Surviving in the Wilde: Evangeline's Birth Story: Unedited

*Disclaimer: As usual - this post will contain the details as I remember them... And sometimes those details 'ain't pretty (after all - this is birth, not rainbows and unicorns ;). Read at your own risk!

34 1/2 weeks pregnant. Three days before Evangeline's arrival.

On Monday, May 21st I was on a mission to clean and organize the house. It was Jack's first day of summer vacation and my dad had just left after a wonderful 2.5 week visit. By 4:00 pm I was almost done putting the last load of laundry and had done everything except vacuum and mop (two chores that Justin had taken over since it hurt my back and caused contractions whenever I attempted them). As I was putting the towels away in our master bathroom I felt a trickle that caused me to stop in mid-step. Immediately I realized the trickle was more like a steady stream and there was no mistaking that my water had broken - even though there wasn't a huge gush like I'd experienced when my water had spontaneously broken with Jack and Beckett. I calmly changed my pants and then called Justin and said, "I think you should think about coming home." His only reply was, "Okay." So then I said, "Do you want to know why?!" I was shocked that he'd been so quick to agree when he didn't even know what was going on. Typically, someone needs to be bleeding profusely or dead for him to come home early. He then said something like, "Well yeah, how are you feeling?" And I informed him that my water had broken. Cool as a cucumber he said he was on his way. About two minutes later I called him and told him that I felt fine and to please not speed home simply because he had a great excuse. ;) For some reason I was paranoid he would get into an accident or get pulled over (although I would bet money that he ended up speeding anyway).

After calling Justin I called his cousin Brianne who had graciously volunteered to be on kid-watch duty whenever our big moment had arrived. Luckily, she was nearby running errands and was able to be at our house within twenty minutes. Justin got home almost immediately after she arrived and then he and I were on our way after kissing the kids goodbye and letting them know that the "balloon in my tummy" had popped (that's how I had described what the amniotic sac was). I was still steadily losing a fair amount of fluid, but had yet to have the monster gush or any contractions. So once we arrived at the hospital I told Justin I wanted to walk around for a bit so I wouldn't have to spend so much time laying in a bed (ha!). We decided to just follow the sidewalk that looped around the hospital grounds and wouldn't you know when we were about 100 yards away from the car the BIG gush happened and not even the mega-super-ultra sized pad I was wearing could stem the tide. My jeans were soaked through all the way down both legs and I still had to walk back to the hospital entrance. Luckily, I had taken a towel with me just in case so I was able to wrap it around my waist to hide the mess, but it was fairly obvious to anyone walking by what had happened. Along with the gush had also come the contractions - which were right away three minutes apart and uncomfortable. Justin ran back to the car and got my diaper bag and then we headed in and up to L&D. The ride up the elevator was amusing as there were two other gentleman, one older and one about our age, already on board. The old guy looked at me, my belly and the towel. Then he smiled and asked Justin, "Are ya' nervous?" Justin smiled back and answered that he wasn't since it was our fifth and the guy looked at both of us again and exclaimed, "You're too young to have five kids!" I wasn't up to arguing with him or explaining that we are older than we look at that point so I just smiled and said, "Thank you." The other guy, looking completely awestruck, then piped in and said, "Whoa. I just had my first." We congratulated him and I'm pretty sure he thought we were nuts. :)

Once we got to admitting the nurse asked me if I was sure my water had broken. I laughed and told her I was positive. She must have seen me look down at the towel because she then peered over the desk to look. Understanding, she laughed and said she hadn't seen the towel. I was then lead to a triage room to be monitored. Why? I have no idea. The whole triage experience was a complete joke since the purpose of triage was to determine if I would be staying or going home. Clearly I wouldn't be going home! And yet we were there for seven hours (I'm still angry just thinking about it!) while the misplaced monitor wasn't picking up the contractions I was very much feeling every 3 minutes. The nurses were also confused why the OB on call (who never even came in to see me until just before he went home) didn't send me straight over to Labor and Delivery. Apparently he just didn't want to have to cover a new patient so he waited until the next doctor was coming on call before he finally gave the okay for me to be transferred over. One of the many reasons I will never be returning to that OB practice. (As a side-note: During my time in triage I went from about 3-5 cm.)

