Braelynn Fiona // Monroeville, PA // Birth Story – Part 2

.. if you missed Part 1 – make sure you go back and catch up there first!

We arrived at the ER, made fun of my Mom for trying to back into the parking spot, and walked into the hospital to check in. They wheeled me up to the labor & delivery floor and I got to shed my clothes for a lovely hospital gown as they began the process of evaluating me. I was asked about 397 questions, which I did my best to answer in between contractions – which were starting to come a little bit harder. They checked me and announced that I was 2cm dilated. I was pretty excited about that! I mean, it would have been great to be further along, but I was just happy that it wasn’t 1cm!

Since I was in active labor [they confirmed that my water had indeed broken] I was moved into a labor & delivery suite – Room #1. They had me get into bed so they could put on the fetal monitors and monitor the baby through my contractions. At one point during this process, I told the nurse that I really wanted to get up and move around through the contractions and she told me no – that I needed to stay in bed so they could continue to monitor the baby. I also asked about if I would be allowed to get in the tub at some point, since my plan was to get in the whirlpool tub for a bit when I hit the “I can’t go on” wall that I knew I’d hit. I was told, again, no, since my water had broken, I wasn’t allowed in the tub for risk of infection. I was bummed, but had no time to be disappointed, since contractions were coming and needed worked through.

They hooked me up to an IV & bag of liquids and started to pump the antibiotics [the combat my GPS positive state] into me. It was so painful. I felt like someone was trying to hammer a railroad stake into my veins – not fun!

As I lay in the bed, I realized that there was a large clock hanging on the wall directly in front of me. I thought, Great – I’m going to watch that thing & time is going to crawl. But as the nurses finished up the process of “settling me in” to the room, Derrick turned the lights down and the clock became the least of my concerns.

My method of working through the contractions was slow & steady breathing, closing my eyes & imagining certain places and things. I thought a lot about Deep Creek, Disney World, and toward the end thought about Kennywood and riding rides – specifically how I would “ride” the contraction to it’s peak and then sail down the other side. I had decided that I really wanted an all natural delivery with no pain medication. My Mom wholeheartedly supported me [she delivered all 6 of her babies that way!] and Derrick said he’d support whatever I wanted.

Shortly after moving into the labor suite, I became really nauseous and threw up. Joy. I was told that was normal, since during labor, all other body functions stop. So, any food that was still being digested [remember those Doritos?] would come up to make way for my body to solely work on one thing: labor. I threw up in my ice chip pitcher since we couldn’t find anything else in the rush that was “omigosh I’m going to throw up, NOW”.

Around 6:30am, they checked me again and I had progressed to 4cm. I truly had no concept of time – just working through the next contraction and trying to rest in between. For the most part, Derrick was sitting next to the bed holding my one hand and I was holding onto the bedrail with the other hand. My Mom was encouraging me, reading me Bible verses, and applying essential oils to my feet and along my spine. Derrick was being amazing and I was so impressed. I found out later that my Mom had given him several “anxiousless” herbs before we left the house & they truly seemed to be working because Derrick was very calm, cool, collected, and very encouraging to me. I was so thankful, because I truly had felt like he might not make it so far without passing out. He almost passed out when I had my wisdom teeth out – so we knew him making it through my labor was a 50/50 chance!

At some point between 6:30am & 9am, I ran out of things to think about. I had exhausted Deep Creek, Disney, and Kennywood thoughts and my brain couldn’t come up with anything else to think about. Suddenly the only thought I had was: I want an epidural. Up to this point, I was handling the pain very well, but as soon as I ran out of things to think about, I could only think of one thing: the pain and how an epidural would be so nice. I made it through several contractions that way – fighting back & forth – because deep down I truly didn’t want one, but it was all I could think about. So at the end of a contraction, I opened my eyes & looked at Derrick: “I think I want an epidural.” “You do?” “Yeah.” “Well, you know what I said – whatever you want, I’ll support you either way.”

