I love to write, I always have since I was a little girl, but for some reason for this birth story I just watch the cursor blink, and don’t know where to begin. Birth stories are hard to digest, harder to put into writing and even though they replay in our heads over and over again for the rest of our lives, the details seem to slip away, overshadowed by so much emotion that we’ve attached to the day. The one word I continue to attach to Charlie is “easy.” Everything felt easier with my pregnancy and birth to Charlie VS mine to Hudson. To be honest, parts of my birth with Hudson scarred me, and part of postpartum with him did as well. So I had a lot of fear around labor, and getting to know a new baby. But Charlie was easy. So far I’ve been lucky.
I guess I should backtrack by saying the end of my pregnancy mentally was not easy. My body (same as my moms) cooks overdue babies. Hudson was 8 days late. I wasn’t expecting to give birth early this time around either, but the waiting game is such a challenge once you’re overdue. BUT, physically, I was in far less pain toward the end than I was during my first pregnancy. I had virtually no back pain, not that much pressure, and 5/7 nights I was sleeping through the night. Crazy, right? I think it’s because I carried him a little bit higher up. But nobody can prepare you for how broken you’ll feel by the end of your pregnancy – Every night I would dread how uncomfortable bedtime was, between heartburn and the weight of the baby as I slept on my side, but every morning I would dread waking up to another day being STILL PREGNANT. At my 39.5 week appointment I mentioned to my doctor that I preferred to be induced if I didn’t go into labor naturally past 40 weeks, and to my surprise he agreed with me that in my case, because Hudson was a big baby, and I was so late, he thought induction was the right way to go. So, my induction date was set for March 10th, and every day leading up to it we wondered if I would go into labor before that date, but I was not surprised when that didn’t happen. I had a doctors appointment the day before my induction date, and when the doctor checked me he told me I had progressed from 1cm dilated to 2cm dilated, which generally can mean nothing. After my appointment, Matt, Hudson my parents and I all went out to eat a “last dinner before baby” at our local diner. I ate a Thanksgiving wrap, and my dad and I shared a huge chocolate cake for dessert, which I knew wasn’t a great decision, but I also knew I wouldn’t be eating for at least a day during labor. That night, I went to bed with horrible heartburn, and could not fall asleep, which I chalked up to my horribly unhealthy dinner. I felt like I was having contractions, and I kept waking up all night, but I was having so many Braxton Hicks up until this point, that I just shook it off as nothing. We had to be up at 5:30AM for our induction in the morning, and I slept all of maybe 3 hours.
We drove to the labor and delivery, knowing that it could be a potentially long day of sitting around. The plan my doctor had in place was to give me a pill vaginally, that would dilate me and soften the cervix over the course of 4 hours. But to our surprise, when we were taken to the room we’d be delivering in, they checked me and I was already at 4cm dilated, which is wild, because I was in so much pain in labor with Hudson, and was only at 4cm when we got to the hospital. They told me that I was already having contractions, and that they didn’t even really need to “induce me” because my body was ready to go. This was at 7:00AM. We also found out at the check-in that because of Coronavirus, only grandparents could visit, and it had to be one at a time. This was at the very beginning of the virus outbreak in NY, and we feel so lucky we even were able to have my parents there.
So at 4cm, I felt ZERO pain. I could barely even tell I was contracting, it was so weird. They gave me an IV, and started me on pitocin, and the contractions sped up a bit and became a bit stronger. Within an hour or so they checked me again, and they said I had already progressed to 5/6cm, and that they were going to break my water to speed things up. With Hudson I already had an epidural when they broke my water, so I couldn’t feel it, and for some reason I was so scared! I think because I knew that once the water breaks, the contractions get so much worse. When they broke my water, it felt like a warm bath splashed out from inside, it was the weirdest sensation! Almost instantly I felt Charlie drop lower. I had to get up to pee, and walking around without a baby not in the amniotic sac is SO WEIRD. It definitely felt different to me, and the pressure intensified by a lot pretty quickly.
