Birth Story By: Shelbi Pearsall
The last few days of my 36th week I felt great. Full of energy, no pain, able to breath, then I woke up on the first day of my 37th week and felt horrible. My whole face hurt, pounding headache and sluggish. I thought I was getting sick so I called my ob office around 1 pm and asked what I could take for a cold. The receptionist said I could take Tylenol, but she was going to ask the nurse just in case. An hour later, a nurse called asking how I was feeling. I told her and had mentioned that I made sure I stayed super hydrated to make sure the headache wasn’t dehydration. She asked how often the baby had been moving. I said she wasn’t much the last few days but she was also growing a week ahead anyways so she said she’d call back in an hour and had me do I kick count until then. She called back an hour and a half later. I was supposed to feel 6 movements in an hour. I felt two. She wanted me to go to triage but I asked for one more hour. She said fine. So I got up, ate two donuts, some oreos, chugged ice water and laid back down. She called at an hour exactly and I had only felt two more kicks, so she said I had to go in. I told my husband, so we got dressed and left.
By the time we got there, it was 6:05 pm. We checked in and they put me on the monitor. As soon as they hooked me up, she went crazy, so she was fine but my blood pressure was through the roof. 149/110. I had to stop working at 30 weeks for high blood pressure but as soon as I stopped, it went down. One of the drs from my ob office came in and said the baby was moving beautifully, but they were going to monitor my blood pressure and if it didn’t go down, I’d be induced. She checked my cervix and it was still at a -2 station and a cm dilated like a few days before at my appointment.
At 9 pm the Doctor came back and said my blood pressure had never gone down so I would be induced. I called my husband and had him bring me subway and my labor bag. We ate and I was moved to labor and delivery. At 11 pm they put those little pill things in my cervix to help soften it. They did it every 3 hours. I was positive for gsb, so I was also started on antibiotics at 6 am. At 10, my midwife came in and broke my water, but my cervix was still very high. By 11 am I wasn’t dilating at all but I was feeling minor contractions so my midwife came in and said they’d start pitocin since I wasn’t past a 4. I had a whole birth plan written out. No medication, all natural but that all went down the drain. The contractions got stronger and closer together. They were a min to a min and a half apart. My husband suggested stadal because I couldn’t handle how close they were together. It did nothing for me. The pain got so bad that I was projectile vomiting with each contraction. I had nothing in me so it quickly became dry heaving and my husband trying to comfort me. By 6pm I had to have an epidural. Those 3 contractions where the worst since I had to sit absolutely still, but I immediately numbed and was able to sleep. I slept on and off until about 11. My midwife came in to check on me. I was at a 9, so they started preping. My husband and mother were getting ready for me to deliver. I was still pretty numb but felt pressure down there like I had a giant poo waiting. At 11:45 pm I was ready to push. My husband holding my right leg and my mother behind me, I started pushing.
Birth Didn’t Go How I Planned
At 12:13 am on Saturday, August 8th, 2015, my husband pulled our Addyson Mae out and put her on my chest. She was born weighing 6lbs 10oz and 19 1/2 inches long. I was 37w 2d. She had nothing wrong and latched like a champ! We delayed the chord clamping until it was done pumping. It didn’t go how I planned, but it went perfectly and I couldn’t have wished it to go any smoother!
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A Picture Of Modern Birth
This birth story and others from the August 2015 due date group can be found on this blog. They are being shared by mothers who want to give new moms and old a window into that birth looks like today to empower others to make choices for themselves. LittleCrunchy.com fully supports evidence based birth and wants to help however we can. Please feel free to leave comments and questions and check back for more birth stories from this great group of women!
