Baby’s Birth Story

If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you saw that 4 weeks ago, we welcomed our 4th little bundle of joy, Paris, into the world. Our 3rd little girl, fully outnumbering our boys. And if you like birth stories, I’d love to share our little girl’s.

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I was due July 10 which was a Monday. We were actually gearing up for this baby to be late – we’ve generally gone pretty late and were thinking we’d have a couple more weeks to go.

When I went in for my weekly appointment at 40 weeks there were some concerns that I maybe had some bile acid levels that were high and since I was full term, it was decided it would be best for baby if I was induced. So I headed home with a Foley bulb to hug my babies and all those things before heading back to the hospital.

We headed back to the hospital late afternoon – an hour later than we were “supposed to” but mostly I just did paperwork for the first 2 hours. No joke.

Around 8, the Foley bulb fell out, so they called my midwife to start the next steps.

I wasn’t having regular contractions. My husband and I were walking the halls at a right nice clip trying to make contractions get started.

We spent the next 3 hours with 10 minutes on a breast pump, 10 minutes walking to hopefully encourage some serious contractions. After 2 of those hours, my midwife came in and suggested we start a Pitocin drip to get the party started. I wanted to finish the breast pump cycles first and then I would do the Pitocin.

But I didn’t need it because before the pump cycles were finished in the next hour, I was having regular contractions. The only struggle was that it was now after 11pm and I was tired. And JUST starting active labor.

I’m not typically in labor for very long so I kept looking at the clock hoping it would go fast. Labor is so much more painful when I’m induced.

But I was exhausted and in pain and not feeling super reasonable.

I really wanted to go to sleep but it’s hard to sleep when you’re having regular contractions and back labor.

I told my husband something I didn’t think I’d say – that I wanted an epidural. I’m not opposed to epidurals but a needle in my spine scares me. Plus I like being able to get up right away and feel and know what my body’s doing. But I was so tired I had no idea how I was going to have the energy to push if this lasted all night.

We talked to the nurse and she said I’d need more IV fluids before we could do an epidural. So we turned on my IV and got the fluids going. Then my midwife came in and she knew I didn’t want an epidural because of our talks but she could see I was struggling. So she stayed and coached me through every contraction from then on.

By the time I had enough IV fluids in my system for the epidural, I was in transition. I was miserable. I couldn’t find a comfortable-ish position and even though they kept suggesting things to me, I didn’t want to move. Everything hurt so much worse when I moved.

I ended up on my bed half all fours half squatting as I held on to the top of the uplifted hospital bed.

I was hoping that I would feel the urge to push soon but I wasn’t. I was praying that I would be able to be hold the baby soon.

I started pushing when contractions got intense just to see what would happen.

When I finally made it from 9 to 10 dilation, the pushing started making progress. but so little progress with each push I thought it would take me hours to get the baby out.

Turns out, her little hand was up by her head, so once we got head and shoulders cleared – which took more pushes that I remember but not hours since she was born just before 3 am – we were in good shape. Exhausted beyond belief, but in good shape.

I held our surprise little girl (we didn’t find out before hand) on my chest and she nursed right away. After about 45 minutes, I looked at my husband and asked him to take her so I could go to sleep. I was just too absolutely exhausted.

While the nurse did her weighing and measuring, I laid back and was almost asleep when I saw the little numbers going on the scale. This is actually still so funny in my head because I was completely out and then I popped up and said “Does that say 8 pounds 13 oz?!?” And the nurse said “I believe that’s where it’ll land yes.” And I said “WHOA! She’s our biggest baby yet by a LOT!” And then I dropped back and fell almost right to sleep.

Since day one she’s nursed and slept well. Last night she slept 7 hours. Which has meant shorter naps during the day but let’s face it, our house isn’t exactly quiet during the day.

We stayed our 2 day hospital stay because I was Strep B positive, then came home to the most adoring brother and sisters a brand new baby could hope for. She is so insanely loved and cherished. No one can get enough of her.

She’s super chill and really only cries when she’s hungry or has a burp. Her skills include delayed pooping, where she poops, I wait to change her to make sure she’s finished, and no matter how long I wait, when I take her diaper off, about 1/3 of the time, she decides this is the best time to poop some more. In 24 hours, she did this 3 times and I had to do a lot of laundry from the casualties.

All-in-all I’ve been impressed with the transition. Our toddler is a doing well but she’s become very much a TODDLER in the last 6 weeks or so, adding an interesting aspect to this. And I thought our homeschool co-op started in September so I was going to ease ever so slowly into school but as it turns out, it starts next week so we’ll be starting school then too.

I still have no idea long term how we’ll do this 4 kids under 6 thing. I had the kids at a back to school party today and someone said “WOW. How are you doing school with 2 not in school?” And I said “Well this is the plan but I don’t know exactly how it’ll work yet since we haven’t started.”

My husband has been a rock star in absolutely every possible way. And I am so thankful to do life with him.