Samantha’s Birth Story

Samantha Morgan Wyles was born on March 15th at 1437. She weighed 7 lbs 10.7 ounces and was 21.1 inches long. It took her awhile to get here.

I went into labor on Thursday, March 9th at around 0200. For that whole day it wasn’t too bad. They were about 45 minutes to 1 hour apart and only lasted for 20-30 seconds. We were excited for them to get closer, thinking, hey she is almost here. I lost my mucus plug, but my doula said that only means you are at term, not much more, so not to get too excited about it.

Friday they continued at about 30 minutes apart and then they went to 8 –15 minutes apart and started lasting 45 seconds to one minute. We had Mary, our doula come over that evening. At around 0100 on Saturday morning I was tired and in pain so we decided to go to the hospital just to see how far I was dilated. We got there around 0200 and found out I was 100% effaced but only 1+ cm dilated. Bummer. I took some gravol to get some sleep since I had been awake since early Thursday morning. I got to take little 8 minute naps between contractions for a couple of hours. (Meanwhile, my doula left and delivered someone else’s baby!!)

This continues all day Saturday and that evening about 8 pm we went back to the hospital to check again. I was THE SAME! Still only 1+ cm dilated. That was disappointing to say the least. A day of pain for nothing!

To make a long story short, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday the contractions continued every 3 –8 minutes apart lasting 1 –3 minutes each. It was awful. We went back in on Monday at one point and I was only 2 cm. I wanted to go in on Tuesday but decided that no matter what I was going to make it through the night. It was the longest night ever.

Finally, on Wednesday morning I made Jack take me to my doctor’s office because I wanted to find out what was going on. Well, right when we got there I started leaking LOTS of meconium. So, we rushed right over to the hospital. The nurse saw all the baby poop and was like, “yea, that baby is over due.” By now it is about 1000 on Wed. morn. I get checked out, and finally get a birthing room. I got in the tub and stayed there for about an hour, but still wasn’t dilating.

The problem was the baby was still really high in my pelvis and so her head wasn’t pushing against my cervix to help it dilate any. I just couldn’t get the baby to drop no matter what stupid human tricks I tried.
Eventually my doctor said we should try some pictocin to get me dilated. The baby’s heart rate was starting to fall a little because she was tired of all this, too, and my doctor wanted to try to get things going. My doctor said normally she is not a fan of epidurals, but at this point it would have been cruel to give it to me without pain relief. So, I got an epidural. After that many days of pain it was weird to have a little relief. Of course, it was a light one so I could still feel the contractions a little.

About 5 minutes later all of a sudden about 10 people rush into the room with worried looks and start rolling me back and forth from side to side. No one was saying anything but I could tell something was going on, so I said, “what’s going on?” The baby’s heart rate was dropping quite alarmingly at this point so they were worried. They took a blood sample from her scalp to check her out. They said she was on the “OK” side of good. Not the bad side of good, but not the good side of good, either. This is when my doctor said she thought it would be best to go ahead and do a c-section, since I was only at 3 cm and because of all the meconium. (They asked me all kinds of questions about my history to see if they could figure out why I wouldn’t dilate, but there really was no reason.) She went and got the obstetrician on duty and she agreed they should do a c-section right away.

Luckily, the anaesthesiologist was a nice lady and she allowed me to bring both Jack and Mary into the operating room with me. Obviously, I didn’t feel a thing when they were taking her out except a lot of pressure and pulling – like being at a dentist. Jack got to see her and be with her and cut her cord, and Mary stayed at my side telling me what was going on and holding my hand so I wasn’t just lying there on the table alone. I didn’t get to see the baby right away, but as soon as they took her out she yelled, “Ack!!” and I knew that everything would be ok then. At one point when they were taking care of the baby Mary looked over the screen and said, “Oh, they have your uterus out” and I remember thinking, “What? They have it OUT! Did I need to know they take it out?” It was kind of freaky.

It wasn’t the birth we had planned, but we have a beautiful, healthy little girl so that is the main thing!

We are at home getting settled. My incision is healing well so far even though I don’t feel like running around the block yet. Breastfeeding is going well, mostly because the day we got home I had a lactation consultant come and help me. It was perfect timing because my milk was coming in and I was engorged (owww!) She was a big help, and I’ll write more about that later!