Took a look at my blog recently (no more domain but I'm still here!) and realized I hadn't posted in quite awhile. Sorry! Life has definitely gotten crazy but I'll try to get back into it now that things have settled down a bit. I figured since this blog started with Benjamin’s birth story that it would only be appropriate to resume my posts with Rebecca’s story!
For those of you who didn’t know, we welcomed our baby girl Rebecca Jules to the family on August 31, 2022. She completes our family (hopefully… still need to schedule my husband’s vasectomy lol) and we are so in love with her. Labor with her was much much different than it was for Benjamin (see my first post to compare)!
On August 25th, I'd had my cervix checked at my OB appointment - I was maybe 1cm dilated so I'd assumed that meant I had a long way to go being that I was much further along with Benjamin by this point and still had a 27-28 hour induction. Rebecca's due date was September 4, 2022 but due to the severity of my pre-labor contractions (much like with Benjamin, starting as early as 26 weeks) we'd scheduled an induction date for September 2nd. Our little Rebecca, however, had other plans!
On Tuesday, August 30, 2022 I'd woken up around 3am to a coughing Benjamin. My husband had been sick and tested positive for COVID a few days prior, but Benjamin so far had tested negative. This cough started to worry me - he'd been sick with COVID back in January and it was not fun but I was more worried because his cough was starting to sound like croup. I put him back to sleep and then spent the next two hours wondering if I should take him to the ER, even called the children's hospital nearby to see what their opinion was. I was mostly worried that my baby boy - who only wants mama when sick - was going to be getting worse just in time for me to be away from him for the first time EVER for my induction. Around 5:30am I'd decided I would call his doctor first thing in the morning for an emergency virtual appointment being that he wouldn't be allowed into the office since James was still COVID positive. I'd started having stronger contractions by now but I assumed it was just stress/anxiety induced.
Later that morning we had Benjamin's virtual appointment and they prescribed a one-time dose steroid just in case, being that my contractions were still present and I'd told the PA it was very likely I'd be having a baby in the next 24-48 hours lol. We took Benjamin to the park for some fresh air and then spent the rest of the day hanging out at home. My contractions started getting stronger but were still inconsistent in timing, but I knew it was true labor. Around 4pm, I called the ECC to ask them if they thought I should come in but the nurse I spoke to was a little dismissive - she told me she doubted what I was experiencing was "real labor" and that I should probably stay home and hydrate myself more. Well... I didn't really like that answer, lol. So I'd decided that after I put my son to bed I would have my mother-in-law pick me up and drop me off at the ECC.
**By now, my husband still was testing positive for COVID so he wasn't going to be allowed into the hospital with me.**
At 6:00pm, I'd sent James to Checkers to pick up my "last meal" and between the time he left and the time he got back - the contractions were getting more frequent and way stronger so I knew there was no time to wait. When he got home I scarfed down my burger, popped Benjamin in the car, and we headed to the hospital. When we got there, we had to have the valet grab a wheelchair (instead of our car) and wheel me in - I bet that was a first for him! Haha. I was passed off twice and shortly after made it to the ECC.
When I got there, they asked me why I was there and I said I was 39+2 weeks pregnant and was pretty sure I was in active labor. She asked me to take a seat in the waiting room and said they would be with me shortly. About 30 minutes later, someone finally came out to ask me questions. I told her that it may look like I'm not in labor, but I was already dismissed on the phone by them hours ago and then left in the waiting room for a half hour so they needed to get me into a bed soon. This wasn't my first child and I knew the baby was on its way. She sort of smirked, said "let's take a look then" and asked me to follow her.
I got into my room, got undressed (which took forever because I'd kept having contractions), and about 10 minutes later someone came in to put me on a monitor. About 15-20 minutes later, she came back in and said "well, it looks like you're having contractions" and I slipped out a "no $h!t", then immediately apologized for my comment and asked her to admit me. She told me I couldn't be admitted until a pelvic exam was done - so now, about an hour after arriving at the ECC, I was finally getting checked. Sure enough I was already 6cm dilated and my contractions were about 2 minutes apart - so off to L&D it was for me! They told me someone would be there waiting to give me my epidural, but of course that didn't happen.
