Samuel's Birth Story

Get ready for the long story of Samuel's birth! Such a long labor deserves a long story, I guess!

I'll start the story of Samuel's birth with our due date, which was Monday, August 17. That day came and went and we just continued to wait. 

We had an appointment on Tuesday the 18th, where I was checked to see how far along I was (I was 1 cm dilated - which is what I had been for the past month) and had a Non-Stress Test done to be sure baby was doing alright in my belly still. Everything looked good during the 20 minutes I was monitored, so we were just told to keep waiting, but the last major thing we did during our appointment was set an induction date, as my doctor said she wanted to get things going by the 41st week. We set our induction date for Thursday the 27th, when I would be 41 weeks 4 days, but my doctor was pretty optimistic that things would get going on their own before then.

I spent the next days as I had the past few weeks, trying to get things moving. I sat on a birth ball at night, stretched some, went on walks, etc. I'm not sure if any of it helped or did anything other than just tire me out, though. My body was pretty tired of being pregnant by that point!

I posted this picture below on Wednesday night, the 19th, on the August Birth Club group I am a part of on Facebook as a part of what I was hoping would be my last Hump Day Bump Day. (The picture on the left was taken at 38 weeks and the one on the right was exactly 2 weeks later when I was 40 weeks. It really shows how I got even bigger in those 2 weeks and even dropped a little, I think.) When I took these, I NEVER would have shared it with anyone else EVER, but now that I know there was an almost 12 pound baby in the belly, I am pretty proud of my body and what it could do!! So here's my 3 days-before-baby picture!! It seems like forever ago when I was so tired of lugging that big belly around!

38 weeks and 40 weeks

Thursday morning, the 20th, I woke up around 4:45 a.m. and didn't feel well. I was having slight cramping and my back hurt a little. I had some breakfast and then slept on the couch until I needed to get up to get ready for work. I thought about not going to work since I wasn't feeling well and really didn't want to think about putting real clothes on, but decided to just tough it out as I had some meetings and things to go to. I ended up going to work just until about noon and then decided to go home and rest because I still wasn't feeling any better. I stopped at Panera on my way home for some broccoli and cheese soup (because that's really all that sounded good) and then went home and napped for a few hours. Oatmeal was the food of choice for supper and then I just rested the rest of the evening until it was time to go to bed.

We got in bed around 10:45 or so but I never really slept. I kept thinking I was feeling very mild contractions but I wasn't quite sure if that's what they were. I spent the next few hours laying in bed and going back and forth to the bathroom. I tried to time a few 'contractions' but, from what I could tell, they were something like 1 and a half to 5 minutes long and 7 to 10 minutes apart. I just assumed that meant they weren't real contractions since they were so random and it might be something that I possibly have to deal with for a few days before it turns into real contractions. 

We had a doctor appointment scheduled for 9:40 on Friday morning, the 21st, and around 1:00 a.m. I remember thinking to myself that I only had to make it through 8 or so more hours of this uncomfortableness until I could go in and they could tell me if what I was feeling was anything productive.

A little before 1:30 a.m. I had just gotten back in bed after one of the many trips to the bathroom and Trent woke up (he had been sleeping through all the previous times) and asked me how I was doing. I told him I hadn't really slept and thought I could possibly be having contractions or something. I rolled over onto my side and felt a sharper than normal pain in my abdomen that lasted a second or two and then the pain released and then I could feel liquid start coming out. I told Trent I thought my water just broke and to get a towel. I tried not to move until he got back with a towel and then when I stood up out of bed, the water really gushed out. It was totally a strange feeling. 

Soon after that, I called the doctor. She said we should make our way in to the hospital, so we went around gathering the bags we had packed and the few things we couldn't pack until it was time to go and loaded up the car. At this point, I was super confident that our baby's birthday would be August 21st (since there was 22 hours left in the day and all)... Oh Silly Kendra!!

