Quinn's Birth Day

Well folks, the fact that I'm using my forearm to hold a breast pump and my right foot to bounce a bouncy seat while I'm typing this blog can mean only one thing:

Quinn Abigail Smith has arrived. 

the night before

She is now 7 1/2 weeks old (this post is a bit late, as usual), and in my personal opinion, she is every ounce of cute. I figure it's about time to tell you the story of Quinn's birth day. I know many of you are interested, and lets be real, I may not remember it by the time she's 25 and having her own babies if I don't type it out somewhere. So, here goes:

My plan all along had been to have Quinn "as naturally as possible." For me, this meant no induction, no drugs, no snipping... just have her, however and whenever she wanted to come out. My sweet doctor and patient husband were both so supportive of this, and they both let it go on for as long as it could. And then, it could go on no longer. On the morning of August 19, 2015, when I was all of 41 weeks and 5 days pregnant (THATS 292 DAYS OF BEING PREGNANT, PEOPLE), Sam loaded my big humongous tail up in the car and drove me to the hospital to be induced.

 We headed up to Labor & Delivery, checked in, and got comfortable. Our doctor had mentioned that she would "induce gently" since I was still going to attempt this thing with no meds. Of course, the doctor isn't there at 5 am and things get lost in translation (I'm a nurse.. I wasn't surprised), and so the sweet nurse came in and declared, "Good morning! Lets get your IV going so we can get that pitocin going so we can have a baby!" I calmly and gently explained that that wasn't the plan, we would wait for the doctor to come and give new orders. She seemed a bit miffed, but hey sister, this my baby and my lady parts we're talking about, so get off it.

Doc came in around 7:30, I was already having very mild contractions about 5 minutes apart. She decided to do Cytotec (a vaginal suppository--my fav! said no one, ever) to try to induce labor. We waited 3 hours, no result. The nurse gave me another dose at about 11am and said we would wait 4 hours and then if nothing happened move on to plan B (although she never said exactly what plan B was, I don't think). From 11 to 2:30ish, Sam and I just hung out in the room playing cards, watching Netflix, walking the halls, and sweet talking Quinn from outside the womb. And Sam took some sneaky and ridiculous pictures of me. At this point, I was dilated to a 5.

At 2:30, the doctor came in to check me. I was still at a 5 and the baby had not dropped into my pelvis. Her initial plan was to let me eat (I was literally starving) and chill the rest of the evening, and then start more extreme induction measures in the morning. Sam was anxious to meet the baby, and I was really tired of being in the hospital room already, so we had concocted a plan to inform her we would rather go ahead and get this show on the road. When she came back in after talking with the nurse, she explained that Quinn wasn't tolerating the slow labor very well and her heart rate was dropping with contractions. Therefore, she insisted we break my water and go ahead and start the process of true labor. The actual breaking of my bag of waters wasn't painful at all. It was the contractions that started 30 minutes later that almost put me over the edge.

Within 30 minutes, I couldn't stay in the bed or be still any more. I was up walking around the room, leaning on Sam, leaning on the bed, sitting on a birthing ball, anything and everything except lying down. My contractions became more and more intense over the next few hours. I was exhausted and was struggling to register what was happening. I remember Sam sitting on the bed and me leaning on his shoulders, my hands on his thighs, during contractions, him telling me stories and talking about the baby to distract me (we practiced this before) and me breathing in and out because that was all I could do. I was falling asleep standing up between contractions but I literally could not sit down. Anyway, this went on for 4 hours. It was easily the worst pain I've ever felt in my life.

At around 6:30pm, Doc came back to check on me. She wanted me to lie down so she could check and see how far I had progressed-- this seemed like the most impossible request at this point. I did my best, and I can remember the nurse encouraging me from the other side of the room, "From watching you labor, I bet you're almost there. Your contractions have been great and consistent, I really think you're almost there." And thats when the doctor said, "Hmm. You're about a 6." I don't remember what I said, if anything. I don't think at that point I could make real words anymore. But I remember thinking "A 6?!?!?! HOW CAN I JUST BE AT A 6?!?!?" She also broke the news that Quinn wasn't dropping down like she needed to. This is when she suggested an epidural to relax my pelvis and make room for the baby.

I didn't want to do that. It wasn't my plan. However, she was convincing and the contractions were relentless and obviously not effective, and Sam was there and supporting whatever decision I made.. so I went with it. Within 30 minutes the anesthesiologist was there (right in the middle of shift change, sorry guys) and putting the needle in my back and it was THE WORST thing anyone has asked me to do when she told me to sit Indian style and be perfectly still for 3 minutes. And then, it was gone. I could breathe and I could think and I could breathe some more. I was shaking and shivering, but I could breathe. And think.

They started pitocin and Sam collapsed on to the couch next to me and we slept. At midnight, I was at an 8 but Quinn was too high. They changed my position a few times to make it easier for her to come on down (I couldn't even scoot my leg over an inch now). At 2am my pain got really intense again and they had to up my dose of medication in my epidural. Thats when they decided she was making the move.

At about 3am, I was finally dilated to a 10 and the nurse said I could start pushing. The medication was enough that I wasn't hurting but I could still feel the contractions coming. Sam had been unsure the whole time whether or not he wanted to watch the delivery, but next thing I knew he was holding one of my legs during pushes. I could see a blurry version of what was going on down there in the blank TV screen across from my bed and when I mentioned this, the nurses wheeled in a mirror so I could actually watch what was happening. I always thought this was weird, but it was actually awesome.

Because Quinn was overbaked, they were afraid she may have swallowed some of her poop (we'll tease her about that when she's older, don't worry) and so a team of NICU nurses and doctors were at the bedside during the delivery just in case they needed to intervene. They called my doctor (who had just gotten home, sorry doc) and she showed back up at 3:30, just in time to join the party of about 15 strangers crowded around my not-so-private-anymore parts and catch Quinn as she made her grand entrance at 3:40am on August 20, 2015.

She weighed 8 lb 15 oz and was 20 inches long. She latched on and ate immediately, was sucking her thumb, and looked with bright eyes from me to Sam to me to Sam, taking in the faces that matched the voices she had been hearing for so long. We had our family time until 6am when they moved us onto the postpartum unit which is where our extended family and friends visited us. The next morning those crazy medical professionals decided we were competent enough to take this itty bitty 1-day-young human home by ourselves and we were discharged. Every day since has been an adventure and a learning experience and sometimes hard and mostly fun but ALWAYS worth it. Take a look at this baby, ya'll... we fully believe she's gonna change the world.