Dream Birth After Traumatic Birth

My first baby girl was born on July 23rd at 38+1. And man was I terrified.

Backstory of my last birth:

My 3rd son was born in June 2018. He was unexpectedly large, 2 lbs heavier than my first 2 babies at 9lbs 6oz. He was born 2 1/2 hours after my water broke, 1 1/2 after contractions started. I went pain med free like I did with my second son (who’s labour and delivery was also 2 1/2 but very easy). He had shoulder dystocia it was so painful my body took over and pushed him out while I was not having a contraction... I ended up with a 3rd degree tear the freezing didn’t work so I felt every. Single. Stitch. There was no dr present and the whole thing was very out of control. He had a true knot in his cord and came out a dark gray colour. The nurse just kept saying how lucky of a baby he was. A few days later I ended up with an infection in my uterus from parts of my placenta being left in.... the whole thing was traumatic for me.

So my whole pregnancy has been leading up to this birth. I started having panic attacks at around 28 weeks because of fears from my last birth.

For the last month of this pregnancy my husband was working out of town, a 2 hour ferry ride or 15 minute plane ride away. It was causing me a lot of anxiety because if I were to go into labour in the middle of the night he wouldn’t make it. The first ferry was 5:15am and the first plane was 8:00am. I was scheduled to be induced on Friday July 31st (39+2) and had convinced my husband to come back that Monday.

On the morning of Wednesday the 22nd I was woken up by strong Braxton Hicks. They were coming every 10 minutes and then every 5 and then every 2 for around 2 hours. Not painful but uncomfortable. I would also get tightening everytime I stood up. But they eventually tapered off. I told my husband I thought I might go into labour that night. He didn’t think so so he stay at work.

On Thursday morning at 3 am I woke up and thought I may have peed my pants a tiny bit. Not enough to through my underwear but enough to notice. So I go to the bathroom, pee... think I finish peeing but still have fluid coming out. Change my underwear. Go get a drink of water and that’s when I knew my water had broke... it was a small trickle but it wasn’t going away.

That’s when panic sets in. I call my husband he’ll be on the 5:15 ferry... I just know he’s going to miss it. I have a feeling this labour is going to be even faster than my last and if it is... she’ll be here sometime after 5am.

My mom comes to get me, because I’m scared I’ll give birth on my way to the hospital... We get there at 4am. Still no contractions.

My dr doesn’t want to check me, doesn’t even want to look at me the wrong way in case my labour starts to pick up.

Because of my last labour I was very adamant about wanting an epidural. But the dr and nurses didn’t know when I should get one. They don’t want to wait until I have painful contractions because they’re worried it’ll be too late. So my nurse suggests having it placed, something about placing it for moms of twins before labour aswell. So we do that. Get a test dose and it works perfectly. But still no contractions.

Hours go by and I’m still not having contractions. And my husband finally shows up at 7:45! So my dr starts oxytocin. At this point I can’t believe my husband has made it, I haven’t gone into active labour and I have an epidural. It takes a few more hours and lots of oxytocin for my contractions to start. About an hour in they check me and I’m only a 3... and hour later I’m only a 5... I’ve been laying on my side and dr said she can feel baby’s head and that she’s not in the right position, her body is transverse so they have me sit up. Within 20 minutes I tell my nurse I’m feeling like I need to push... dr decides to check me and to her surprise I am fully dilated. They want to order bloodwork because they’re worried about hemorrhaging with it being my 4th baby. So I have about 8 contractions at 10cm waiting for labs. Finally they get them done and it’s time to push. But right before, I hear a baby in the next room have their first cry. It instantly makes me super emotional. I’m about to finally meet my baby girl. I have a little cry, and now it’s time to push. They set up stools on either side of me because of my history with shoulder dystocia... and about 5 other nurses come into the room.

My first push I can feel babies head, I can feel everything but the pain. They tell me to cough... babies head starts coming and my husband tells me baby has dark hair (I have dark hair, our 3 boys are blonde like my husband... I’ve always wanted a baby with dark hair) so I start to giggle because I’m sooo happy. Well I ended up giggling her head out. Everyone else is laughing too, apparently they’ve never had someone laugh their baby out. My dr tells me to do a small push for babies shoulders... I do and she literally shoots out of me. Most of my waters were behind her. She comes out absolutely covered in vernix, so much so my dr said she’d never seen a baby be born with so much! My husband said when baby came out my dr had to literally catch her, she shot out to the left and was super slippery from the vernix. I pushed for under 5 minutes.

This whole time I’ve had a smile on my face. In absolute bliss. Everything went completely opposite to what I was expecting. It was the most amazing birth I’ve ever had. My husband made it, I was in control. I finally had my daughter AND she had dark hair! I did end up with a slight 2nd degree tear because her shoulders came so fast but it literally feels like nothing.

My baby girl made her entrance on July 23rd at 12:48pm. Weighing 7lbs 6oz, 19 1/4 inches long.

Baby Summer Violet 💜