Brooke Grayson's Birth Story

41 weeks

Our sweet Brooke Grayson was born at 9:22am Thursday, November 8th she is officially 1 week old!
She was 6 lbs 6.8oz, 18.5" long, and they didn't tell us her head circumference.

Here's our birth story: 

We went in for our 40 week, weekly check up Tuesday the 6th at 7:30am. I was 2cm dialated and 70% effaced, the midwife said, "Well, looks like we'll meet this little one in about 24 hours!" We then left the doctors, ate breakfast at Denny's (we should have gone to Ihop, though Denny's wasn't terrible).  We were over joyed and still in disbelief we would meet our daughter so soon! We left breakfast, I went to work to collect my belongings and say goodbye to co-workers, and Charles headed back to the office to work.  I still wasn't feeling any contractions or anything different.  I was very thankful work said go ahead and stay home.

I rested, packed my toiletries in my bag, worked from home sitting on my birthing ball, did laundry, and other housework to get ready for the baby.  Charles and I went to Chik-fil-a in town for lunch, we had a great conversation and enjoyed more time together!  Since we were going to Greenville to deliver (about an hour and 15 mins from our house) we were planning on going to stay with his parents so we could labor there and be 20 mins from the hospital.  Charles asked me about 5pm if we wanted to sleep there Tuesday night, I said no, because I didn't feel any progress and I knew we would sleep better at home.  We went out to eat at this yummy cheese steak place and then went next door to get some 50 cent wings.  We went home, and went to bed.  Needless to say, the 24 hour prediction was wrong because we should have been having a baby around 8am the next morning.

We woke up, Charles went to work and I did everything I could to induce labor, yes, spicy food (ate a bite of his spicy hot wing - YUCK) raspberry tea, sex, walked in the neighborhood together... I was discouraged it had been over 24 hours and not even a cramp.  Charles had been telling people 24 to 48 hours and I was like "no honey, that's not what the doctor said," haha silly me.  Finally, around 4pm I was experiencing more regular cramping but it wasn't strong enough to call it contractions.  I downloaded a contraction timer and began to track them.  They started about 10 mins apart and shortened to about 6 minutes apart by 5:30pm.  A friend asked me if I wanted to go walking at the mall with her and her kids and I said yes. I wanted to see if these were labor pains (I rested and walked and they weren't going away but were getting more regular to worse). Charles joined us at the mall, and we decided it was time to go to Greenville.

At this point, I was uncomfortable and deemed them official contractions. Everything I have read says you will feel a wrapping, squeezing pain and mine wasn't. It was a sharp, concentrated pain on my pubic bone area, it never spread anywhere else.  I almost feel like it would have been better if it encompassed more of my body, it was very difficult having one "pressure point".  I didn't have any back pain either.  We headed to Greenville, spent a little time laboring at my inlaws (sat on an exercise ball and the toilet, and walked around a little bit).  We decided to call the Midwife because they were coming every 2 minutes and I couldn't/didn't want to talk during them and really couldn't get much relief in between. She told us to come into the hospital and get checked out, she was already up there for another birth.

We got there, waited 15 minutes or so to get checked in, though we had pre-registered, I was moaning in pain and the person checking in wasn't even uncomfortable, ugh! haha So, long story short, I had planned on having as natual a labor a possible, I read 2 Bradley Method books and thought I had a pretty high pain tolerance.

So finally they brought me back to triage to check my progress before deciding to admit me or not.  Contractions were every minute 30 seconds and very painful.  It was around 9:45 pm.  I was 5cm dilated and 90% effaced.  The midwife said I should go ahead and be admitted.  By this point, I was in so much pain because they were coming so frequently, I crawled on the bed for some rest, I didn't want to move around.  Once I laid down they started hooking up monitors and trying to get a port in for IV's.  They stuck me 6 times and were very unsuccessful getting a vein.  Finally the midwife got one in my hand.  That was more painful than some of my contractions!!! Charles said it was terrible.  They finally got a vein and concluded I was dehydrated. Yes, as you read earlier, when we thought we were 24 hours from the birth of our child, I was at home, not at work drinking a lot of water like I normally do, and we ate out 3 meals (which I rarely do). So yes, stupid me had let my body get dehydrated and they concluded this was why my contractions were so close together.