Once we were finally taken over to the labor and delivery unit I wasn't in the greatest mood being tired, hungry, uncomfortable and upset with how long it had taken for us to get a room. But then we met our nurse, Lauren, and she was a total game changer! She was the BEST nurse and I was so relieved since I knew that having a good nurse was more important than who the OB was because the nurses are the ones who are with you the whole time. For the most part the OB just comes in at the end to catch the baby. She hooked me up to the monitors and right away they started registering contractions every 2-3 minutes (like I had been telling the triage nurse for seven hours!). I was having to concentrate and breathe through them, but they weren't unbearable. Lauren asked what I wanted to do for pain relief and I let her know that I wanted to go unmedicated, but I'd let her know if I changed my mind.

Since it was about 1 am at this point she made sure we were settled and then dimmed the lights so we could try to get some sleep. Justin only stayed awake for about a half an hour and I didn't have the heart to wake him up to sit with me through the contractions because he was so tired and there really wasn't anything for him to do. So I just laid there for the next few hours breathing through my contractions and trying to sleep in between them. I had started to notice that while they were becoming extremely painful, they were also spreading out farther and farther apart. Eventually they spaced out to 7-10 minutes, but during the contraction I would feel like I was already in transition with how much pain and pressure I was feeling in my pelvis. At that point I knew something wasn't quite right. When Lauren came in around 4 am to check on me again (she could also see the contractions had spread out, but were measuring much more intense) I asked her to see if I had made any progress to see what was going on. She checked my cervix and said I was at 7 cm and the baby was still at a negative station (I cannot remember which number) - which was pretty disheartening with how much pain I was feeling for each contraction! She mentioned that she thought the OB might want to start pitocin if my contractions didn't begin to get closer together and I agreed that would be a good idea if I continued at such a slow pace.

Shift change came at 5 am and while I was so sad (seriously) to see Lauren go, our new nurse was also very nice. She was probably in her mid-sixties and had bright red coke-bottle glasses. She was pretty outspoken (and surprisingly racist), but at that point I really wasn't focused on her too much. I was pretty much trying not to die. When she did a baseline cervical check around 5:30 am, she said I was about 8 cm and that the baby wasn't descending which was probably why my contractions had spaced out and I wasn't dilating as quickly as they would have expected. She could also feel that baby girl was facing the wrong way (just like her big sister!) and said that was what was making it difficult for her to descend.

An hour later I agreed to a small dose of pitocin which would hopefully increase the frequency of the contractions to help the baby come down. The pitocin immediately started working at bringing them closer together and at the next check I was at 9 cm's. This time, though, the nurse could still feel that Eva was turned at an angle so during a contraction she would try to manually turn her. I cannot even begin to describe how excruciating it was to have her trying to turn the baby in the midst of an already unbearable contraction! After the second attempt I started crying (quietly) when she said she was going to try again. Still, baby wouldn't turn. So the nurse helped me to get on my side thinking that might help the baby turn on her own. Doing this made the pain increase substantially as I could feel the baby pushing even harder against my pelvis. After a half an hour of this (torture) the nurse came back to try turning her manually one more time. Afterwards I totally lost all composure and did the ugly cry for about five minutes. I had spent the entire labor as I had with my previous labors - in almost total silence (in the "zone" if you will). But I was exhausted and her attempts at turning Evangeline just hurt SO.BAD that I had finally reached a breaking point. Thankfully, I think I startled her (since I had been so quiet the whole time up until now) and she said she wasn't going to do that anymore. I then calmed down with lots of deep breathing and Justin's encouragement, but the pain was still so intense.

Finally, around 8:35 am the nurse said I could push if I wanted to even though I wasn't quite 10 cm's. I did the whole "my babies come fast" schpiel to warn her and then went for the gold when the next contraction started. She immediately got on her blue-tooth and told the front desk to get Dr. S to our room asap for delivery. Dr. S (an OB I had only met once before and did NOT like because she had no bedside manner at all. This is her first year with the practice having just finished her residency so her lack of experience concerned me as well.) very quickly arrived and within a couple of minutes was gowned up and seated at the end of the bed while the nurse was breaking down the bed for delivery.

