On Thursday morning Jan 7th, I woke up at 6am to
go to the bathroom and when I got back in bed I had a strong contraction. I
didn’t think much of it because I’d been having these types of contractions off
and on for days. I started to go back to sleep when I had another one. I looked
at my clock and noticed it had been about 5 minutes since the last contraction.
Then 5 minutes later I had another one. I started getting excited thinking
active labor may have started.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have another one after that.
Throughout the rest of the day Thursday I was having
contractions every 30 minutes to an hour. Some of them became strong enough
that I had to stop what I was doing to breathe through them. I kept thinking
they would eventually become closer together and active labor would begin but
they stayed at 30 minutes to an hour apart. That day, my mom and I searched all
over town to find the movie Father of the Bride Part 2 and finally found a
store that had it. We enjoyed lunch on the couch while watching the movie and
got some good laughs in. It made me even more excited to go into labor and
finally meet my daughter for the first time.
My mom had been staying at a nearby friend’s house since our
condo is only two bedrooms. She decided to stay at our place that night because
we were all thinking I would be going into labor very soon. I was hoping my contractions would either
putter out so I could get some sleep or get a lot stronger so I could have a
baby soon! Neither happened. I continued to have contractions every 30 minutes
ALL. NIGHT. LONG. I tried to sleep in between them but most of the time I would
just be falling asleep when another one would hit and wake me up. At 3am, I
finally got out of bed and had a bowl of cereal, then watched an episode of The
Bachelor I had on my DVR. During the Bachelor my contractions started getting
closer together at about 7-10 minutes apart. Around 5am my mom woke up and we
started playing Skip-Bo. At this point the contractions completely stopped! I
didn’t have a single one for an hour. I was extremely frustrated to say the
least. I began considering taking some Castor oil to kick start labor since I’d
already been up all night and I was ready to evict baby girl.
Then around 7:30 I started noticing a regular pattern to my
contractions, they were 7-8 minutes apart. This time I knew I was finally in
real labor. My mom took Dax (my 6 year old) to school and I called my neighbor to
see if she could watch Everett for us. I continued to walk up and down the
stairs of our house while we got everything ready to go. I didn’t want to take
any chances that labor might stop.
We left the house around 9:15 am, dropped Everett off and
then headed to the hospital. I called my midwife on the way and let her know we
were headed in. My contractions slowed way down on our drive. I only had 1
during the 25 minute drive to the University of Utah Hospital. Since my
contractions had slowed down, I knew we had plenty of time so we parked the car
and walked into the hospital. When we walked into the lobby I asked a volunteer
where labor and delivery was and she kindly escorted us all the way there. I
had to stop once to breathe through a contraction on our way up. The
contractions are hurting a bit, but still very manageable at this point.
We were immediately put in a triage room where they hooked
me up to some monitors and checked my progress. I was at a four and the baby’s
heartbeat looked great. We were told that I could either be checked in and head
to a regular labor room (I wanted the room with the tub because I was planning
to have a water birth) or we could walk around the hospital a bit and help
things move along. I opted to walk around because they told us the water birth
room would be cleaned and ready to go in another hour or so. We left triage
around 10:30 with specific instructions to return immediately if the
contractions became stronger or if my water broke.
We decided to head to the cafeteria to grab a bite to eat. I
hadn’t eaten much that day and I figured I would need the energy. The cafeteria
had 5 or 6 different stations of food to choose from. It took me a while but I
finally decided I would go to the salad bar. I grabbed my plate and just as I
was about to get some lettuce I felt a huge pop and then a massive gush of
fluids fell to the floor. I looked up at my mom with a stunned look on my face.
I couldn’t believe my water had broken all over the cafeteria floor. I was
wearing a hospital gown but I had my own sweat pants on underneath. I was
soaking wet so I wanted to go to the bathroom to take my pants off. Kelly came
with me while my mom found a custodian to clean up the mess from the floor.
I got my pants off and into a plastic bag, but now every
step I took came with another gush of water. I was super worried about the
hospital floor being wet (I didn't want anyone to fall), but at this point we had to get back up to labor and
delivery. It took us a while to get back; my mom had already been there for 5
minutes or so. The nurse started to worry that I might be delivering the baby
somewhere in the hospital so she came out to look for us. She found us right as
we were getting off the elevator. As we walked back to the room she told us how
she had helped deliver a baby in the hospital Starbucks just the week before.
