Monday, September 14, 2015

Sadie JOY: Her Birth Story

Oh man, oh man, this girl...she lives up to her name already.  A true joy, she is. 

(Warning:  this is long and if reading isn't your jam, feel free to skip to the pics at the end of the post...she's super cute, after all ;)

This is the story of her birth.  Appropriate for the blog because I want to have all the kids' birth stories in one place, and although I haven't blogged in forever, it must be documented here ;)

Soooo, all our kids have been notoriously "late." (But really, what is a due date anyway!?  They mean nothing to us, haha).  Elise came at 40 weeks + 6 days, Nora came at 41 weeks + 1 day, and sweet Sadie came at 40 weeks + 5 days. 

The week leading up to Sadie's birth, I felt hardly anything.  Some Braxton Hicks here and there, but nothing that convinced me she was on her way.  Then on Thursday, things started picking up, albeit just a little bit.  By Friday I was hoping and thinking that maybe, just maybe, she'd come before the following Tuesday when I had two scheduled appointments with the midwife.  All day Friday was spent walking and walking and walking.  I. was. exhausted.  And ready to have a baby.

By Friday evening I was fairly certain contractions had started, though they were a good 17 to 19 minutes apart and quite manageable.  Having been induced twice before, it was all a big question to me whether or not this was the real thing. So I went to bed like normal, and slept decently until around 3 am Saturday morning.  By that point I was having contractions every 7 to 9 minutes, but it still wasn't very consistent.  There even seemed to be a couple 12 minute intervals in there, so I was thoroughly confused.  I got a shower and Jas woke up.  He got out of bed, showered, and started scrambling thinking it was, indeed, the real thing.  I wasn't convinced still, but turns out he was correct.  At 5 am I decided it was time to call the midwife.  I did so and her advice was "just be sure it's real labor and come on in." (What!? That's so not helpful right now, haha!? That's what I was thinking...). We called Jason's parents anyway and they headed over to watch the bigs.  

When they arrived my contractions were a (fairly consistent) 7 to 8 minutes apart, so we decided to go on in anyway (I needed to get an antibiotic during labor and since my two previous labors weren't terribly long I had been told to come in when contractions were around 7 minutes apart).  We jumped in the car and I had contractions on the way there, but they still were varying some, so I wasn't sure they would keep me at the hospital.  We pulled into the parking lot and I told Jas "let's just wait a little bit before we go in..."  Haha, I was crazy and disillusioned, I guess ;) 

We waited another 10 minutes or so, then decided it was worth it to go in anyway, whether or not they would send me home.  We checked in and I immediately threw up (which I've done every time in labor, so at this point I was starting to think things were progressing enough that they MAY keep me). 

They wheeled me up to labor and delivery and I confessed my concerns at being sent home.  A little wait and a check by the midwife later, it turns out I was actually 5 to 6 cm and I wasn't going anywhere until we had a baby!  All that was much to my relief.  

At this point I was getting all hooked up to monitors and IVs (this took three times to get in my vein and was possibly as painful as the contractions, ha!).  Contractions were definitely picking up and I was in some legit pain.  Jas was a great help and support and I would lean on him, sway, breath intentionally, all that good stuff with his encouragement (I opted for a pain medication-free birth, so was just trying to make it through!).  

I did request a relaxant at around 8 cms when I was starting to lose all my senses, but it turns out they forgot to order it until I was around 9 cms (!!??!??!!).  They gave me the relaxant, which lasted all of 20 minutes and doesn't help contractions much at all (just mainly makes you drowsy in between contractions), and then it was time to push.

Push I did (and I'll spare the nitty gritty here, most people know how this goes down ;) and our sweet Sadie Joy was born at 10:31 am on Saturday, August 22, 2015.  She weighed a whopping 9 lbs 2 oz!  I cried and J cried as she was placed on my chest for sweet snuggling post-birth.  All in all labor was about 16 hours long, active labor being about 4 hours long.  

We experienced the loss of two babies prior to getting pregnant with Sadie, so the gift of her life (and life in general) is not lost on us.  We were and are so thankful for her life (and for the lives of her sisters).  She's a great blessing to our family and we pray everyday she will radiate HIS joy in her life!  We love you, sweet Sadie girl.

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