In thinking about having a baby, I wanted to do an all natural labor and delivery. I don't know why I really wanted to do it drug free and endure all the pain, but with that in mind we chose a birth center. I loved the homey feel, the peace, the comfort, something you couldn't get from the hospital, and the fact that in four to six hours after having a baby you could go home! Seemed so great! Everything in my pregnancy was absolutely perfect. I don't think it could have gone any better.
When I hit 32 weeks, things began to change at the birthing center. It became more and more unprofessional and things happened that should never happen, so we prayed and decided that we needed to look into switching if it were even possible given I was weeks away from having a baby. At this point, we knew we couldn't transfer this late in the game to the other birthing center so our only option was to stick it out where we were or settle for the hospital. We chose the hospital and surprisingly I had a peace about it all. God is so great when it comes to future plans even when we cant see the whole picture. We ended up finding a midwife who had an office right up the street from us and delivered at the hospital within five minutes from us. Let me tell you, our midwife, Robyn Reese was the BEST midwife anyone could ever ask for! Looking back on it, I don't know why we didn't research more when choosing a midwife and where we wanted to be. I am a bit bummed we only had her for a short amount of time, but I know we will return to her in the future. She was absolutely amazing!! She allowed me to still have the option to give birth naturally or do a water birth given that it was still in a hospital environment. Everything we wanted she agreed to, except there was no eating. Darn. I really think pregnant woman should be allowed to eat EVEN when they are in labor because that was the only thing my mind seemed to be on when we were in the laboring process. ha!
Robyn had me come up with a birth plan as we got closer to time, and asked me all the questions that she needed to ask to make me feel more than ready and prepared for when it came time for Paisley to enter this world. When we chose the birth center, there was no need to write and birth plan so being asked to write one this late in the game seemed weird even though i knew what i wanted. I wanted a simple, natural birth. I prepared my birth plan and kept it the most simple plan that anyone could have probably written for being at a hospital. To tell you the truth though, I didnt really want to have any expectations for a certain type of delivery, because 99.9% of the time, what you want and what you plan for never goes accordingly, so not ever giving birth before, I just wanted to be prepared for anything and everything and not have my hopes set too high so I didnt feel disappointed if I didnt get to have the all-natural labor and delivery I pictured in my mind.
Knowing that my Mom was always early with us by a few weeks, and my sister being a week early, I had in my mind that I would be early given family history, but as my due date came and went I was quickly surprised that I was late, but go figure. Just because I wanted to have this baby early should have meant that I would be late. Next time around I will be wishing this baby to be late. Reverse psychology.
January 13th, I woke up at 7:00 am with contractions. They were bearable, but didnt at all feel comfortable. I chose to stay behind from church and just get myself prepared should we go into full blown labor sometime that day. Contractions never really got stronger; stayed the same throughout most of the day. I was able to sleep some, watch movies with my mom, and bake a loaf of bread, that I somehow managed to eat 1/2 of :) By Sunday late afternoon/early evening my contractions had pretty much stopped. We decided that we would all go to bed early since at 5pm Monday evening I would be headed in for an induction. We went to bed at 9:30 and by 11 I was awake with strong contractions. Strong enough to keep me awake and in and out of the bath. They started out all over the board, but then were down to about 5/6 minutes at 1:00 am Monday morning. We called the midwife at 1:30 am and told her what was happening, only for her to say just a little while longer, and for them to be consistently 4 min apart. I decided to lay back down for a little while to see if I could sleep, and I couldnt. Aaron and I got up and walked outside for about an hour and had contractions down to 4 minutes apart. By 5 am we headed for the hospital with what we thought was active labor, only for them to send us home an hour later, for a few hours and then to come back to start the induction. We all were able to sleep for a few hours and get rested up. I then got myself ready, and ate a small meal before we headed back to the hospital.
We got to the hospital at 5 pm Monday evening and got all checked in and hooked up to the monitor. Robyn suggested resting a bit, and then taking a sleeping pill around 8 so that I could get some rest for when it did come time to push, however, when they checked me I was still at 3 cm like I had been for the past month. She decided that to go ahead and insert in a balloon catheter to help me at least dilate to 5. Within just a few hours, I had dilated to 7!! Because I had been having contractions for so many hours, they decided to give me a mild pain killer that would at least help me be able to relax some and maybe sleep. Side effect of that was dizziness and not just for the first few moments once they gave it to you; continuous dizziness. I felt drunk as the whole room was just spinning and spinning. When they check me several hours later, we were still stuck at 7, and ended up being stuck at 7 for many hours. At which point, Robyn suggested the epidural and no sleeping pill because contractions had moved to my back and were taking my breath away. To tell you the truth, I wanted a drug free birth because I was so afraid of the epidural needle, but when you have been stuck twice for IVs and gotten your blood drawn several times, why not just throw the epidural right in there with everything else. Surprisingly, the epidural was nowhere near what I thought I would feel. It went in smoothly, and really took the pain away. I felt great to say the least. At some point the ended up breaking my water to maybe see if that would help dilate me any more. It didnt, but it was worth the try.