I made the mistake of thinking that when my water broke, that all the water that was going to come out was already out, but when we got to the stoplight where you turn in to the hospital, it was like my water broke all over again. All over my pants and the seat of the car... Real lovely. So there I was, standing in the ER entrance feeling like I had just gotten done swimming with pants on... I was sure I had lost 5 pounds of just water by that point :)

They came down from labor and delivery to get me. They asked if I could walk up there and I said yes but then when I told them my pants were soaking wet, they got me a wheel chair. The walking would have been good, but I'm sure I would have been a safety hazard with the trail of water I would have left behind!

It was about 2:30 a.m. when we got up to our labor and delivery room. They hooked up to the monitors so they could do their initial checks to see how baby and I were doing. I think it was probably about an hour that I laid there while we did different paperwork stuff and gave them information they needed, etc. They checked me to see how far along I was and I was now at 3 cm at that point. This is also when we called our parents to let them know we were at the hospital and were having a baby! Soon after we talked to them, they all headed towards Omaha as well.

When all the checking and administrative stuff was over, we were set free to do what we wanted until they wanted me back to be monitored again. I want to say it was about once an hour that I had to be back to check in baby's heartbeat and my contractions and blood pressure, etc. We mostly just walked the halls in those first hours. Trent kept reminding me to walk like I meant it! Fairly early on, it seemed, I would have to stop during contractions and wait for them to pass. I attempted to squat or stretch through them, but I probably didn't do that enough! After a few hours of walking the halls, my feet started hurting, so we spent some time in the room sitting on the birth ball and hanging out around our room trying to make some progress there. 

They really make sure all the moms labor in style, don't you think! :)

All this time, I was having back pain with my contractions. I wasn't convinced at first that it was back labor because I knew from the class we took that back pain was common at the beginning of labor, but that pain never went away. I tried laboring on all fours to get baby to turn and take the pressure off by back and we also tried counter pressure, the hip squeeze, etc. but nothing really seemed to help. The most it did was make it so that it didn't hurt across my whole back but only on the right side. Every time I got onto all fours to try to get him to turn, it would bring on a contraction that would hurt quite badly, so as the day went on, it took some convincing for me to even want to try it again. I also ended up with bruises on my lower back from all the counter pressure that Trent did throughout the day that hurt even in the days after labor was over.

After I was dilated past 5 or 6 centimeters, I got into the jacuzzi tub for a while. It did help things feel a little better for a while, but it couldn't take away the back pain completely.

I tried to stay focused all the time on relaxing my body and allowing my body to open and work with my baby to get him out, but I'm not sure I was always successful, especially after I had been at it for so long. It seemed that any big movement I made would bring on a really uncomfortable contraction - mostly very uncomfortable in my back. So whether I was trying to lay on my side, get on to all fours, sit on the toilet, get in or out of the jacuzzi, get out of bed, etc., I really tried to move as slowly and gingerly as possible to try to keep the contraction from starting, but it would always come - and it was NOT fun. I also did make a lot of noises during labor (the kind of ones we all smirked at in the birth videos from class because they sounded so ridiculous). I moaned and hummed and groaned quite a bit. Trent told me after the fact that he wanted to laugh at me a few times because of the noises I was making, but I really didn't care one ounce in the moment. I just wanted something to help take the discomfort away and for it all to be over! :) 

After I had been at 8 cm for quite a while and got in the tub again, I really started to worry about being able to get the baby out. I was hitting my breaking point and was starting to break down during some of the contractions and really just wanted to cry. I started to think about getting an epidural to help make it through, but didn't want to be one of "those people" that gave up and gave in. (Honestly, I did have thoughts like "Just cut me open and get this baby out" but I never said that out loud because I knew I really didn't want that!)

It was about 6:30 p.m. or so now when I got back out of the tub to get checked again and my Dr. stopped by to chat. She then brought up the fact that she thought I should get an epidural to help me relax so I could hopefully progress more since I had been at it about 17 hours by this point and had been at 8 cm for the last 6 hours. I agreed to the epidural and it made me feel a little better that someone else brought it up and thought it would be necessary.

I had to work through a few more contractions as we waited for the IV fluids to get into my body and for the anesthesiologist to come. I was not looking forward to the whole epidural process, as I really dislike needles and the thought of them putting things into my spine really freaked me out. Thankfully, the anesthesiologist was very nice and very good at his job and I really didn't feel much at all - just a little bit of a strange feeling - like water dripping down the lower part of my spine when he got it in there. I definitely made sure to sit very still so I didn't mess him up at all!

