Laikyn's Birth Story
The day I became a mom to a beautiful baby girl.
As a woman going through her first pregnancy, there are so many thoughts that go through your mind leading up to the day you will give birth for the first time. Will my water break and if not how will I know when I go into labor? Will the delivery go okay? What if I have an emergency c-section? Will I be able to get my epidural in time? What if there are complications? Trust me when I say you are not alone if you are wondering these things and feeling anxiety about the big day to come. My mother is a doula so I was lucky enough to get classes from her that prepared me for labor and delivery. I highly recommend getting a doula or at least taking some classes that will help prepare your mind and body for delivery. It helped me in more ways than I can say!
My entire pregnancy had been better than I ever expected. Yes, I had sickness in the beginning but once my second trimester hit it became a breeze! I absolutely loved being pregnant with my daughter. I got to week 37 and started to have complications with my blood pressure so I was put on bed rest and was scheduled to be induced at 39 weeks. June 18th came quickly and I was supposed to be checking in at the hospital at 9:00 am. When you are this pregnant you are constantly having to go to the bathroom because that baby uses your bladder as either a pillow or a punching bag. At 3:45 am I woke up to go to the restroom and came back to bed. When I laid back down I felt a pop and even heard it! Needless to say I was questioning what in the heck that was. I proceeded to walk back to the bathroom, sat down on the toilet and heard liquid dripping out. I wiped and it was clear but there was not much of it. I stood up and even more came out. At that moment I knew my water had broken! I called my mother to let her know and she just giggled hysterically with excitement and said "time to go have your baby"!
I went back to our bedroom and woke up my husband to let him know. I have never seen that man move faster in my entire life! I felt a little cramping but was not in any pain whatsoever so we took things slowly, gathered our things and headed to the hospital. I was hungry so of course we had to stop for McDonald's along the way. When we arrived to the hospital I saw that several of my family members were already there before me; my brother was the first one there. I thought that was so sweet! I had quite the entourage of family and friends awaiting my little girl's arrival.
I got into my room, got my gown on (why are these not cuter?!) and got all hooked up and started to wait and see how my body would progress. After a few hours of being there we realized that my contractions were not getting stronger and were not getting close together so they advised me to lay down and take a nap in hopes that this would relax my body and get things moving. Later that afternoon after I had napped for awhile they were still not getting more consistent so they decided to give me pitocin. This kick started things fairly quickly and my body finally started to progress. Contractions were now 2-3 minutes apart and I was dilated to a 5 so I decided to go ahead and get my epidural. Now, here are a few things that I would like to mention about the epidural that I was not made aware of that I wish I would have been prepared for. This is just my experience with it so I am not saying that this will happen for sure but it happened to me! Firstly, they had me lay on my right side with my knees curled up towards my chest and asked me to sit still. My husband was able to sit directly in front of me to hold my hand and help me through the process. Next, they cleaned the area and told me that they were going to numb it and that it would sting a bit. OH MY GOODNESS.... I am telling you this is the worst part of the whole process. It stings incredibly bad so be prepared for that! Once the area was numbed they started to insert the tube. I did not feel any of that, however, when it passed a certain point there was a pop and my leg jumped. This freaked me out because I was not made aware that this could happen and it was the weirdest feeling. I later found out that it was normal and nothing to worry about. The medication did its thing and I was no longer in pain. HALLELUJAH!!!
It was finally time to push but I had one small problem.... I was so numb that I could not feel what I was doing whatsoever. I had no idea if I was pushing correctly, I had no idea if my pushes were doing what they needed to do, I could not even move my legs at all. I tried several different ways to push including grabbing at my knees to help tighten my stomach, I held onto the handles on the bed to pull myself forward, my OBGYN held one end of a towel and I held the other and she helped me pull forward, none of this was producing good pushes. It turns out that my daughter was a bit stuck in my left hip so my OBGYN had to reach inside of me to try to help maneuver her out of my hip and line her up better to be delivered. After three and a half hours of pushing (yeah, I was exhausted at this point) my doctor told me that I could push one more time and if she did not come they were going to have to take me in for an emergency c-section. I was mortified and so scared; that is the last thing that I wanted to have to go through. The thought of having a c-section absolutely terrifies me! I gave this last push everything I had and to our surprise she FINALLY came out! My beautiful 7 pound, 7 ounce, 19 inch bundle of joy was finally here and we could not be more excited!
