Nolan

This post is incredibly long, and it's the story of my baby's birth. I don't expect anyone to survive the narrative, but it was important that I get this out. 



My kiddo is asleep right now. I have a baby boy. Crazy. And so unbelievably amazing. I am in awe at this little guy who has completely changed our worlds. 

Before I get too much into the awesomeness of Nolan, I did want to write out the events of last week. Adam and I are still processing it, and I know this will help me a little bit. 

At the beginning of last week, I e-mailed my family asking them to pray for 2 specific things. The first being that Nolan would be born on the weekend. I had picked Friday, July 19th, but clarified that I would be happy with any weekend day because of the issues with our commutes. I then asked for them to pray for a specific midwife to be on call to help bring Nolan into the world. 

On Wednesday, I woke up with some mild but uncomfortable stomach pain. It felt like I had gas, and within an hour, I realized there was a rhythm to the pain I was feeling. I figured they were just Braxton Hicks contractions and continued on with my morning. As time passed, the contractions continued, I passed my mucus plug, and I begin to wonder if maybe this baby was going to be ready to come soon. 

I had my 39 week check with the midwives that afternoon at 12:45, so I hoped I would get good news from them. When I got in the car to go to the appointment, my contractions calmed down, and I assumed that meant more waiting. My appointment confirmed that I was 85% effaced and 2 cm dilated. The midwife said I could be close but not to get my hopes up. It was at this point that Adam and I started realizing that we were going to meet our baby soon. I came home and took a nap. Hindsight: this nap needed to be much, much longer! 

When I woke up, I realized I was having consistent pain in my back now. There was no stomach pain, but it was happening with rhythm just like the morning. These contractions were mild, but they hurt more than the morning ones did. By the time Adam came home, contractions were less than 10 minutes apart, and they were growing with intensity. I took a shower, which felt so great, and then we tried to go to sleep. There was just no way for me to lay down through these contractions. I had to be on all fours, bent over, or squatted down to get through them. I was working really hard to focus on relaxing and letting my body do what it needed to do to get this baby out. 

Adam woke up for work at 6, and I had been out in the family room all night working through the contractions. I couldn't sleep, and I didn't want to wake Adam up. After watching me for a few minutes, I asked him to not go to work because I was in so much pain and maybe the baby was coming. Starting around 7:00am, my contractions were 5 minutes apart and lasting almost a minute. We did this for over 2 hours. I'd get a contraction, hit all fours, and Adam would rub my back through the pain and talk me through it. My goal was to deliver naturally, so I was trying to hold off going to the hospital until it was necessary. I took multiple showers, went on walks, and paced our apartment pretty much all day on Thursday. The contractions lost their consistency around 11am after I had thrown up multiple times. I was still having contractions, but they were 7-8 minutes apart instead of 5 minutes or less. 

I managed to take an hour long nap on Thursday, and I woke up feeling so frustrated and discouraged. I felt terribly that I had asked Adam to stay home from work. I didn't understand why my body was hurting so badly, yet I wasn't convinced I was having this baby any time soon. Thursday night looked a lot like Wednesday night. I fought through contractions all night long in the family room while Adam slept. I took multiple hot showers, and I just prayed and prayed for some sleep. I was realizing that my exhaustion was growing, and if I didn't get some sleep, there's no way I would be able to deliver this baby naturally. 

As I stood in the shower in the middle of the night, I tried to come to terms with the fact that my desire for a natural delivery might not happen. I felt so disappointed in myself, but I thought maybe I could still pull it off. At 4am, I woke Adam up because the contractions were so painful, I couldn't get through them without help. I needed him emotionally and physically, but I was trying to let him sleep as long as possible. From 4-6am, I had consistent contractions, 5 minutes apart that were growing in intensity, and I thought for sure this baby was coming! I threw up a couple of times, and again my body started to lose the consistency. I was still having them, just not 5 minutes on the dot. 