It took about 3 contractions (15 minutesish) for the epidural to kick in. I was very surprised by the fact that I could still feel and move my legs the entire time. It was definitely not what I had thought it would be like... By 7:45, I was definitely able to relax a lot more and Trent and I had a chance to nap and rest for a few hours (Trent said I was snoring at one point while I was sleeping) which was very welcomed since we had both only slept a few hours out of the last 36 at that point. 

When they did the epidural, they also started pitocin to try and get my contractions to become shorter, closer together, and more consistent. We started with a really low dose and then increased it as needed after seeing there if there was any progress or change in my contractions. Over the next 4 hours, we had to keep upping the pitocin because my contractions never did get any closer together (they were still about 2 minutes long and 5ish minutes apart even with the pitocin - that's pretty long and far apart for contractions to be at the point of labor that I was at). Luckily, though, even with those kind of contractions, I was making progress.

Around 11:30, a different doctor (not my own) came in and checked me and said that I was complete. My nurse called to tell my doctor the news and she said she'd come in to see us. When she got to our room she told us that she was just about to head our way anyway and have "a talk" - meaning she was going to suggest that we go ahead and do a C section since it was taking so long and I was getting dangerously close to the dreaded 24 hour deadline that doctors place on delivering after your water breaks.

I am SO happy with the timing of the way things went because I know I would have been so crushed to hear her say that she wanted me to have a C section. I am not sure if we would have gone along with it or not, but I'm glad we didn't have to make that decision. The fact that I did become fully dilated and the fact that the baby did come vaginally is just proof that there wasn't a reason to do a C section (even though it was hard work and it did hurt to get him out!)

So, after all that, I finally started to push around midnight. My labor experience was now into its third day! I was happy to hear that the baby was fairly low in my pelvis by that point when I was getting ready to push. That made me hopeful that it would make the pushing a little easier... To start, they put the squat bar on the bed and I started pushing by leaning back a little and pulling on a sheet that was wrapped around the squat bar. We did that through two contractions before we tried something different because that didn't seem to be very productive. Next, a nurse and Trent each had one of my legs while I pushed against them and focused on pushing the baby down and out (just like you see on the movies). I would push at least three times during each contraction as they counted to ten. Eventually I started pushing more times each contraction since mine were so long.

After a while, I started getting cramps in my thighs from holding my legs up so we switched to pushing on all fours. It was nice to give my legs a rest but I wasn't as good at pushing that way. Eventually, when I moved back to pushing on my back, they asked me if I wanted to get the mirror out so I could see what was going on 'down there' as I was pushing. I had always said that there'd be absolutely no way I wanted to see what was going on down there as I was pushing, but they convinced me to set it out by saying it can be quite the motivator. I have to say they were right - it did motivate me to push even harder when I could see our baby's head crowning as I was pushing.

As we were getting towards the end, it was hurting pretty bad to wait between contractions to push again. I remember, after the second to last contraction, being very exhausted and wanting to cry and telling Trent that I really wanted that one to be the end of it! I was starting to feel like he was never going to come out! With the final contraction that got our baby out I think I must have pushed 5 or 6 times in a row - even after the contraction was over. I just wanted that baby out and I didn't want to wait any more!

Finally, at 1:57 a.m. on Saturday, he was born weighing in at 11 lb 11 oz! (Our Dr. said he was a record baby for her) I didn't see him actually come out in the mirror - I must have had my eyes closed or my head back or something. I was just filled with a feeling of relief and happiness (and pain) at that moment. I remember everyone in the room saying he was out and Trent telling me he was a boy (I wasn't surprised at all - I knew it!) and, after a few seconds, them handing him to me - he was so big! The feeling of his skin on mine, the sound of him crying, seeing how excited Trent was, and the relief of that all being over was pretty amazing (I have tears in my eyes just thinking about it).

Our son, Samuel Davey Fredericksen!!