When I got to my room, they told me I couldn't get my epidural until they drew my labs and got an IV started. One nurse tried to get the IV in two separate times and blew veins both times, claiming that there was a "valve issue" (not know that I've had my share of IVs and know enough about veins to know she was full of crap). Apparently the rule is you're only allowed to attempt twice so another nurse had to try the third one - also blew a vein. Now you may not know this about me, but I have incredible veins. And I'm not being cocky or full of myself... my veins are any phlebotomist's "holy grail". For some reason they are beautiful & I have never had issues with them in the past, and I say this as someone who has blood drawn on a regular basis. I was in so much pain from the contractions that I was pretty darn pleasant considering the circumstances, just waiting for a good stick so they could draw my labs and get things moving. Lucky for me, there was a traveling nurse part of my team who actually knew what she was doing and took over and got the perfect vein. You'll learn soon that she became the MVP of my hospital stay there, so much so that we became Facebook friends by the end of it all haha.
The IV was in, labs were drawn, and they were ready to break my water to get things moving. I told them I wasn't doing anything else until I got my epidural in. By now I was already 7cm and was running out of time for the epidural but I knew for sure that I didn't want to do this whole thing naturally. Besides being completely alone for this labor (so weird yet somewhat enjoyable), I was feeling sooooo much more pain than I did with Benjamin being that I was on an epidural drip way sooner with him. It's all a bit of a blur due to the pain, but I was told that I was one of the most pleasant laboring moms - saying "please" and "thank you" whenever interacting with the staff. I'm proud of myself for that but man was I struggling lol. I remember I couldn't even see straight I was in so much pain. Eventually, we got the epidural in (I want to say it was around 9 o'clock), my water was broken, and I was told to rest while we waited for me to progress further. I started to feel relief shortly after and fell asleep for about 45 minutes. When I woke up I noticed my pain was starting to get stronger again, pressed the button for another dose of the epidural, and went back to sleep hoping it would kick in soon. Another hour passed and I realized all the numbness that was once there was now gone and the contractions were STRONG. I told my nurse (the MVP from before) and she got the anesthetist back in to do I-don't-know-what to my epidural injection site. It was going to take awhile to take effect so I was given some IV drugs. I wasn't going to let them give me those this time around (with Benjamin it slowed everything down and made it so hard for me to even think straight) but I was in so much pain I said go for it, lol. Then back to sleep I went.
**Remember the night before I was basically up all night worried about Benjamin being sick, so between that and labor I was pretty exhausted already.**
A little after midnight or so, my nurse came back in and asked if I wanted to do some practice pushes and I said yes. We did one push (you'd probably even call it a half push) and she quickly told me to stop and said I was ready! My OB didn't believe her when she said I was ready to go... so it was probably another 30 minutes or so before he even came into the room. When he came in, he said "alright let's see where we are at" and asked me to slightly push. He then realized I was ready to go but the cord was wrapped around the baby's neck so he needed to cut it while she was still inside (I'm not exactly sure how that all works, I just know that he told me to stop pushing so he could cut the cord).
After that it was 2 more pushes and at 1:15am on August 31, 2022, Rebecca Jules was born weighing 8lbs 1oz! She didn't cry at first but shortly after working on her she gave a high pitch cry (she still has that piercing cry to this day, lol). I was able to put my baby girl on my chest but then I started noticing she was purplish, a little lethargic (more than the typical baby fresh out of the womb) and asked them to take a look at her. About 10 minutes later she perked back up and was handed back to me. For about a week after birth, she'd frequently turn purple when upset and had a bloody ring in one of her eyes - but it was just bruising-related from the cord situation.
A lot more has happened these last 13 weeks (mostly related to her cheek, lip, and tongue ties) but maybe I'll save that for another time. For now, enjoy some pictures below of our new baby girl and our family of four!
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