Peyton's Story

Going Into Labor:

I need to start out by saying everybody’s labor is different. Labor is not in your power to control. From the minute I got pregnant I began to imagine what labor and giving birth would be like. I imagined my water would break, we would go to the hospital, I would be in pain for a few hours, but since I prepared myself mentally for it I wouldn't need any drugs because I'm a super mom and bada-bing bada-bang, I would pull my beautiful baby girl onto my chest and stare lovingly into her sweet eyes and say “happy birthday beautiful, I've waited so long to meet you and I already love you so much” while my Nick cut the cord. I have never been so wrong in my life.

Here’s how it actually went:

4 Days before giving birth (Tuesday):

I went to my regularly scheduled OB visit to have the doctor check on the baby. To my excitement, after he got done monitoring the baby he said, “Okay, so it looks like you are four days away from your due date, so would you like to go ahead and schedule an induction date?” What I thought was, would I like to schedule an induction date?! Of course! Can we schedule it for today? But what I said was, “Yeah, that’d be cool.” So Nick and I decided that we would schedule the induction for Friday morning since that was my actual due date, and that way he wouldn't miss too much work. So we left knowing that by that weekend we would finally be getting to meet our little Peanut.

1 Day before giving birth (Thursday):

I go into my OBs office to start the induction process. They decide to start me on a balloon catheter to get my cervix to start dilating before the start me on Pitocin. The device they put inside me basically looks like two water balloons attached to each other. They insert the catheter inside me (un-inflated) and the balloons are placed on both sides of my cervix to get it to dilate and efface. Everybody I talked to, including both my OB and other women who have had it before, told me I shouldn't feel a thing after they put it in. It was essentially like having a tampon in. The only part of it I would feel were the two tubes hanging out that they taped to my leg. But lucky me, the pressure from putting it in sent me into labor. I started getting contractions at 3 pm. They weren't that bad so we continued about our day. We even went out to dinner with my second mom/uncle (it's a long story) because it was her birthday. As we’re all leaving dinner about 7 pm, I begin to get extremely uncomfortable. So after we got home, I took a shower and tried to relax. About 8 pm, I called my OB and told him how uncomfortable I was. He told me to head to the hospital and that he would call ahead and have my room ready for me. All I could think was, this is it. I’m about to finally meet my little girl. We get to the hospital, and the nurse tells me that yes, I am in real labor, but for tonight they were going to give me a mild pain reliever and a sedative so I could get a little sleep and my body would be prepared for a big day. I slept for about 4 hours.

Friday, October 5^th. D(elivery) Day.

6 am    My OB comes into my room and says, “Congratulations! Today is the day!” I remember feeling so happy, because the pain wasn't too bad right then. That’s when they started me on Pitocin to speed up the process. 

8 am    One of the nurses comes in to take out the catheter and check my dilatation. I’m 100% effaced and 4.5 centimeters!

10 am  My OB comes in to break my water. That is the strangest feeling in the world. It feels like you are gushing pee. And it’s not just once. It’s for the next 45 minutes with every contraction. My mom had told me that when she was having both me and my brothers that she had all of us within 4 hours of them breaking her water. So I was super excited. It could be any time now! They let me bounce on the exercise ball, which believe it or not actually relieves a lot of the pain in the beginning stages. Everybody is taking bets on what time baby is going to get here.

11 am  I’m getting checked for dilation, nurses keep coming in and out. Visitors file in and out.

1 pm    My OB comes in and says his shift is over, but he’s going to stick around for a little while longer to try and be here when I deliver.

2 pm    The pain gets worse. I want an epidural, and I want it NOW.

3:30 pm The anesthesiologist, or as I liked to call him, the god with the happy juice, finally arrives. Most people say they were scared while they were getting the epidural and that it hurts really bad, but I honestly the only thing I remember is being scared of falling off the bed while they were doing it.

4 pm    I’m at 6 cm! And I feel no pain so life is good.

5 pm    My OB apologizes greatly, but says he by law he cannot spend any more time in the hospital so he has to leave. So he introduces me to my new doctor, who I've never meet before, Dr. Curtis. She is amazing.

6 pm    Hello 8 centimeters! It’s almost time!

7 pm    9 centimeters!

7:30 pm “GO GET THE DOCTOR I HAVE TO PUSH.” The doctor comes in, checks me, and says the words a woman in labor never wants to hear, “I’m sorry, you’re still only at 9 centimeters, you can’t push yet.”

8 pm    It’s time to push. In the room with me I have Nick, my mom, his mom, my guardian, and her girlfriend (she kind of got stuck in the room because they wouldn't let anybody leave after I started pushing), Dr. Curtis, and one nurse.