I decided that Adam could go to work because I didn't want to be responsible for him missing another day only to have no baby all over again. So, all day Friday I powered through contractions. I kept taking hot showers. I walked all over the apartment. I was just wanting to make it to Adam coming home, so I could go get checked by the midwife on call. 

Around 5 on Friday afternoon, I started feeling not well, and I was concerned something was happening with the baby. We decided to go to the hospital to get checked. I honestly couldn't even let myself HOPE that we'd get to stay. We brought our bags just in case, but I was emotionally prepared to be sent home. My contractions were hurting so badly in the car, as all of the pain in all of my contractions was in my low back. Sitting in the car through the contractions was awful. 

Upon arriving at the hospital, we learned I was 4 cm dilated, and I was definitely going to be admitted. By 8pm, we were in my labor and delivery room ready to tackle this thing. Adam looked at the clock and said, "Maybe you'll have this baby on the 19th after all." I told him that I doubted it, but the 20th would be just fine.

For the next 5 hours, I went through what felt like circuit training. I'd do some contractions in the rocking chair, some on the birthing ball that was shaped like a peanut, some hunched over the railing, and some in the tub. I walked the halls; I was constantly on the move, wanting to get this baby down as low as possible. At 1am, I asked to be checked, and I was at 7cm dilated. They were thrilled with my progress, and I was frustrated. So, the circuit training increased. We had pandora on, and I was determined that we could have this baby naturally. 

At 2:45, I asked my mom to send a text to get people to pray that I would be fully dilated and allowed to push the next time I got checked. I cannot explain the exhaustion that had taken over my body at this point. Our bodies. Adam was exhausted. He'd try to sleep for the 3 minutes in between contractions and then hop into action massaging my back or supporting me while I stood and swayed. But I was losing steam. At this point, I was walking around our room, talking to Nolan (and myself), coaching both of us to keep going. I was positive that we were ready to push. 

Around 3:45, I got checked, and I was at 9cm dilated. The midwife offered to break my water to help me get to 10. I nearly screamed, "YES!" at her. Every time I got checked, they'd have to go super quick because laying down was excruciatingly painful on my back during contractions. I hopped off the table, and I went into "go mode" to get this baby to 10 cm. Let me pause here to say, I fully believed Adam and I could do this, but I knew I was beginning to lose it. I can't explain the fatigue, the exhaustion, the pain that was over taking my body. I hadn't had real sleep in so long, and my body was ridiculously tired. 

The midwives and nurses were determined to help me power through this final centimeter. I was doing side lunges on a stool during contractions to try to get to the final mark. I was doing squats. This was the most physically taxing thing I'd ever done, and it was this point that I started to doubt my ability to finish. I got checked, and there was no progress. But I got up and did another hour of labor, trying to be ready to push. I can remember sitting in the tub, nearly asleep in between contractions, feeling like defeat was around the corner.

After I mustered everything I had, I asked for one more check because SURELY FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS GOOD I was ready to go. But there had been no progress, yet again. At this point, I nearly fell apart. Why couldn't my body keep going? I told Adam that I needed help. That I couldn't do it. I was literally being held up by his strength at this point, and I just couldn't make it. The midwives and nurses wanted to see me successfully deliver naturally, so they'd been working so hard to help me. I felt like they were bummed to hear me say I needed an epdiural, which I was already disappointed with myself, so I didn't need to see their bummed out looks as well. 

I knew that realistically, I wasn't going to be able to even lay on the bed to push with the amount of pain I was experiencing in my back. And I just had no juice left. I had been having contractions since Wednesday, and it was now Saturday morning. 

I got the epidural, and right away, the nurses asked me to just rest so I would have strength to push. Adam fell asleep almost immediately. They decided to monitor my contractions, and they soon realized that my uterus was having a hard time keeping up at this point, too. They decided to put me on pitocin to help. The midwife I asked my family to pray to be on staff came on at 8am on Saturday. I was relieved to see her face, and she immediately offered her compassion for what I just endured. 

