Rosie’s Birth Story

Rosie was born on July 27, 2019 at 10:54am. She weighed 7 pounds 12 ounces and was 19.5 inches long. I wanted to share her birth story so that I will always remember one of the greatest days of my life.

Rosie’s birth story begins on July 26^th when I reached 39 weeks. I had my weekly appointment with my OB that morning. I was about 3 centimeters dilated and partially effaced. We decided to go ahead and do a membrane sweep, which is sort of a “natural induction” method. It doesn’t always work, but it can help bring on contractions. My appointment was at 9am that morning and after the appointment was done, I went to work.

At work, I was super uncomfortable. I had some cramping, spotting, and some digestion issues (had to leave a meeting very quickly to get to the bathroom!) At 2pm, I told my boss I needed to leave because I was so uncomfortable. Tony picked me up and we went to go get ice cream at Ben and Jerry’s. At Ben and Jerry’s, Tony noticed the back of my dress was wet and urged me to go to the bathroom to look. Sure enough, it looked like I peed my pants. I texted my doctor and sent her a photo of my dress and she said go to the hospital, you may be in early labor! We stopped at home to get ready and get our bags, and we were on the way to the hospital.

Once we got to the hospital, a nurse tested the fluid to see if it was amniotic fluid. She said most of the time when women come in with their “water broken” they actually peed themselves and get sent home. We felt discouraged in that moment thinking we may get sent home, but the nurse did the test and sure enough my water had broken!  I was so relieved they were not sending us home and that baby would be here within 24 hours (the risk of infection is high after your water breaks, so baby must come out within 24 hours!) It’s important that both mom and baby are closely monitored at this point. We were admitted to the hospital around 5pm on Friday. Tony told our family that baby was on the way, and my mom and his parents headed for the hospital.

Contractions are supposed to start 2 to 4 hours after your water breaks, but time was slowly ticking by and I still wasn’t having contractions. We talked to my OB on the phone and decided that if I was not in active labor by 9pm that we would start Pitocin, which is a drug that helps to get contractions started. At 9pm there really hadn’t been any progress so we decided to start the Pitocin. Tony and I did not want to use Pitocin initially, but Pitocin is what we felt was needed to get our baby out safely with the least risk of infection as possible.

I was in active labor from around 9pm until around 2am. When the nurse checked me, I had progressed to 4 centimeters dilated. She said that if I wanted the epidural, that my OB was comfortable with me getting one at this point. They warned me that it can take up to an hour for the anesthesiologist to get to your room (because they have other rooms to stop in first), so error on the side of asking for it too early. I felt like I could have labored a little longer but was worried how bad the pain would be after another hour, so I went ahead and requested the epidural.

The anesthesiologist came quicker than I thought (and I was relieved!) My pain was at a 5 out of 10 and I was ready for some relief and some sleep. The epidural was not very painful at all (in my opinion) and I barely even flinched when they did it. The numbing shot is more painful than the actual epidural, and after that you just feel pressure. Once the epidural starts working it is amazing!

The feeling of the epidural is very strange. You can move your lower half (sort of) but you can’t feel pain or temperature. The nurse helps you flip from side to side because you have such little control over your body. Your legs feel heavy and it feels weird to be touched.

In my opinion, the epidural was so worth it. I barely felt a thing from the time I was 4 centimeters until it was time to push! I still felt some nausea, got the chills, and had some other labor symptoms, but the pain was gone. If I ever started to feel pain, there was a button I could push to give myself a little more.

My OB came in around 9:30am on the 27th, checked my progress, and said it was time to push. Typically, there are two nurses at every delivery, one nurse to hold each leg during delivery. For some reason, we were short a nurse, so it was just me, Tony, one nurse, and my doctor. The nurse held one leg while Tony held the other. Tony had wanted to stay by my head the whole time, but with only one nurse, he really had to step in!

Every contraction I would push three times for 10 seconds each. I gave it everything I had, and it was hard work! The nurse setup a mirror down there so I could see what was happening with each push. I didn’t think I would want that, but it was so cool! It also helped for me to see what pushes were really working and try to push exactly like that every single time.

The doctor was in and out of the room during pushes. I think she had multiple patients delivering at the same time? I pushed for an hour and twenty minutes and it was exhausting. I could tell that this was a long time to be pushing, because I could see the concern on my doctor’s face about an hour in. I was just hoping and praying this wouldn’t end in a c-section.

I knew it was really time though, when my OB came back in the room (all scrubbed in) with her table and instruments ready. I kept pushing and I could see the baby’s head in the mirror! After a few more minutes of pushing, I literally couldn’t keep the baby in, I had to push it out! At 10:54am, our sweet baby was born!

I couldn’t tell from my position whether baby was a boy or a girl. The doctor asked Tony whether the baby was a boy or a girl, and Tony said, “It’s a girl!” The doctor also asked Tony if he wanted to cut the cord, and he did. He said it was much more difficult than he anticipated, like cutting a garden hose or something (lol!)

Right when she came out, they put her right on my chest for “golden hour,” which is the hour immediately following a baby’s birth when they do skin-to-skin with the mom. There is really nothing like holding your baby for the first time. I cried. I couldn’t believe our baby was finally here! It was the best feeling.

We had three girl names ready, but we had not decided on a name yet. After seeing her, Tony says to me, “What do you think about Rosie?” (one of the three names we had ready) and I said, “that’s exactly what I was thinking!” There was no other name for her than Rosie. It was perfect!

During “golden hour,” I was also delivering the placenta and getting stitches. I had second degree tearing, which is normal (especially for a first-time mom). My doctor spent A LOT of time stitching me up, and there was a lot of blood. This part sounds like it would be terrible, but you’re holding your baby at this point and you really don’t care!

While I was holding Rosie, Tony went out to the waiting room to yell “It’s a girl!” and tell our families all about sweet Rosie. This was a moment that Tony had been looking so forward to throughout our pregnancy. Our families were so excited and couldn’t wait to come meet her. Tony and I decided ahead of time not to have our families in the delivery room at all. We wanted that time to bond as a family.

After a few hours in our labor and delivery room, they brought us to our post-partum room where our families would meet us. We had about a dozen people in the room, all wanting to hold her and take photos. Everyone was so excited!

When everyone cleared out, we were able to really learn and absorb everything that we needed to. We learned about feeding, bathing, sleeping, etc. We also had to do some administrative tasks like her birth certificate. We had someone come into the room at least once every hour I’d say. Between the nurses, pediatrician, lactation consultants, nursing assistants, food delivery, etc., it is busy!

We spent about 48 hours in the postpartum room. Rosie and I were both doing great, but she had jaundice, which we found out at her 24-hour check-up. We were also having some trouble nursing. Between these two issues, we decided we wanted to stay longer in the hospital, and that was a good decision for us. On Monday July 29^th, we went home!

Birth is such a beautiful experience and it’s something that I will treasure forever. We are so in love with our sweet Rosie.

Photos were taken by Mackenzie Orth. She is such a patient and amazing photographer!