The midwife came in again about 11 to check on me, 5cm and 90% still... she said, you're only about half way.  Well, I was in pain, I wasn't pleasant to anyone and I was exhausted.  I asked what my options were, she said a pain med drip or an epidural.  I decided to try the pain med drip.  It did nothing during contractions, and made me groggy and loopy during my break between contractions.  We stopped that very quickly.  I realized I couldn't do it, I didn't know if it was my pain tolerance that couldn't withstand the pressure or my mental ability to cope with the pain.  I gave in and asked for an epidural.  The Dr. came in about 12:45 to do the epidural, since my contractions were so close together he had to insert the epidural during a contraction... SCARY! I was leaning on Charles, GROANING trying not to move because the Dr. kept saying "You have no idea how close I am to your spinal cord right now" ... Thanks. That's reassuring! Well, we got the epidural in and hunkered down for some rest.  I was really nervous about the epidural. I had heard many horror stories (didn't work, worked too well, etc.) Mine was great.  It completely numbed my knees to my belly button but I could still kinda move my lower legs and definitely my feet and toes.

The midwife said we should have a baby in the morning.  Charles and his mom slept.  I tried my best to sleep but all of the monitors (contraction, and her heartbeat) had me pretty awake.  Also, the nurses were constantly coming in to monitor things/change out the paper in the heart rate monitor machine (my monitors were all external, but they had to reposition Brooke's heart rate monitor a lot because she was still moving around.)

5am rolled around and they nurses said the midwife would be in soon to check the progress.  9-10cm and 100% effaced, almost go time! There was another lady a few rooms down basically the exact same labor stage (but this was her third baby) so she was getting priority of nurses/midwives.  Shift change was at 7am so we had to wait until about 7:30 for anyone to come in again.  It stunk changing up nurses after almost 10 hours of them being with us.  It's like they did all the hard work and then someone else just came in and got the glory for it.  Oh well, we knew we'd see them again at 7.

So, we started pushing around 8am.  I could not feel my contractions so we had to watch the monitor to tell me when to push.  And by push, yes, push like you're pushing out a biiiiiiiig poop. hahaha My contractions had fluctuated from 4 minutes to 6 minutes apart and were now 6 minutes apart.  This made pushing a long, slow process.  Yes, every 6 minutes this is how it went: "Ok Kim, deep breath, hold it and push for 10 seconds, we'll do this 3 times per contraction.  Okay... go!  You're doing great...1.................2................3...............yeah I don't have enough "...." to explain to you how slow they counted.  I truly thought I was going to pass out, and so did Charles.  They offered me some oxygen (a little mask I could grab) in between contractions for some extra energy.  haha most of my contractions were long and they'd throw in a "alright Kim, can you give us one more?" haha yeah so 4 "10 second" pushes.

This went on for about 30 minutes and the midwife was getting bored. hahaha okay, not bored but she did have another call she took and left us with the nurses.  Oh yes, I forgot to mention, she brought in a mirror, I didn't ask for it and I didn't really look during contractions because I was too busy trying not to pass out during pushes.

When the midwife got back, she suggested we speed this up process.  Okay, lets recap... IV (I originally didn't want this if I didn't have to get it),  pain drip (yeah, didn't plan on this either, epidural
(yeahhh not in the game plan), and now pitocin... why the heck not!? haha I tried my best not to focus on how wrong my labor was going (according to our "plan") but on the fact that we were sooooo close to meeting our daughter!

Pitocin sped them up to every 4 minutes, she was crowning, and the midwife said, "well, I only do this to about 2 or 3 women a year but, you have a really long perineum and you could be pushing forever, probably tear, so I suggest and episiotomy." Oh do you??? haha okay IV, pain drip, pitocin, epidural, episiotomy... bless.  So Charles and I looked at each other and said... just do it. 

The next contraction, snip, snip (yep, scissors you could audibly hear the cut, YUCK) and out popped Brooke Grayson Barrett at 9:22am!

They plopped her on me, stitched me up (2nd degree cut), delivered the placenta, and then Charles cut the cord.  She was slimy, with a head full of hair and a little raspy cry.  She actually pooped as soon as she came out (and they didn't put a diaper on her until almost an hour and a half later when they came in to wash her and weigh her.

Okay, that's all for now! Next post I'll share about the mandatory 48 hour post partum stay at the hospital (what Greenville does for first timers) and the first few days.

This was more or less for us... to remember the details of our daughters birth so we can compare after each labor and delivery.

Praise the Lord for a healthy, sweet baby girl we waited 40 long weeks to meet!