Almost every hour the nurses would have to come in and either reduce or increase the pitocen levels according to what my contractions were doing. They would get stronger and then they would just stop. It took many, many hours before I actually went into active labor, not to mention that almost every 30 minutes they would have to come and move me or get me to change sides because little miss Paisley just had to have everything just perfect. I think around 3:00 am I spiked a 101 fever, which meant that if they couldnt get the fever to come down, then I more than likely had some sort of infection. They kept a close eye and it never went down the way they wanted. Robyn said wait till 5 am to check me again and to see where we were at. At 4:30 nurses and Robyn were rushing into my room, as Paisleys heartbeat had dropped really low and would spike really high. They couldnt get the heart rate to stabilize. Robyn went a head and checked me and I had finally made it to 9!! I thought we might be real close, when 10 minutes later after all the excitement nurses were back in my room telling me to prepare myself for a c-section if they couldnt get the heart rate to stabilize. Robyn made a call to the dr, who decided that we needed to head for a c-section especially since her heart rate was all over the place. They prepped for a c-section and we were out and headed for the OR within a matter of minutes. (Why I never prepared myself for a certain type of birth because I would have been disappointed at this moment). They increased the epidural level and made it even stronger. So strong that all I could think about was just sleeping because i was so tired and eating Pizza because I was hungry. My whole body was numb and felt so weird; being awake and seeing everything but cant really feel your body was just creepy to me.
The Dr showed up within 15 minutes of the call and the moment he walked in they threw his gown on and they were at work. It took them 3 minutes to get Paisley out. When we first heard her cry, it was the best sound that I have ever experienced in my whole life. She was beautiful and most of all...SHE HAD HAIR! (If you knew me as a baby, I never had hair till I was two)! When Aaron did get a chance to peek as they were trying to get her out, all he could say was "She has hair, honey!"
I remember them laying her on the scale and all I could pray was, "God please let her be little so she can fit in all her NB clothes" haha. Sounds silly, but she had so much stuff and Aaron is a huge dude, who weighed almost 9 pounds when he was born. Our perfect angel was long, 20.5 inches and 6 pounds 11 ounces. She was little and long, just like i thought she would be. She was a beautiful newborn baby, and I dont say that just because she is my daughter, but really and truly she was a beautiful looking newborn. I got to hold her for a few minutes before they took her to the NICU to check her out and make sure she didnt catch any of the infection that I had. She spent 24 hours in the NICU and looking back it was so hard. I wasnt aware of much because of the pain that I was in and all the drugs I was on, but had I been able to be a little more aware I probably would have cried my eyes out as I couldnt really see and hold my baby much.
Once I was stitched up and back in my room to recover, Dr ordered, I had to wait six hours before I could see my new baby! Six hours felt like an eternity, but it also gave me a chance to rest since I hadnt had much sleep in the last few days. When I did get to see her my heart was overjoyed. They allowed me to breastfeed her which felt like a piece of cake, since she latched right on.
The 24 hours that Paisley was in the NICU was hard, but once she finally was able to come and stay with me in my room was heaven sent. She was perfect in every way. She never really fussed except when she needed a diaper change or when she was hungry. Her hands. She LOVED her hands. She always had to have them clasped together or somehow touching and near her face. My baby also was a GREAT sleeper. They told me to feed her every three hours the first night, so as any new mother would do, i set my alarm for every three hours and like clock work I got up to feed her, only to have little Paisley Grace not be hungry. She wanted to sleep more than anything. What kind of parent gets that lucky?
The whole next day, we just hung out with lil Paisley. We stared, we smiled, we laughed, we cried, and we just took in all the new moments. Time somehow could have just stood still and noone would have noticed. We are in love. I was in love. This was a moment that I had waited for my entire life. I always dreamed of having my own children and what they would be like, and how I would be the worlds greatest mom. My dreams at that moment when she arrived finally became a reality. An experience that I will never, ever forget. Paisley Grace was absolutely perfect in every single way. I couldnt have been more happier in these moments. It may seem like I didnt have the perfect labor and birth, but to me it was absolutely perfect. We had a very healthy, beautiful baby and we had one of the greatest midwives anyone could have asked for. We are blessed in everywhere. Paisley is our promised child. Being a mom is the best thing i have ever experienced. These moments are what completes me. I love you Paisley Grace and am so happy you are finally here! You were worth the long wait!!
