Hi everyone! I’m finally back after stepping away from posting for a few weeks, and for good reason! On August 29, 2018 we finally welcomed a baby boy, Rye Joseph, into our lives and here’s how it all went down!
Okay first, let’s back track a little. My due date was August 21st and honestly I never even thought, and neither did my doctors, that I would make it that far. You may remember me taking about being in bed rest during my pregnancy and that was all due to pre-term labor at 31 weeks and again at 32. I was given steroid shots to develop the baby’s lungs and placed on bedrest for the duration of the pregnancy. My doctors didn’t think I would be getting past 34 weeks. Honestly it was one of the most nerve wracking months of our lives. But, the baby clearly had other plans because 34 weeks came and went and so did 35, 36, 37 (after which they finally lifted bedrest), 38, 39, and then my due date hit at 40 weeks! Say what?!
So, when my due date passed, my husband an I were kind of left scratching our heads. This baby clearly had a mind of his/her own (we didn’t know gender through all of this) and now we were just left trying to patiently wait after mentally preparing ourselves to have a baby “any day” since 32 weeks! Not to mention, throughout this entire period, especially the last few weeks before the due date, I had been having a lot of contractions. Many times they were strong, consistently 2-5 minutes apart and lasting for several hours...but, never the REAL thing.
As 40 weeks progressed my doctors decided to schedule me for an induction at 41 weeks, with the hopes that I would go into labor on my own before that. Welp, another week passed and I was walking nonstop, bouncing on my yoga ball, looking up every trick in the book to get this baby moving on out, but nothing was really happening and I was starting to feel defeated and also very uncomfortable. I wanted to avoid an induction if possible so I just kept trying to tell myself and also pray that my body and the baby would get the memo to come before I needed to be induced.
August 28, The Induction Day - I was now at 41 weeks, overdue, and starting to get anxious about being induced. I woke up on that Tuesday morning and I think in an effort to keep my nerves at bay, I said to Scott, “How funny would it be if I went into labor today right before they induced me?” I was having some contractions consistently again, but I had been there, done that, bought a t-shirt, so I didn’t think much of it. We were scheduled to arrive at the hospital for the induction at 5 pm Tuesday evening, so we spent the morning packing the car, playing with our dog, and then we decided to havae one last good, big meal before days of hospital food (yuck!). We headed to Bar Taco in Port Chester and it was amazing! Then we went back home and eventually around 4 pm, made our way to the hospital.
When we arrived, it was like the baby flood gates had opened and everyone who was due in August decided to have a baby that day! We checked in and we were placed back out in the family waiting area along with two other couples because they didn’t have any rooms available right away. At this point it was becoming comical because it just added to the saga of what had been the past few months of the pregnancy. As we sat in the waiting area for about an hour, I was still having contractions but didn’t think much of them, and I had a sense of extreme calm and peace for the first time in months. Around 5:30 they finally told us they had a room ready and we headed into Labor & Delivery.
Once we were settled they started monitoring me and I was having contractions ranging from 3-5 minutes apart. The plan was to start cervadil around 7 pm and then early Wednesday morning start pitocin. For some reason I had a gut feeling that we wouldn’t need to go through all of that and that the baby would just get the memo it was time to come on out. So, when my doctor came in around 7 to check me and use the cervadil, she realized I was 3 cm and with the consistent contractions, she decided she wanted to just see what happened overnight without any intervention. At this point I was getting more excited and kept feeling more and more that the baby was going to come on his or her own.
The night went by and my contractions were getting stronger. I kept telling the night nurse that they were more and more intense but she said it wasn’t real labor because my contractions weren’t textbook consistently 2 minutes apart. So a few more hours went by, I couldn’t sleep at all...it was now about 2 am and I was in a fair amount of pain. I also had to pee about every 30 minutes to I kept waking up my poor hubby to help detach me fromhe monitors and IV. Around 3 am I finally called for the nurse to request an IV administered sleep aid/mild pain killer so I could sleep at least for a few hours, especially if the next day would involve being in labor for hours waiting for pitocin to work. Thankfully, my night nurse was on a break so I got a different nurse who came in and gave me the meds and finally solidified that I WAS actually in labor. I was able to sleep for a few hours and then woke up around 6 am to the nurse and my doctor in the room.
