Since it has been almost two weeks since Bennett was born, I figured it was time I write out the birth story before I forget! It isn’t especially graphic, but if you don’t like birth stories it might be TMI. Feel free to skip this one if you’re going to get grossed out :P
Back on Tuesday, July 7th, my parents had just gotten here to Spokane for a visit. That weekend I was going to be doing a craft fair so they were going to help out with getting everything ready, setting up, etc. Baby wasn’t due until the 23rd, so I figured I would have plenty of time to do the show, finish up Etsy orders, and get all of the baby clothes and gear ready before his arrival. Eleanor was two days after her due date, so I had my fingers crossed for another late baby!
I woke up at 3am to either my water breaking or getting kicked in the bladder and wetting the bed. Since I was asleep at the time I wasn’t positive which it was, but since I started getting fairly strong contractions right away I was pretty sure it was my water breaking. I went back to bed and dozed for a few hours, then woke Sam up at about 7am telling him I was pretty sure I was in labour. I think it took a sec for him to believe me ;) The contractions were 5-7 minutes apart, but they were still pretty mild. With Eleanor we went into the hospital really early and I didn’t want to do that again, so I sent Sam off to work. The rest of the day I just stayed at home working on my craft fair stuff and making my mom worry that the baby was going to pop out at home.
By 5pm my contractions were 3-5 minutes apart and getting more intense. I called the nurse and asked if I should just come in soon since I knew that if my water was broken, they like to deliver within about 24 hours. She said to go in and get checked for sure, so I waited for Sam to get home from work then we headed over to Sacred Heart. Thank goodness my parents happened to be there to stay with Eleanor!
We got to the hospital and did some waiting in triage, and they determined that my water had broken. It had already been 19 hours, and I was at 5cm/80%. I asked to walk around for a while to try to move things along before they gave me pitocin. For an hour Sam and I wandered around the hospital looking through baby name apps. We did have a list of names we liked, but we just weren’t settled on anything yet! We thought we had another 2+ weeks to decide! They then checked my and baby’s vitals, then let me walk around for another hour. We also spent some time shopping online for a crib, since Eleanor is still using hers and we hadn’t figured out where he was going to sleep yet!
After the two hours of walking, I was at just 6cm/80%. When the nurse was checking me something got nudged and caused a ton more of the amniotic fluid that had been stalling things to rush out. This let baby’s head drop down a lot more, and my contractions got WAY more intense right away. I just hung out for about an hour, then we got the anesthesiologist in to give me the epidural. If things weren’t moving along more after half an hour they were going to start Pitocin. They did the check- and I had suddenly jumped up to being ready to deliver NOW. My doctor was just a few minutes away (bless her for coming in at 2am!) so they got everything prepped and ready. After 4 or 5 contractions of pushing, baby was born at 2:30am! He was 6lbs 14oz and 19″ long.
Since I’d been in active labour for 23 hours and there was some meconium in the amniotic fluid, the NICU doctors were there to check out baby. He got cleared, but then when the nurse was doing some other checks she thought his tone was off and had some shallow breathing. The NICU folks came back and decided to take him down for some tests. Sam went with them, and I got moved to a different room. My doctor came to talk to me and explain what was going on, since everyone else was so busy with the baby. She was really great and made me feel a lot better. Nobody wants to see their newborn being rushed down to the NICU– especially when you aren’t even sure why.
It turned out that baby was just taking a bit of time to adjust to the outside world. All of his tests came back fine, and by the morning his colour was better and his breathing was normal. We were just going to watch him closely for a while. We took him back to the room, and we finally had a chance to settle on a name! Sam and I were both drawn to the name Bennett, and that was that!
Later in the day the pediatrician thought she noticed a heart murmur, and an echo confirmed it. They think he will grow out of it quickly, but he needs to get rechecked in 6 months to make sure.
We’ve all been doing great, and we’ve had lots of help and support! I’ll do another post later about how Eleanor has been adjusting to having a baby brother. Spoiler alert: she’s going to have to warm up to him!
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