A few moments went by, thinking moments, when Derrick said, “I need to use the restroom,” and left his spot by my side for my Mom to take his place. With him gone, my Mom took control: “No, you don’t want an epidural.” “But I think I might.” “No, you don’t – remember what you said you wanted. You can do this! You’ve come so far! You are stronger than you think! You can do this!” A few Bible verses later, Derrick came back to take his spot and I was encouraged, strengthened, and resolved to keep pressing forward without the epidural.

At 9am [shortly after the epidural situation], they checked me again: 7cm! Progressing very nicely & quickly! They left and I made it through a few more contractions and then something changed. At the peak of my next contraction, I felt the urge to push. Only, I didn’t realize what exactly that felt like, plus they had just told me – 20 minutes ago – that I was at 7cm – not dilated enough to push yet! I worked through a few more contractions before they were able to come back in to check me, as I was still feeling this weird urge to push.

At 9:45am it was announced that I was so close! The “left side” was completely ready, but there was a bit on the top right that still needed to thin. I was almost there! They had me lay on my right side [which is where I had been most of the morning] to help & promised that I would be able to push so soon.

What followed were the hardest set of contractions yet -my body definitely wanted to push, but I was told not to as it would cause problems with the baby if I wasn’t completely dilated. The nurse left me with the advice: open your eyes. Through every contraction, I was still closing my eyes, and she said that opening them would help. So now, not only did I have a death grip on Derrick’s hand, but I locked his eyes in an intense stare. I couldn’t look anywhere else and “yelled” at him if he broke my stare – I needed his eyes [I say “yelled” because I never raised my voice through the whole labor & delivery process – I definitely made it known though that I needed his eyes while I was going through contractions].

Mom rubbed me down with more oils and at 10:40am, Dr. Kalia checked me again and again, said I was so close! BUT – there was still a small “lip” that needed to disappear. She encouraged me: “You’re doing a great job & you’re almost there!” and it was emphasized by the fact that they began to transform the room to prepare for baby’s arrival! When we toured the hospital, they had told us: you know you’re getting close when they pull open the “baby cabinet” and start getting the warmer ready! I remember thinking, when I see that – it’ll be such a boost! But honestly, it barely registered to me.

They let me go for a while and by 11:38am, I was checked by 2 doctors and given the green light – 100% dilated! Ready to push! But they wanted me to wait until I couldn’t not push. I had been holding back for so long & I felt like I could still hold back, so they said we should wait. I was probably not the person who should have been making that call though since I had never done this before & had no idea what I was feeling!

The doctors came back into the room at 12:20pm and declared it was time to push. I looked at the clock and remembering thinking: my baby is coming! She’ll probably be here by 1pm! So with my next contraction, they hoisted my legs up and told me to PUSH. I had no clue what I was doing! All I knew was this position and “pushing” was far superior to simply laying on my side & “making” it through each contraction. The nurse explained: “Take a deep breath, then hold your breath and bear down for 10 seconds, deep breath & another 10, breathe & 10 seconds more.” Ridiculous. After several pushes, I was quickly tiring. All I could think was: my body is working harder than it ever has and they want me to hold my breath for 30 seconds?!

Time literally had no meaning. At one point, I looked at the clock and realized that she was not going to arrive by 1pm, but maybe by 1:25pm, I thought. That would be fun – the date was 1-25 & to have her born at 1:25pm, right? So I continued pushing. And pushing. And pushing. 1:25pm came and went. I was exhausted. They had begun to give me oxygen in between pushes. Baby was simply not moving down. The doctors speculated it was because she was face up instead of face down, but it wasn’t confirmed until around 2pm, when they were able to feel her head. Thinking back – I truly believe baby girl was in the correct position all along – all the way up until the previous Thursday night when we were at our doctor’s appointment when she “jumped” up in my belly. That’s when I think she got twisted around the wrong way!

At this point, I had tried pushing “traditionally”, as well as with the squat bar, and nothing was working. Dr. Maria [the OB on the floor] then attempted to turn the baby [talk about super painful] and when she was unsuccessful, they had me rest. I was beyond exhausted and getting frustrated – why couldn’t I push her out? People don’t push this long and this hard with no success! They later explained to me that pushing a baby who is face up instead of face down is like adding an extra 2 pounds to the baby. So, Braelynn was born on the edge of 8 pounds – meaning it actually felt like I was pushing out a 10 pound baby.

