Wednesday Aug 6th I woke up with a terrible migraine. I couldn’t keep anything down except water. I laid in bed all day trying to sleep and puking. By evening the migraine had calmed down to a headache and I was able to keep crackers down. 

I don’t know if this started early labor for me or it could be completely unrelated, but either way, that night I woke up a few times to what I thought was Braxton hicks. 

 

Woke up in the morning (Thursday, Aug 7th) feeling contractions every 5 min on the dot. My husband suspected I was in early labor but I said it was just BH and that it was gonna stall out and there would be nothing for a week or two as my “due date” wasn’t til the 18th and this is our first child, so I was for sure going to go late. 

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We went about our day- my husband to work and I had a few errands to run and also a midwife appt at 1pm. I kept timing the contractions and they were consistent at every 5 min for 10-20 sec all day.  

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I told Dorothy at my appointment and she didn’t say one way or the other that I was in labor and just told me to go home and take a nap. 

So I went home and took a nap still believing that I had a couple of weeks before baby came.  I woke up about two hours later (5pm) and got up to use the bathroom. As soon as I stood up I felt a gush. I remember thinking either I peed my pants or my water broke. Went to the bathroom and saw blood. Lots of it. I immediately knew this wasn’t good. I also realized that baby was coming early and that this was the real deal. 

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I called Dorothy and she gave me the option to go to triage or wait for her to show up to check things out. 

I could still feel baby moving and figured as long as I could feel baby move I was comfortable with waiting for Dorothy to show up. I called my husband and told him to come home (he works 2nd shift) and then I called my mom and told her to come as well. 

My mom showed up first, then Dorothy and then my husband shortly after. 

I wasn’t leaking much blood at this point and Dorothy said that baby heart rate is good. We decided to stay home for the time being. 

Dorothy went into town (just a few blocks away) and said to call her if there was more blood or if contractions were getting closer. A bit later there was another gush and it was blood/fluid mix again. Called Dorothy and she came back, checked on baby who was still doing good and recommended we transfer to the hospital due to the amount of blood I was losing. My husband and I agreed and we all headed out. 

 

After some time in triage we were admitted and got set up in our room to labor. It was about 9:30ish at this point. Once we confirmed via ultrasound that the placenta wasn’t in the way I was cleared to continue naturally as long as baby’s heart rate and my blood pressure were normal and thankfully they were the whole time. 

I labored in different positions for the next several hours using my husband for support. I continued to lose blood although not in gushes every time.  Dorothy and my mom offered encouragement and helped when they could. 

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Labor increased in intensity around 11ish pm and I felt the urge to push at 12:15am. The nurse midwife did a cervical check and I was at 7cm. Was told to not push which was so incredibly hard. It felt like I needed to poop and I was thinking to myself if I could just go then I’ll be fine to continue labor. It was a huge struggle and I did my best to breathe through the contractions but even that was really hard. Two hours later at 2:15am I was done. I couldn’t do this anymore and I desperately needed to push. We did another cervical check and I was at 10cm! Was told I could push, finally! I thought to myself- just 15 more minutes and I’m done! Haha, that was not the case.

 I transferred to the stool to push. After about 40 min I switched positions onto the bed, I grabbed the bed frame at the head and continued push on my knees for the next 20 minutes. I felt a burning- not sure if it was the crowning or the tearing but shortly after that I felt and saw our baby come out! (3:21am) She was covered in so much blood I wondered if that was normal. (I asked Dorothy later and it wasn’t) 

 

They passed her up to me and then I proceeded with the task of trying to turn over to my back with all the cords I had attached to me with a slippery baby in my numbed arms. During this process I saw and announced that baby was a girl! 

 

Thankfully baby girl was doing just fine (Praise the Lord!) and I was able to hold her and nurse for the first 3 hours. 

So I got my golden hour in being able to keep her on me. However, nothing else about it was “golden”.

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In fact, the next couple hours was very chaotic. So many people coming in and out.  It’s all a bit blurry but I remember the nurse midwife urgently telling me they needed to cut the umbilical cord right now for some reason I didn’t catch at the moment and I consented since the cord was mostly white. I was given Pitocin at this point, I delivered the placenta, and not all of it came out. Which led them to believe I had a partial placenta abruption which is why I bled so much. They had to use a tool to scrap my uterus to get the last bits out. And then I had a second degree tear that needed to get stitched. 

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Eventually, after several hours, everyone cleared out and it was just my husband, myself and our sweet baby girl.  We were able to go home same day so that was a huge blessing to not spend another night there. 

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While this wasn’t exactly the birth we wanted, it was as Dorothy said “the second best thing” as I was still able to deliver naturally and unmedicated for which I’m very grateful and more importantly I’m grateful that both baby and I are well and healthy- Thank you, Jesus.