I began pushing whenever I felt like it with the nurse holding one leg and Justin holding the other. From my own observations the OB didn't do anything but sit there and stare. She didn't attempt to help stretch things so I wouldn't tear and she didn't count or encourage me at all (again - NO bedside manner!). She simply sat there like a bump on a log. Staring. Meanwhile I wanted to push the baby out as quickly as possible, but knew I had to take it slow or I'd end up tearing. With each push I could feel my pelvic bones breaking (only unlike with Norah where I felt the front of my pelvis breaking, this time it was the sides - right where my hips joints were). This went on for a few contractions until I couldn't take the pelvic/hip pain anymore - it literally blocked any other pain that I probably would have felt otherwise - and I forced my legs down (I couldn't vocalize to tell Justin and the nurse to let them go). After that they just kind of gently held my knees open and held onto my feet to keep them from sliding off of the bed. With the next contraction I pushed and could feel her head crowning (again - I don't recall any pain from that area... It was all in my hip joints) and then I gave one final push, screamed on huge involuntary scream, and she was finally out! The OB then said she'd come out neither face up or down, but was at a diagonal - almost facing to the side. If you can visualize that you can understand the reason for all of the pain being located in my hip joints. With her coming down that way her head put an immense amount of pressure on the sides of my pelvis. I'm lucky she was a peanut or she may not have made it out that particular exit at all!

The doctor held her up for me to see and then the NICU team swept her over to the warmer where they did a quick evaluation, treating her as if she were going to have complications for being early as a precaution. Her Apgar's were 8 and 9 (rockstar!) and her lungs were definitely functioning as she made it known just how upset she was at the whole ordeal. :) After the initial assessment (she was perfect!) they bundled her up and brought her over to me to hold. I was SO happy to finally have her in my arms and that moment made the previous 17 hours all worth it. She was (and is!) so beautiful and perfect! After I held her for a few minutes the team had to take her up to the NICU (hospital protocol for babies delivered before 35 weeks - although she WAS 35 weeks according to my dates) and I told Justin to go with her to get pictures. Physically, I was exhausted, but felt great other than residual soreness in my hips. I didn't tear at all and after I was all cleaned up Justin returned and wheeled me up (I could have walked, but the nurse wouldn't let me) to the NICU to see our baby girl again. At that point she still didn't have a name, but she was healthy and perfect and we were in love!

Now - to answer the question of, "If the pain was that bad then why the heck didn't you ask for an epidural?!"

Well, folks... I did! Around the time I knew Evangeline was turned funky and the contractions were starting to tear my hips apart I told Lauren I was about ready for an epidural, but first wanted to know what the protocol would be with baby girl once she was born and whether I would be able to go see her right away. She told me that because she was under 35 weeks (regardless of how well she appeared) she would have to go to the NICU for mandatory observation. I would be able follow her as soon as I was cleaned up and could get up and go to the bathroom. This little qualifier sealed the deal... I would not be getting the epidural. With the two deliveries where I had had an epidural (Jack and Eddie) I hadn't been able to walk or go to the bathroom afterwards for a couple/few hours. In fact, I had needed a catheter for those couple/few hours because it took that long for the epidural to wear off enough for me to even go to the bathroom. Given this history there was no way I was going to risk not being able to see my baby girl as quickly as possible! I focused solely on this throughout the rest of my labor and it gave me the endurance I needed to make it through. (As for other pain medications like stadol or fentanyl or any other IV narcotic - those just aren't my bag, baby. I've never had them (I personally don't like the idea of anything that crosses through the placenta) and typically dislike the way pain medications make me feel as a general rule so those weren't even an option.)

Evangeline (pronounced ee-VAN-juh-LEEN) finally received her name later that day (about 1 pm). We had been debating between Evangeline and Penelope and after spending a few hours with her we finally agreed that our little bird looked more like an Eva. The meaning of her name, which is "Messenger of good news," also seemed extraordinarily fitting after such a long and difficult labor.

As for her middle name - we had chosen Carolyn long before as it is Justin's mom's middle name and we wanted to honor her. She has been and is an amazing example of selflessness, service, righteousness and love. What more could we ask for our daughter than to hopefully one day encompass all of those same qualities?

We are so grateful to our Heavenly Father for the safe arrival of our little Evangeline Carolyn to our family. Already her sweet spirit is felt throughout our home teaching her brothers and sister more about compassion and love than they already knew and it makes my heart full when they ask to take turns holding her and when they give thanks for her in their prayers. We are truly blessed!

Stuck in triage. We passed the time by watching Diners, Drive-In's and Dives. Torture when I wasn't allowed anything to eat! Luckily, Justin snuck me some pretzels when the nurse was out of the room.