Astrid’s Birth Story

March 07, 2019

Astrid’s Birth Story

I’m taking a break from posting about our Europe trip and everything else that’s happened since June (haha whoops, pregnancy problems!) to write down Astrid’s birth story before I forget it all.

On Wednesday January 30th, I started getting some cramps that were the start of contractions, but I didn’t realize that’s what they were. I was able to fall asleep that night but around 2 AM, after just about 3 hours of sleep, the cramps were real contractions and were painful enough to wake me up and keep me awake for the rest of the night/morning.

Thursday morning

Around noon on Thursday they stopped all together but we knew she would probably be coming soon. Just a few hours later, the contractions started again and I had some bloody discharge so I called my doctor’s office because I didn’t know what the discharge was or what it meant. They said I should go to the hospital to get checked out just in case. So we got all of our stuff together and headed to the hospital around 5 PM. After checking in and getting set up, they came and checked the baby and she was doing great. Then they checked my cervix but I was only dilated to a 2. They said they’d keep me for a couple of hours, check me again and if I hadn’t made enough progress they would send me home to labour there until it was actually time. 2 hours later I was still only at a 2 even though the contractions were regular and frequent. So we went home and ate a late supper. I showered and then tried to get some sleep. The contractions were too painful though so I couldn’t sleep. About midnight, my water broke so I woke Greg up and we headed back to the hospital.

I was already so tired haha

They confirmed my water had broken but I was only dilated to a 3 at about 1:30 AM. So on only 3 hours of sleep from the night before, I began to really work through my contractions. I don’t remember much from this because the pain just was so intense, but I do remember feeling so grateful for Greg. He rubbed my back, held me up while I swayed through contractions, held a bag for me to throw up into when I needed it, and went the whole night without sleep to try and help me any way he could. I really am the luckiest. Sometime early in the morning, maybe around 4?, I told Greg I couldn’t do it anymore and I wanted the epidural. I had told him before multiple times that if I said that when I was in labour then I wanted him to make me wait longer. So he did that even though he hated to haha and then around 6 I said, nope, give me the epidural. And the nurses were so amazing at my hospital. They had my birth plan so they never once asked if I wanted drugs and when I did ask for the epidural they asked if I wanted to be checked first and see if I could finish drug free like I wanted to. I loved that idea and was praying I was almost there. Around 7 AM I was checked again and was only at a 6! 5.5 hours for 3 measly centimeters so bring on the epidural! After throwing up, almost falling over between contractions because I was so tired, I was ready for a nap! Getting the epidural in took forever though because my IV came out right when they were going to do the epidural and then it took, 3 nurses and 2 doctors and 3 sticks for them to get my IV back in #poorveinprobs. Finally the epidural was in and I was just glad I could move through the contractions again! Half an hour of being as still as possible with contractions coming was agony! The relief from the epidural was amazing! Greg and I were both able to get some sleep finally. At noon we finally got the good news that it was time to start pushing. After 2.5 hours of pushing and lots of help from Greg, nurses, the midwife and her student, someone suggested bringing a mirror in for me to see because the baby’s head was visible when I pushed and they hoped that would motivate me to keep pushing. It was a huge motivator for me but it still took another hour before she finally came out. Around the same time they brought the mirror they said that there was some meconium coming out so they wanted to have the pediatric team there when she came out to make sure she didn’t get any in her lungs. That freaked me out a little but they all did a great job keeping me calm and reassuring me. At 4:05 PM on February 1st, my sweet baby was finally born! We did skin to skin right away and then they weighed and measured her and let Greg cut the cord before I got her back. She weighed in at 6 lbs 6 oz and 19” long (thought we're pretty sure that length was wrong because at the pediatrician's office just a couple days later she was only barely over 18"). I had a second degree tear so they were stitching me up while all this was going on. It was all a blur honestly haha but I was so thrilled my healthy baby was here! I tried breastfeeding her after they got her cleaned up and she latched right away and went to town eating (but that didn't last, we later had to work with the lactation consultant, get help from the nurses, and eventually get a shield to get her to eat again). After a few hours, we packed our stuff up to get moved downstairs. We had heard from a lot of people that it's super helpful to send the baby to the nursery for the night because then you can get more rest that way so that's what we did, but it still didn't feel super restful because they brought her in every couple of hours to feed her. The next morning, Greg realized he didn't have our camera and we were both pretty distraught. All of the pictures from right after she was born and Greg cutting the cord and stuff were on there. He went upstairs and asked the nurses and housekeeping and no one had seen it. We asked the nurses on the floor we were on and nothing... A few hours later one of the receptionists came to tell us that they found it! One of the guys that works in the laundry department is married to one of the nurses on the labour and delivery floor and he heard his wife talking about it, so he went down to the laundry and went through ALL of the laundry from the labour and delivery floor and he found our camera!! Seriously so amazing and the answer to our prayers! After that, it is all kind of a blur. But Sunday around noon we got to leave and take our baby home! We were so happy but so exhausted, so after a nap for all three of us, we ordered sushi takeout for supper to eat while we watched the Super Bowl. I didn't mention this in the beginning, but I had been wanting Astrid to be born on February 1st for a while because I desperately wanted to be home with her to watch the Super Bowl so we could put her in these football pajamas that all of my siblings and me wore when we were babies during football season. And she listened! And we got to watch the Super Bowl with her in the football PJs even though they drowned her haha. But we are so in love with our little Astrid Jane!