My doctor checked me and realized I was about 5.5 cm dialated and that I definitely didn’t need the pitocin. I was SO relieved and then within a matter of 5 minutes, she was breaking my water. My husband slept through this entire ordeal so when I woke him up around 7:00 am on Wednesday morning he was pretty surprised.
August 29th, Delivery Day - So I know I’ve already recapped part of this day, but anyways.... After they broke my water I started having really strong and painful contractions REALLY fast. They moved me into the delivery room where I would stay until the baby was born. By the time we got over to the laboring room, probably a matter of 10 minutes, I was in a lot of pain and decided I wanted the epidural. They immediately called the anesthesiologist and by 8 am she was in there getting the epidural ready. They kicked Scott out of the room (standard procedure for epidurals) and I told him to go get some coffee that it would probably be a while since I was only at 5 cm. She administered the epidural around 8:15 in between some crazy intense contractions. My nurse, now a new one who was amazing, just kept telling me I would feel so much better afterwards. By 8:25ish the epidural was done but I was still just having a ton of pain and contractions....like pain you couldn’t describe. My nurse knew something was off because I shouldn’t have such intense pain after an epidural. So, she decided to check me around 8:40 and to EVERYONE’s surprise I was 10 cm!
From that point forward everything was kind of a crazy blur. In between my crazy contractions, the failed epidural, and the chaos of going from 5 to 10 cm in under an hour, I didn’t know what to think. There were nurses flooding in, they were paging for the doctor over and over because I needed to push. It then suddenly dawned on me that Scott wasn’t in the room. I remember thinking to myself “oh shit” he’s going to miss this whole thing! I called him over and over and the nurses were running around the maternity floor trying to find him. They came back and told me they couldn’t find him and I was now just freaking out! This was all probably a matter of 10 minutes but it felt like 3 hours to me. Finally, he walked in, tired but in good spirits with his coffee. The nurse told him to put his coffee down and grab my right leg, that I was ready to push. I honestly wish I had a picture to capture his face in this moment, it was hysterical!
By this time it was 8:50 and I was ready to push. I was determined to keep pushing and pushing because I didn’t want to be pushing for hours. I know it’s common for first time moms to push for a long time and I decided that wasn’t going to be me! I only had to push for 20 minutes and halfway through the doctor decided I needed an episiotomy because the baby was so big and to avoid a 4th degree tear. We were a little surprised to hear her say the baby was big because I had been measuring “small” the entire pregnancy.
Well the doctor definitely knew her stuff because at 9:10 am, after a fast and furious few hours, we welcomed a baby boy, Rye Joseph Robinson, into this world and he was a whopping 8 lbs, 13 oz and 22 inches! We were so incredibly excited and Scott was especially thrilled it was a boy...so was my dad, after having 4 girls, that man was holding out hope for a grandson haha.
After giving birth everything else was pretty uneventful. We had your standard two day hospital stay and then headed home. Postpartum recovery is no joke and having a ton of stitches from the episiotomy didn’t help. But, I am happy to report that at three weeks postpartum everything is going really well from the breastfeeding to recovery to the sleeping...well sometimes we sleep...but either way we have loved every minute of it!!
Overall, I had a pretty great birth experience. I was bummed about the epidural because I felt like I got it for no reason considering it didn’t work at all and I could have just labored and pushed without it had I known I was already at 10 cm! But, it is what it is and the one silver lining is that now I know for next time I can definitely endure labor without it AND push out a pretty big baby! I am so happy I was able to go into labor on my own without any of the induction drugs. It’s kind of amazing what your body can do and that it knew what to do exactly at the right time.
Thank you all so much for following along with my entire pregnancy and for standing by during my three week hiatus! I’m working on a ton of new content some focused around the typical fashion and lifestyle blogging and the other half focusing on being a new mom! You have all been so amazingly supportive and I can’t wait to continue sharing all of these amazing life changes!
XoXo - Jamie
