those hands hard. I remember apologizing to the nurse once, but besides that I was completely silent, except for a few moans and groans.

    The nurses would ask me questions in between contractions, like do you want to hold the baby after, and I couldn't answer them. In my head I did, But I physically could not open my mouth and talk. It was like my body went into reserve energy mode and I went somewhere else. My whole body just totally relaxed in between each contraction and I couldn't do anything but breath. It is hard to explain. At one point I wanted to turn on my other side so I was facing nick because he was answering all the questions and I felt bad I wasn't looking at him, but I couldn't. I just kept staring at the hand rail on the bed or had my eyes closed.

   Dr huish finally arrived. The nurses took apart the bed for delivery and he suited up in like 5 seconds. He was like, alright let's have a baby. On the first contraction, he said to push and I fought. I said no I don't want to, it hurts, I don't want to.  I fought nick and the nurse holding my leg, I did not want to do this. When that contraction was over. He said amber, look at me, you can do this, one big push. So I just looked at him and said ok, and with the next contraction I pushed as hard as I could, and let out what nick called a "hulk scream" and Hannah was born.

    They put her on me and I was so out of it. I opened my eyes and was like whoa there is a baby on me, how did that happen. Labor and delivery going so fast and not what I expected at all, made the whole thing surreal. I could not believe that she was already here. I expected to be in labor for hours and push  more then twice.They cleaned and sewed me up and then it was just nick and Hannah and I. 

     We talked about how crazy that whole experience was. Then we called my parents, who were on a mission in the Dominican Republic. Nick had tried face timing them when we got to the delivery room and they answer but because my water broke, he hung up and told them he would call them back after I had an epidural and could chat. So when we called them back less than an hour later, they didn't answer. We called like 5 fives and they finally answered. They said that they had gone out for a walk because they figured that it would be a couple of hours before we had the baby. Nick then said to them well, who do you want to see first and turned the camera to Hannah and I. My mom was so shocked to see Hannah had already been born, the look on her face was priceless. She was so excited and was like, what happened, what happened? It was fun to talk and tell her the whole story. 

    A couple hours later, I honestly felt really good. Like better than I did with my other two. I took a shower and wasn't nearly as sore. It was amazing. I had heard that with a natural birth you recover faster and was glad that so far it was true. I had my ups and downs during my whole recovery the next couple of weeks, but it was honestly kind of nice not having to wait for the epidural to wear off and then having to have help to do things. Now if you would have asked me while I was in labor, I would have still wanted the epidural but it makes me think next time I might go natural again. Maybe. :)