We went back to the triage room because the birth tub still
wasn’t ready yet and the midwife confirmed that yes, my water did break (duh!).
My contractions were quite regular and becoming stronger, coming every 3-5
minutes and I was still handling them well. At this point it was about 11:30.
Kelly was applying very strong counter pressure on my back during every
contraction. This was extremely helpful as the back labor was the worst part
about the contractions. Half an hour later the midwife came in again to check
on me and during a contraction she applied upward pressure on my knees while
Kelly did my back and it almost took the pain away completely! It was
fantastic. So my mom started pressing my knees while Kelly pressed my back
until we were ready to head to the birth room. At about 12:30 we got to my
labor room and I immediately got into the tub. It felt amazing!
I’m pretty sure I started transition at this point because I
started moaning during the contractions. I remember thinking, “this is really
freaking painful and I don’t want to do it anymore!” During each contraction I
would lean forward onto all fours and moan through it and once it was over I immediately
leaned back on the tub and closed my eyes. I had been awake for 36 hours at
this point and I was really tired. I remember looking at the clock and it said 12:45.
I don’t know why, but I wanted to know how long I was in this kind of pain for.
Weird.
The nurse had been intermittently monitoring the baby’s
heartbeat and it was decelerating with each contraction and then coming right
back up. The midwife explained to me that the baby was fine, but this meant I
would no longer qualify for a water birth if her heart rate didn’t normalize
for at least 20 minutes. I was really hoping this whole thing would be over in
20 minutes!
The midwife said she thought I might be ready to push and
wanted to check and see if my cervix was fully dilated. Truth be told, I was
already pushing a little bit as each contraction came, it just felt right. She
checked and said I was ready to go! She informed me that I could either get out
of the tub and deliver on the floor next to it or hop on the bed, or I could
just stand up and deliver the baby while hovering above the water. I heard
everything she said but I was SO tired I didn’t think I had the strength to
move. My next contraction came and I started pushing as hard as I could while
the midwife kindly asked me to stop pushing. She said, “I know it’s hard
Brittany, but please try not to push. Don’t push right now.” I heard her and
made the decision to completely ignore her. I was in pain, and I wanted this
baby out. Now.
I don’t remember a lot of what happened next but Kelly told
me that she looked at him and the nurse and very firmly said, “Stand. Her. Up.”
The next thing I knew I was being held up above the water and my legs were
violently shaking. The next contraction came and the midwife told me to give a
small push. “Now stop. Now a big push. Good. The head is out. Now, one more big
push. Brittany, grab your baby!” I looked down and picked up my baby girl. It
was 1:04 pm. I sat back down in the water and cradled her in my arms and we locked
eyes. It was love at first sight. I couldn’t believe she was here. It was such
an incredible feeling to be completely out of pain and holding my daughter in
my arms. It was definitely a moment I will never forget.
I looked up because I
wanted to see Kelly and that was when I realized I had quite the audience.
There were a lot of people staring at me. I had my midwife, the student
midwife, my nurse, someone from pediatrics (just in case she was needed), the
hospital photographer (I consented to having pictures and videos taken for the
hospital’s website), my mom and Kelly all looking at me. I found Kelly and we
just smiled at each other. Our little girl was here.
When baby’s cord stopped pulsing Kelly cut it and then he
took her and did skin to skin while I got out of the tub to deliver the
placenta and get stitched up. Once I got out of the tub I was freezing so my
whole body started shaking again. The nurse covered me in warm towels and I
took my wet bikini top off. I couldn’t stop shaking and I remember thinking the
midwife might make a mistake during the stitching since I was moving so much. Once
I was finally done with all the clinical stuff, I was aching to have my baby
back.
She was placed on my chest and she immediately started
looking to something to eat. She was licking every piece of skin she could
find. I latched her on and she ate like a champ while I ate an apple off the
lunch tray. There was also a cold hamburger that I had no desire to eat so my
mom went down to the cafeteria to get me a sandwich. Kelly and I talked about
how cute she was and how big she seemed and how much she liked to eat. When she
finished her meal she was weighed and measured, 21 inches long and 8 pounds, 1
ounce. After a few hours of snuggles we were transferred over to the mother
baby unit where we began our lives as a family of five with little Savannah Mae
Allred.