We did skin to skin for a while and I also breastfed for a bit while I delivered the placenta and the doctor stitched me up. The stitching and the kneading of my abdomen wasn't my favorite thing, but I at least had a baby to be distracted by at that point. They did take Samuel from me after a little while to look at him because he sounded kind of raspy, but then they brought him back to me again to hold and continue skin to skin after they determined he was alright. I ordered food (chicken noodle soup and a cheese sandwich!) while I was holding him and it came and I ate it after they took Samuel to the other side of the room to start doing what they needed to do as far as tests and checking him.

When they were doing what they needed to do, Trent went to go get our parents. We had called them at about 3 a.m. on Friday and they all headed to Omaha right away and had been at the hospital since 6 a.m. waiting for Samuel to arrive. It was now about 3:30 a.m. on Saturday, so they put in quite a day as well! It was so fun to have them there to meet him so soon after he had arrived!

Grandparents getting their first glimpse of Samuel!

Overall, it was the best but the most challenging experience of my life. I have looked back at the experience in the days after and I think 1) I NEVER want to do that again (nor do I think I could do that again) and 2) That was the most amazing thing and I can't wait to experience it again. (I do think that I would have a slightly different view on the day if he had not been almost 12 lbs, though.) It is such an awesome feeling to be there in the labor and delivery room and know that you're there to have a baby. It just feels so special and I would love to feel that again. (I'm not going to get too far ahead of myself, though, I've gotta recover from this one first!)

In the end, despite the challenges, the whole thing was perfect because Samuel is here and he's healthy and perfect!! 

We are so in love!!
Our family of three!

A few thoughts about how it all went and my epidural:
Things definitely didn't go as planned - I had planned to have a natural labor with no drugs and definitely didn't plan to be in labor for over 24 hours. Of course, I was aware of possibly needing to change that plan if things went wrong for some reason or if I or our baby was in danger, but I was 100% optimistic about being able to do it without any pain medication and knew that I was confident and stubborn enough to go through with it. 
But then, 18 hours in, I did choose to change the plan. I was a little sad about things not going according to plan and "giving in" but that sadness went away within about 5 minutes of making the decision to get an epidural. I was just so tired and spent!
The epidural was nothing like I had thought it would be like. It didn't hurt to get it, I was always able to feel and move my legs while I had it, and I really didn't notice any affect it had on Samuel right after he was born (though I do realize I don't have another newly born baby to compare him to). One of the big reasons that I didn't want to get one was because I wanted to be able to get up and move around during labor to help my body progress and get the baby in the right position and I wanted to be able to do the same again right after he was born. Neither of those concerns ended up being an issue. Because my labor was so long, I had 18 hours of being able to move around and help work with him to get him out of me, so being confined to a bed because of the epidural wasn't an issue. I think he was just big enough and caused enough pain in my back that I wasn't able to relax anymore and let the contractions work. After I got the epidural, I needed to just sleep and rest anyway, so I was thankfully just able to lay there and let my body do it's own work and didn't need to be moving around. I was also able to successfully change positions to push when I had the epidural (something I also didn't think I'd be able to do), so that wasn't a problem either. And, after labor, I didn't want to get up and walk around anyway, so who cares if I couldn't!! The next morning (which really was only a few hours after we got to the Mother/Baby room), when we went to the nursery to see Samuel where he was getting some tests done, I had to be pushed in a wheel chair because I about passed out when I tried to walk. I don't really think that was epidural related, though, as I think it was just my body being super exhausted after a super long day! (And being pushed in a wheel chair isn't really a bad thing haha) And, lastly, I'm just glad I had the epidural because I don't want to even think about how much more it would have hurt to push out my big baby without it being numbed a little! Oh, and the stitching up afterwards... I don't even want to think about that either!

I know that not all experiences with epidurals were as pleasant as mine and I definitely think that they can mess up the natural process that your body is meant to do and should not always be used like they are in America currently, but I do think that there is a very good place for them. I am fairly confident that getting the epidural saved me from being forced to or choosing to have a C section because I don't think that I could have relaxed enough to get to the point to be able to push without it. If there is a next time, I don't necessarily think that I'll go into it with the mindset that I will get an epidural, but I definitely have changed my thoughts about them and am thankful that I had that option.