Amelia’s Arrival…The Birth Story

Fair warning…I talk about things like the cervix, meconium, etc. in this post.

So, the last baby bump post left off at 41 weeks…when I was already looking mighty huge & puffy. At my 40 week appointment my doctor and I discussed the possibility of my needing to be induced. While I really wanted to go about this delivery naturally, I also understood the risks of letting a baby go past 42 weeks and along with Chris we decided that if there was still no change at 41 weeks we would go ahead with the intervention. Since that was the plan, we went ahead and scheduled my admission for Wednesday, August 3, 2011 at 7pm because the plan was for me to receive a cervical ripening medicine overnight and then start pitocin/labor in the morning. Unfortunately, I made it that far.

My last day of work was Tuesday, August 2, 2011. Wednesday I had the regular weekly appointment with my doctor which Chris came with to so we could make sure any questions we had about induction, birth, etc got answered. One question I asked was “how big do you think my baby is” and my doctor said probably in the 8 pounds somewhere. That sounded awfully big to me but he assured me it was a normal weight and very healthy. So, the plan was for me to get admitted that evening around 6pm to begin cervical ripening medicine that works for 12 hours (overnight in this case) and then start pitocin/labor in the morning. It turns out you can’t really plan these things!

We called the hospital at 5 to get approval to come in and they told me NO! The hospital was full. I really couldn’t believe it because the same thing had happened to my sister just 10 months earlier but at a much smaller hospital! We were on our way to Maple Grove to grab dinner at Panera so we continued on and called back an hour later from the restaurant and were told NO again! Since we were already in the north suburbs we had decided to hang out at my parents house while we waited.

I ended up calling back twice more that night before they told me it wasn’t going to work and that I should call at 5am. So…we ended up spending the night at my parents house which turned into me sleeping in a bed and Chris sleeping on the couch! Not exactly how we thought our last night before becoming parents would go, but THANK YOU to them for letting us stay! If you can believe it, when I called at 5am they told me AGAIN that they couldn’t admit me but that I was top priority as soon as there was room. Ugh. I called back at 6 and FINALLY they said we could come in between 7 & 8 so I got Chris up and we made our way up to the hospital.

The rest of the story takes 40 hours…I’ll try to keep the recap as brief as possible without missing any big parts!
Thursday, August 4, 2011
7:30AM: We are admitted to Maple Grove Hospital and get settled into our room. I have monitors strapped to my belly to monitor Lil J since the first medicine I’m getting can induce labor.
9:00AM: Lil J has a momentary freak out of a bunch of kicks in a row which causes a the heart rate monitor to not register. Because of that we have to wait for at least an hour of steady monitoring before starting the Cervidil. Boo. Just for the record, throughout the remaining 38 hours her heartbeat was strong and steady – I have NO idea what happened to cause the hiccup.
10:30AM: Finally start the Cervidil! Only 14 hours later than planned…but better late than never i guess!
…The Cervidil is a 12 hour dose that is supposed to open your cervix. I was surprised by the cramps I got while on this medicine. Chris & I passed the time by watching/listening to the heart rate monitor and watching some TV/Movies.
7:00PM: I got up to pee and ended up with the Cervidil coming out as my water broke! So, the 12 hour meds only lasted 8.5 for me but whatever…this was progress!! There was meconium in the amniotic fluid so that meant we were done with cervical ripening which was okay with me because suddenly I was in labor! Since I went into labor “on my own” (aka thanks to the Cervidil) we didn’t have to start the Pitocin right away which made me happy. What didn’t make me happy was that I was still only dilated 1.5-2cm.
8:00PM: Labor hurts! Wow. I had no idea. Around 8pm Chris called Danielle to have her come to the hospital & help with the pain management.
…for the next few hours we went for a walk (during a contraction a nurse asked if I needed a wheelchair), sat on the birth ball and tried the tub. I don’t know if I’m a huge baby or what but the pain was SO BAD!
Friday, August 5, 2011
1:00AM: Early Friday morning I was checked and still only at 1.5-2 cm which was frustrating since I’d been having contractions for hours and they HURT. Due to the fact that my water had broke and there was meconium in it they decided it was time to help my body along which meant the introduction of Pitocin. They say it’s good to be educated before birth but in this case I’m not so sure…everything I had heard about Pitocin was that it made contractions worse (more intense, closer together) and can cause labor to be longer. I could not imagine anything worse than what I was already experiencing so (after Chris & Danielle tried talking me out of it like I asked them to) I told the nurse I was ready for some pain meds. She said most doctors won’t approve an Epidural to women not dilated past 2cm but I asked her to check and thankfully he said ok!
3:30AM: It turns out that overnight there’s ONE Anesthesiologist on duty so just because I said I wanted an Epidural at 1am didn’t mean I got one at 1am. I labored a couple more hours before they were finally able to get to me. THEN…I was sitting weird on the bed I guess because the first needle stick didn’t work…I had to get poked TWICE with what felt like a straw size needle. I think that might have hurt as bad as one contraction, but it was worth it in the long run.
…Chris, Danielle & I finally got some rest around 5am after they got all my IV’s hooked up. After a few hours the nurse would ask me to flip sides every hour or so because that was supposed to help the baby slide down into the birth canal. At some point I finally progressed to 4cm but then we stalled there for hours too.
5:00PM: Sometime in late afternoon I actually progressed to 8.5cm at which point the nurse was like “Wow, I have to get this room ready” which gave us hope that the baby was going to be here soon. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. By this time we had started talking about my needing a C-section and that meant I couldn’t eat anything. I think I had some chicken broth for lunch and an Ice Pop as a snack and that’s about it. I was STARVING.
7:00PM: At the 24 hour mark from when my water had broken I was examined and still at 8.5cm. From what I had heard in the past I figured that was it & we were on our way to the operating room but the Dr On Call (not my normal doctor, but a good one too) decided we should up the Pitocin for another hour and see what happens. Let me just say here that when we started the Pitocin I was told the normal top dose is 16…by now I was in the 20′s. They told me the actual top dose is 40 but that we wouldn’t go above 30. Um. I don’t want max dosage of anything like that please!!
9:00PM: The doctor came back and once again said we should try upping the dose again. I don’t actually know what was going on but they kept moving the monitor that was supposed to track contractions and then they put an internal monitor in…but they kept saying they weren’t getting good readings. Either way, after this visit I looked at Chris & said “Do you think I can request a C-section?”
10:00PM: This time when the doctor came in I looked him in the eye and said “I think it’s time” and he agreed so we started prep for surgery. There was another person having a c-section at the time so we waited…
11:19PM: There was a huge clock on the wall in the operating room and when I was finally wheeled in it was 11:19PM. The nurses and OR staff are efficient and also very friendly. They kept telling me what was happening and also reassuring me that things were going well. Chris was brought in just as my surgery began and probably only 5-10 minutes later the nurses were telling him to get the camera ready! I had actually asked the Dr if we were having a Friday or Saturday baby and he said he could take his time if we wanted to which I said “No, please, as fast as possible!”

11:42PM: Amelia Lynn Jensen was born!! She weighed in at 10 pounds 4 ounces and was 21 1/2 inches long. (So, not exactly in the 8′s like my Dr guessed, huh?!)
…We had been told that she might have to go to the NICU because I had a fever for the last part of our labor but she was just fine which was a relief! I got to meet her briefly while I was being stitched back up.

They had to take her to the nursery to run some tests because she was so big but Chris went with her and they met me in our room shortly after I got there.

We knew right away that this was the beginning of the most amazing thing that had happened to us as a couple!!

Advertisement