There were multiple doctors in the room when Dr. Anderson [the family medicine faculty on site] asked why I wasn’t up and moving around. Umm – I was told I wasn’t allowed to?! “She needs to be moving to get the baby to turn.” Getting out of bed wasn’t really an option, so they put me up on all fours along the back of the bed so I could at least sway through each contraction. It wasn’t a bad position, but I was so tired. After a period of time, my legs simply wanted to give out, so back to laying in bed – so much for moving around.

I was declared more rest & the doctors began trying to come up with new solutions. An episiotomy was suggested, but turned down since I had specifically requested not having one done unless an emergency situation arose. By this point, my contractions had slowed down. Since time had lost all meaning to me, I didn’t realize how much they had slowed until a new doctor showed up: Dr. Pelekanos. He commented that they should give me a dose of Pitocin to keep things going but again, they kept to my birth plan [I was so thankful I had remembered to print it out as we were leaving the house!] and said I had requested no Pitocin. I was so thankful because by this point, if things had been moving any faster, I’m not sure I could have made it. I was so so exhausted & I needed the 5 minutes between contractions to recover & my body knew that.

At 3:10pm Dr. Pelekanos made an attempt to turn the baby and within 2 contractions, it was declared that she was no face down! Now it was time to really push! At this point, the whole room became my cheering squad – better than any high school or college cheerleaders. I mean, before this, they had definitely been encouraging me as I pushed, but now I was in the final stretch and they were cheering me on to the finish line! [side note: because my doctor was a resident, I had multiple doctors in the room with her, just in case there was a problem. Also, because I had progressed so quickly to the point of pushing and then pushed for SO long with NO pain medication, I guess my labor became the talk of the floor & everyone wanted to be around to see me push out this baby!] With each contraction and push, I concentrated on a different voice: Dr. Kalia or my nurse: Brenda, but my Mom was my favorite voice to hear. I don’t remember hearing Derrick as much as I felt him there – without him and my Mom I wouldn’t have made it.

Suddenly, I felt different. There was a burning sensation that hadn’t been there before. I don’t know how I knew, but I just knew that this meant I was at the end. They asked me if I wanted to feel the baby’s head – thinking it would help energize me through the last moments [I’m utterly exhausted, remember?] but I said no.

I kept pushing and suddenly Brenda was yelling at me: “KARA! OPEN YOUR EYES!” I opened my eyes and there she was – her tiny, beautiful, perfect head. And then came her neck, shoulders, arms, and legs – my baby.

There are no words to describe the emotion of that moment. Literally – I hand wrote my story because I wanted Braelynn to have her birth story in my own handwriting and I cried when I reached this point of recollection. I’m crying now as I type this. My heart was [and still is] overflowing. I looked up to Derrick and he was crying. My Mom was crying. It was incredible.

They laid her on my chest and I was engulfed by her gigantic blue eyes. I couldn’t look away. She wasn’t crying, not upset, just content to lay there and stare back at me. Literally, my whole world came to a halt. I have no memory of what was going on in the rest of the room – all I could see was her.

They let her lay on my chest for a long long time – while I delivered the placenta and the whole time that they stitched me up [turns out, I had a 2nd degree tare]. I didn’t want them to ever take her away from me, but eventually they had to get her weight, length, and footprints. So, for just a few moments, she was taken across the room – that’s when she cried – and my heart broke. They gave her back & we gave nursing a try – little did I know what a challenge that would turn out to be! But that’s another long story.

Everyone came to visit her – of course Grandma was there to see her born, but waiting in the waiting room was Grandpa, Aunt Ellen, Aunt Amy, Aunt Emma, Uncle Steve, and Aunt Ruby. Shortly after – Nana, Papa, Aunt Naomi, PJ & Cameron arrived, followed by Meme & Great-Grandpa. I was exhausted and looked like a chipmunk on steroids [thanks to the IV fluids] but I couldn’t have been happier.

[all photos in this post were taking by my lovely sister & favorite photographer ever: Ellen of Lasting Memories Photography by Ellen]