She warned me that they were concerned that I was going to have to have a c-section because something was not happening right. After upping my pitocin, I FINALLY reached 10cm. They were still concerned for Nolan, so they told me that I would be allowed to push; however, if things didn't progress, they'd be moving me to the operating room. Talk about disappointing. Not only did I have to get the epidural. NOW they're talking about a c-section. I felt...nearly crushed. And I didn't understand why my body wasn't doing what it was supposed to do. I'm a woman-- God designed me to do this!! 

The midwife was confident I could push, and we got set up to push. After an hour of pushing, the OB came and tried to help move Nolan down. But nothing was working. She told me she had to go do a c-section, and if Nolan wasn't out when she got back, I'd be getting a c-section too. For the next two hours, I pushed and pushed and pushed, but Nolan wasn't coming. They could see him, but he was having a hard time moving past my pelvic bone. I started noticing I was in pain again, and Adam realized that my epidural drip was disconnected. The medicine was just dripping on the floor. We had to get the doctor who put it in to come back to fix it. But at this point, the OB was back, and she told me I had 2 options. She could use the vacuum for 2 rounds of contractions, and if I couldn't push him out, we would move to c-section right away. OR I could just go straight to the c-section. She was confident I could push him out, but I was NOT! Nothing else had been working right, why would this?! 

Adam and I had 2 minutes to decide, and we decided to try one final time to push. She gave us the risks, and then got set up to try to bring Nolan out. Let me pause to say, I was extremely uneasy about this. But the midwife I liked told me she thought I could do it, and so I went for it. I was extremely exhausted AGAIN. Pushing for 3 hours was incredibly taxing. 

When everyone was in position, and when I say everyone, I mean they called in an ARMY for this. There were 3 people there from NICU to deal with Nolan because of the risks. The OB who would perform the delivery, 2 midwives, and then probably 5 additional nurses all ready to pounce if something went wrong.

I knew I only had 3-6 pushes to get him out, so I was mentally, physically, and emotionally gearing up to get him out. After 3 pushes with the vacuum, the OB took the vacuum off his head, and told me it was going to be up to me to get him out NOW. So, I pushed with everything I had, and she was able to pull Nolan out. They placed him on me for .2 seconds, and then whisked him off to make sure he was okay. 

Within minutes the placenta delivered, and then what do you know, my uterus stopped working. I started hemorrhaging. I could feel the blood pouring out of my body, and the nurses moving in chaos to stop it. People were pouncing on my stomach, stabbing me with shots, giving me IVs, etc. Everything was happening so quickly, but you could sense the urgency in the room. Adam was at my face, holding my hand, and I had this quick moment of panic. What if this was about to turn further south real fast? I tried with desperation to be able to see Nolan, everything was happening so quickly. Adam looked terrified, and I felt helpless. 

They got things under control, started stitching me up from my 3rd degree tear, and they kept assuring me that the baby was GREAT. He looked perfectly healthy, and the vacuum did not have any affect on him at all. I was crying this whole time on the table, and Adam was at my side, assuring me everything was ok. I think he was trying to convince himself at that point. 

They finally brought me Nolan even though they were still working on stabilizing me, and I felt a huge sense of relief. I had my baby in arms, and he was fine. Adam was with me. We were going to be okay. 

This was what Adam likes to call the best and worst moments of his life. 

That night, Adam told me he was more than willing to get a vasectomy the next day because he didn't know if he could ever do this again. He still feels that way.

When we were alone in our hospital room with our baby boy that night, I wanted to shake what we just went through and enjoy my new family. I reached over to grab Adam's hand, and together we prayed for our little boy Nolan. We thanked God for what went right and trust that the stuff that went wrong would make us grow closer together. I'm thankful that God answered my requests for the weekend I wanted and the midwife I wanted was on call by the time Nolan came.