Baby Brynn's Birth

I want to get Brynn's birth story on here so that if I ever get my blog published into a book, it will be there.

(If reading birth stories isn't your thing, feel free to skip this post. Also, if you like other people's blogs because of the pictures, this may not be the post for you.)

I was up late on the night of April 25th. I don't even remember why now. But I didn't get to bed until almost midnight. I tossed and turned a little and finally settled in and got comfortable, which definitely took longer than normal being nine months pregnant. And just as I started to relax, I heard Alek crying. So I went to his room which is just down the hall. He never said what was wrong and he settled in quite quickly so it must have just been a bad dream. Once I was back in bed it was about 12:20 am and I was trying to fall asleep again, when I suddenly felt a pop and a trickle. I knew my water had broken and I didn't want to ruin the mattress so I jumped out of bed (as fast as a pregnant lady can) and told Casey (who was asleep) what had happened. As I stood next to the bed, fluid continued to gush out. I instructed Casey to get a towel, a large one.

I made my way to the bathroom and Casey cleaned up the floor. I remember him saying, "This is kind of grossing me out." To which I replied that I wasn't exactly in the position to be down on the floor cleaning up, because at this point I had started having contractions. I called my parents right away so they could come to the house and we could head to the hospital. We gathered a few last minute things and Casey loaded the car while we waited. I don't remember timing the contractions but it seemed like they were coming about every 5 minutes.

My parents made it to the house by about 12:45 and we were on our way. We checked into the hospital Just before 1:00 AM and got settled in a room. The nurses got me hooked up to the monitors and asked me about my medical history while I continued to breathe through contractions that were coming about every 3 to 4 minutes.

As with my other babies, I was planning on having a natural childbirth using Hypnobirthing, and I wanted to minimize interventions. But the nurses were quite concerned about me having an IV. I didn't want one but they pressed the subject until I gave in and agreed to have an IV placed but no line running fluids into it. So it was in and heplocked, "just in case." It was about 1:30 at this point and the nurse checked my cervix. I was dilated to 3 cm. I had been 2 cm at the doctor's office the week before, so it wasn't a lot of progress. After being monitored for about a half hour, I asked to get into the jetted tub. It was really relaxing in the tub. I sat in there with my Hypnobirthing recordings playing on my ipod. But labor seemed to intensify quite quickly and I only stayed in the tub for about a half an hour. I wanted to get out of the tub before I felt like it was time to push, so I got out at 2:35. Once I was out of the tub I thought about asking to have my cervix checked again, but since it hadn't been very long since the nurse had checked me before I asked to sit on the birthing ball (which is also commonly used as a yoga ball or exercise ball) instead.

Once again, my labor seemed to get intense quite quickly from there. I was on the birthing ball feeling relaxed, but intense contractions at the same time. Hypnobirthing is incredible! I had about 10-15 minutes of that when I suddenly felt the strong urge to push. It happened without even trying. I jumped into the bed and I let the nurse know right away. She checked me and told me I was completely dilated and it was time to have a baby. I was elated! And then she left the room. She only poked her head out the door to ask someone at the desk to page the doctor. But from the bed, it looked like she was leaving which made me start to get nervous. in fact I said, "Please don't leave, this baby's coming." I knew if she left, I was on my own. Casey was in the room but he would not be helpful at all if he had to be the one delivering a baby and I knew it.

Well, since there wasn't enough time for my doctor (or the doctor on call for his practice) to make it, they brought in the doctor who is on site for exactly that reason. She seemed fairly unconcerned that delivery was imminent. She watched the monitor instead of checking me or gowning up. And the bed didn't even get taken apart. (The bottom part of a labor bed can be lowered or taken completely off.) The stirrups weren't pulled out. Nothing.

Maybe Hypnobirthing had me so relaxed that the doctor didn't believe I could really have been so close to delivery. Well I was, and I told her that when I had my next contraction I was going to push. And once I did, the doctor did step in, and she did a great job. It's a good thing the doctor was there, because the cord was wrapped around my baby's neck one time. It only took about 3 pushes and at 2:58 AM I was holding my baby girl. I couldn't believe I had a daughter.

Over the next few days we had lots of visitors. Most importantly, her brothers. For them, as with Casey and me, it was love at first sight.

Family of 6