          I’m not going to include times from now on because I honestly don’t remember the time span of it happening. The doctor hooked me up to a heart monitor machine because my heart rate was too fast for her liking. Then they gave me an oxygen mask because my oxygen levels were dropping. Dr. Curtis then said something to the nurse, and she left and came back with two more nurses. 
          The baby starts to crown. They hooked a heart rate machine up to the baby by inserting a little needle under the layer of skin on her head. Slowly more and more nurses start to file in. The doctor begins to look worried. She yells at the nurses for talking to loud. Everybody starts to stream words of encouragement to me. “You’re doing so good!” “She’s almost here!” But I can tell by the way the doctor is looking and the nervousness of the nurses that something isn't quite right. 
          Everything you read about labor tells you that with your first baby your normally push for 30-45 minutes, and here I was with two straight hours of pushing under my belt already. My baby girl was stuck. After another half hour passes, my husband whispers in my ear, “you can do this”. I take one last deep breath, and with one last final push she is out. 
          At 10:21 pm, 7 lbs, and 21 inches my baby is finally here. I am in so much pain. I just felt myself rip open. But what makes it even worse is that I don’t get to pull my baby straight onto my chest like I had imagined almost every day since I found out I was pregnant. 
          She didn't cry. 
          Didn't make any sound at all.
          She was limp. 
          What felt like hours stretching by, I am later told by mom was only a span of about 2 minutes. The nurses cut the umbilical cord and take her to the corner of the room. The doctor presses on my stomach to get the after birth out and begins to stitch me up. But all I’m focused on is why is she not crying. Babies cry when they came out. It’s what they do. Finally, I hear her. It’s not a cry, but more of a squeak. But I’ll take it. 
          They wrap her up, bring her next to my bed "here's your baby girl. we have to take her to the NICU (Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit) now." 
          I’m lying in the bed as the doctor is finishing stitching me up (I think at the final count I had 7 or 8 stitches) and trying to comfort me. Nick and his brother go down to the NICU to check on her. But I can’t go. They tell me I have to pee before I’m allowed to leave the room. Something to do with the epidural and making sure my systems work okay. So while everyone is taking turns going to see my baby, I have to wait. And I cried. I cried so hard. My mom tried comforting me and telling me everything was going to be okay, but it didn't help. 
          I wanted my baby. I wanted more than pictures on a phone of my baby. The baby I had grown inside of me for 40 long weeks. The baby I had felt moving and kicking. The baby that would kick her daddy's hand when he would lay it on my stomach. The baby that bruised my ribs from kicking them so hard all the time. I wanted to hold her, and love her, and kiss her, and tell her she was beautiful.
          Finally I lie and tell the nurse I have to pee, so she takes me to the bathroom in my room, shows how to clean myself off with the squirt bottle (there is so much blood) and leaves. I fake peeing, and come out where they have a wheel chair ready for me to use to go see my daughter. Just then Nick comes in the room and says they’re bring her to me. That she is okay. I was finally going to meet my baby girl.

          After giving us some alone time with her, my mom, his mom and a nurse come into the room. The nurse shows us how to give her a bath, and then sits down and explains what happened. Baby girl had gotten stuck in my birth canal behind my pelvic bone. A baby’s heart rate is normally about 140-160, and decreases during pushing. Her heart rate had shot up to 210 while I was pushing, and was not going back down. They got her heart rate to stabilize in the NICU, and now she was doing just fine.

            At about 3 am, and after much argument, my husband finally convinces me to let them take my princess back to the nursery so I could get some sleep. They brought her back to me at 6 am to nurse, and we got to keep her with us after that.  
          At 3 pm they had to take her to do some test. While she was in the NICU, they transferred us to the “bonding” room. (Which I’m assuming got its name because of the fact that it was less than a quarter of the size of the labor and delivery room, and barely fit the hospital bed, two chairs and the baby’s bassinet in it.) Finally, a nurse came in, but without the baby. She told us that her bilirubin scores were too high, and we could visit her all we wanted, but she was going to have to stay in the NICU indefinitely.

          The next four days were full of so much love, frustration and so many tears. We couldn't take her home. She had to spend a lot of time under this lamp that was suppose to get her billirubin scores down. We got our hopes up so many times that we would be able to leave. We spent a total of 5 days in the hospital before we got to bring her home. I was discharged after day 3, but they let us stay in the hospital room. We were just told if they ended up needing the room we would have to leave.

          But now she is a perfectly healthy little princess with a big attitude. So despite having a rough entrance in the world, she's growing right on schedule! 

Family Pictures by: Kimberly Naugle Photography