April 13th was another day of mild annoyance and frustration that my baby girl was still in there. I was 3 days past what my due date should have been, even though she measured as if she was due the next week (my doctor's date). I did my usual routine of trying to coax her out: walks, exercise ball, and red raspberry leaf tea. Before bed I resigned myself to yet another day with no baby and made my tea. I snapped a quick picture with my phone and captioned it saying the bright side was that I still had a built-in table.
We went to bed and I slept fitfully, half-waking up to contractions. This was nothing new, as I had been experiencing contractions that were consistent but never ended up going anywhere in the long run for WEEKS by then. By 5 a.m. I was pretty sure I was in active labor. I woke Matt up and got a shower. From there it was a flurry of excitement as we got everything ready, finished packing the bags, went down the list, got the kids breakfast, and said goodbyes. I tried to eat but I couldn't even sit down through contractions and had to be up and walking through them. I had planned to labor at home for longer but I knew I was decently far along at this point and was already several centimeters dilated and halfway effaced before labor even began so I wasn't sure how long I would have. With an hour drive to Greenville, we wanted to make sure there was no car baby. We were on the road by 8 a.m. and made good time to Greenville. We registered, went to triage where they quickly discovered there was no way I would be turned away. I think they determined I was 6-7 cm then and I was put into a room by 9:30. From there it was a flurry of questions, placing IVs, signing papers. I remember being super annoyed to do all that because so many of the questions were the same and I was in very active labor and needing to concentrate. We called my friend Shannon and let her know it was probably a good time to come, as she was going to be there for moral support and also photograph the birth. When all that finally began to slow down I asked for a birth ball and used that to get through intense contractions. They were pretty serious but I was managing well. Shannon arrived at that stage and began to document everything (sooo thankful for her and everything she was for me that day). All pictures from this point on are credited to her.
I had decided I absolutely wanted an epidural for the delivery after knowing what Auden's was like. The nurse kept asking me about it, I think because she was afraid I might miss my window. I labored for a while on the ball to attempt to get her into the best position possible for delivery and then they called in the anesthesiologist. Usually they have you sit on the edge of the bed while placing the epidural but the anesthesiologist was thrilled with the spacing of my spine when I was on the ball and said I could stay there while she did it. As she was placing it, my water broke. I got into the bed and the contractions kicked up a thousand notches. It was a combo of my water breaking and being confined to a bed that made them so incredibly unbearable. I kept waiting for the epidural to kick in and it just did not. I felt some patches of numbness but it wasn't doing anything for my pain at all. I tried breathing through, I tried to relax (ha, what a joke), I tried everything but I was just in tears it was so intense. The nurse could see how much distress I was in and pumped a rush dose of the epidural medicine which sort of kind of helped... but only on one side. She had to do another rush dose and turn me and only then did it finally start to go back to a bearable point where I could breathe through them. It never got to total relief but I was good if I could at least manage through them.
death grip on the railing
From there I continued to labor. I was fully dilated and fully effaced but we wanted to let her come down a bit. We put a big pillow between my knees to open my hips and give her space to work her way down. We stayed that way for a while and chatted about what we wanted to eat after this baby was out and joked about how much we wanted Jimmy Johns and the nurse chimed in that there was one right by the hospital. Finally, maybe around 3 p.m., my doctor suggested we give pushing a try. They had been waiting for me to get the pushing "urge" which I never did. I never felt that with my other two, either. So we waited for the next big contraction and began pushing. After a bit they asked if I wanted a mirror and I said sure. I had one with Auden and thought it was cool and motivating. So they brought that in and my doctor remarked how much more of an effective pusher I was with it. When we were getting quite close, they were trying to find Wren's heart rate and either couldn't or it was concerning. They paged the head doctor, the one that they only call when there is a problem and we began to become concerned, especially because they couldn't find the head doctor. My doctor looked at me and said "I need you to give me a really big push, okay? We're going to keep going and not stop this time". I knew she was saying "we need this baby out right now". I was so scared but I gathered all the strength I had and pushed as hard as I possibly could and she was born. She did not cry at first and then let out a little noise and we all breathed a sigh of relief. They placed her on me and began rubbing her vigorously and after a little bit (which seemed like eternity) she began to cry. She was here, and she was safe. Born at 3:33 p.m.
She was perfect and my biggest baby at 8 lbs, 3 oz. We were shocked at her head full of dark hair and her extremely long feet, toes, and fingers. We thought she looked quite a bit like Auden. She had the tiniest, girliest cry, just like Rory. She nursed like a champ soon after birth.
We're so glad for the safe delivery of our third child. Its so crazy to think that our family is complete now. Special thanks to Shannon for making me laugh, keeping Matt entertained, and documenting this priceless memory for our family.
One last note: her name. She is named Wren because we've loved that name for a long time. In fact, it was the top contender for Rory. Her middle name is Lanae and that is after.... me! Lanae is my middle name and I wanted to give this last baby a small piece of me to carry with her.