By this point, around 11AM, I was worried that my labor was going too quickly, and I would miss the chance to get an epidural. The nurse told me to wait it out until I was in a lot of pain, and within 30 minutes of my water breaking I hit that point. I couldn’t talk through contractions anymore, and when they happened I had to just close my eyes, and take deep breaths in. They came in and gave me an epidural, and my parents arrived to the hospital. Only 1 parent was allowed in at a time, so my dad chose to go first, only to realize he was the only one that could come in up until Charlie was born. It was a beautiful morning, and our delivery room had two big windows with tons of natural light pouring in. Once I had the epidural and was around 7cm, I laid there relaxing, not really feeling the contractions. A lot of my labor with Hudson felt like this… just laying there knowing I was having contractions, but not really feeling them too much. This time around, I really only had about one hour where I rested on the epidural, and that was it.
Matt got hungry, and walked downstairs to grab something to eat, and during that time a nurse came in and told me she was going to put a “peanut” between my legs to help the baby drop lower. It was LITERALLY a giant yellow peanut shaped thing, I was cracking up. They placed it between my thighs, and turned me on my side toward my dad. Matt came back in, and as we were all talking, I told them my pain level was suddenly way way worse. I kept feeling intense pressure, and asked the nurse for more epidural asap. I literally screamed at Matt to take the peanut out from between my thighs, and was writhing in pain. The pain was BAD. I was shaking, and the doctor came in to check me to make sure I could have more epidural, only to tell me I was at a 10 and ready to push. My dad left, and the doctors and nurses all came in, and set the room up for pushing.
You can imagine my face when I learned there would be no more epidural. Panic, sheer panic. With Hudson, I had just topped myself off with epidural right before I pushed, and I felt NOTHING, it was totally numb. I was shaking and begging the doctor for more epidural and sobbing. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so much fear in my entire life. But the silver lining was seeing the face of my doctor, and knowing that a familiar face was going to deliver my baby. With Hudson, I had a random doctor deliver me. I was sobbing with happiness, and fear, and amazement, and everything felt so much more clear during this labor than it did with Hudson, maybe because less meds were involved, or maybe because it was bright daylight and it all happened so fast. At 1:00PM I started to push. An amazing doula came in and was rubbing my leg, and telling me to breath in and count to four, and to picture myself on a playground chasing after Hudson. I kept thinking in my head that the doula was so random and sort of weird, but that she was helping me out so so much. I stopped shaking, and started to push with every fiber of my being, trying to breath away the pain. After pushing through two contractions, out came Charlie. Matt and I have both never cried together so much in our lives. It was an amazing moment, and they put him right on my chest. When Matt went to cut his chord, his little foot kicked Matt’s hand. He’s a mover and a shaker!
The hospital has this new system, where they let you have a full hour of skin-to-skin after the baby is born. They also don’t bathe the baby for an entire 24 hours, so the vernix can soak into their skin. It was so lovely, and as they stitched me up, and removed my placenta, Matt and I both just stared at our baby in awe. Once my doctors were all done taking care of me, my parents were able to come in and meet Charlie right away. They brought me a mango smoothie, and I felt such a high, holding Charlie and drinking a smoothie… until I felt SO dizzy and suddenly threw up the entire smoothie. haha. Mango might be ruined for me forever. After about an hour a nurse came in and weighed Charlie – 8 lbs 4 ounces, and measured his length which was 21 inches, the same as Hudson. The epidural hit my right leg in a weird way, so I laid there for an extra hour or so until I had a little bit of feeling come back in my leg. Then they wheeled me down to the room we were going to stay in at the Maternity part of the hospital.
So there you have it, the story of how our Charlie came into the world – after waiting and waiting, he entered the world quick and easily! My labor was from 7:30AM – 1PM! It felt so surreal to see ANOTHER baby come out of me, and to be in the hospital as new parents again. Now it’s been over two weeks, and we’re slowly wrapping our brains around doing it all over again, but we’re so in love with our new family member. I’ll be back sharing more soon! Thanks for reading!