Taylor's Birth Story

Taylor Elizabeth
2 weeks old - August 29th, 2010

So I've been meaning to write this post for some time. Now that it is two weeks later I figured that I should get around to it before I put it off more.

Here is the story of Taylor's birth!

Sunday morning August 15th I got up like I had normally been doing for the past week around 4-5 am and went downstairs to lay on the couch and watch some TV while Chris slept in. Luckily it was his day off. Around 8 AM, I got up to go to the bathroom and as soon as I stood up I felt this trickle. So I thought, OK my water broke. I called up to Chris and then called the OB. They told me to pack up my things and head in. The only good part of all of this was the fact that I wasn't having contractions. We packed up those last minute items we needed, got food out for the cats, and then headed out to the car to go to the hospital nearly an hour later. Still no contractions.

About a mile from our house, Chris says, "Honey what's that light on your dash?" Yes, it was a tire pressure warning light that I had a flat tire. So we pulled over, checked the tires and they all looked fine. Oh did I mention it was pouring down rain at that exact moment that Chris got out of the car to check? Yep! Great luck we have. So since we didn't know what was really going on with the tires, we went back home and switched cars. I figured by the time Chris got back home after the baby was born, if there was a leak we would be able to find out which tire it was and change it then. So we switched cars and were back on our way.

We got to the hospital around 10 am and headed up to Labor and Delivery. The room they wanted to give me was in the middle of being cleaned so they asked if I could wait about 10 minutes and I figured sure. Still no contractions. So they sat me down in a chair and started to take my registration information etc, when all of a sudden there was this HUGE GUSH of fluid. So apparently my water hadn't broken fully earlier. For the next hour I felt like a five year old that kept wetting the bed. We ended up in a different room that was already to go.

So from here on out not much happened. I started to get contractions, got settled in the room, was checked by the doctor and sent walking around the ward. We walked for about an hour and then rested and then walked about an hour and rested. I was really proud of how I was handling the contractions and pain during this time. My cervix continued to dialate slowly but surely. By 5 pm I was about half way and got my epidural. Over the next hour I advanced to 6-7 cm and things were going well.

Here is where things changed. By 6 PM my OB was happy with my progress but he didn't feel the contractions were strong enough for me and baby to make it all night especially since almost 12 hours had passed since my water breaking. They gave me some Petocin. This sent baby's heart rate up so they immediately stopped the Petocin. By 10 PM I was still at 6-7 and baby was starting to get distressed. I was then given a choice.....go ahead and have a c-section or wait another hour and make a decision then.

Something was obviously wrong so we decided to go with the c-section. From there things happened so fast. Chris was getting put in scrubs, I was wheeled off to surgery, my parents packed up all our bags and headed to a recovery room to wait. Chris was finally let in the OR at 11 PM and by 11:03 she was out. I was shocked to find out that it only took them 3 minutes to take her out. Chris then did the Daddy duty of following the baby around the OR while they checked her out and did all the clean up. I got to hold her before they headed us off to recovery.

So why wouldn't she come out on her own? When they went to get her out the cord was wrapped around her neck. The OB has given me reason to think that if I was to have a second child they would let me try for a vaginal delivery since it appeared to be the cord that was the issue and not the labor, my cervix, or the baby's size.

By 2 AM they finally sent us over to our more permanent room in the Maternal Child Unit for the evening and my parents went home. Chris spent the evening with me in the hospital that first night.


I'll have to work on updating you on her daily happenings but that will have to wait for another time! =)