grace olivia: a birth story

 Grace Olivia Johnson

 Born Monday, November 18, 2013

 8 lbs. 2 oz. and 20.5 in.

We are so happy to welcome our little Grace into the family. Stella loves her so much, and so far she hasn't shown any jealousy for attention. The past couple weeks have been pretty crazy as we have adjusted to having two kids. We knew it would be crazy, so that has helped with expectations, but caring for a newborn while keeping an eye on a precocious toddler and healing from labor and delivery has been pretty challenging. Grace wakes up three or four times a night, and has a "witching hour" usually at around 10 or 11 p.m. We have kept her in a bassinet in our room at night, but last night we tried putting the bassinet in the basement, and I slept on the couch down here. She woke up the same number of times, but we didn't have to worry about her cries waking up Stella, and at least one of us got an uninterrupted night of rest. Brett is still working long hours, which is hard, but we're hoping things get better in the next few months.

Let's rewind a couple weeks ago to November 18. I was four days past my due date, and very ready to have the baby! I had an OB appointment scheduled for 3 p.m., and Brett accompanied me since we knew it was the last appointment, and that they would probably bring up induction, and we would need to make a decision. I really, really wanted to go into labor on my own as opposed to being induced like I was with Stella. Labor with her was so slow, and I was in the hospital an extra day to get things going. By the 18th, I was so incredibly uncomfortable, and I was hobbling around on a painful foot (metatarsal pain), and could barely walk due to the baby's head being so low. I dropped Stella off at my mom's before the appointment and headed over to the clinic. When she checked me, I was 3+ centimeters, and 90% effaced. She was surprised I hadn't gone into labor yet. She said that my cervix was engaged and ready to go, so she did another membrane sweep. We scheduled an induction for that Friday in case I hadn't gone into labor by then. Thursday would've been 41 weeks.

When she looked up to see when the earliest induction availability was, and told me not until Friday (remember this was a Monday), every inch of my being wanted to scream. FIVE DAYS of waiting??? When she left the room, I just looked at Brett and wanted to bawl. He kept saying that maybe I would go into labor sooner than I thought, and to just hang in there.

Brett went back to work, and I went back to my mom's to pick up Stella. I sat and visited with my mom for awhile when I started feeling "off" and really crampy. I started getting really bad back pain, and then the contractions started. I kept saying, "It's probably nothing. It's probably nothing." When they started coming at regular intervals, my mom suggested we start tracking how far apart they were, and I also called Brett to tell him he might want to come home. The contractions were getting more painful, and I didn't think I'd be able to drive home, so Mom got Stella's little backpack together, put Stella in the car, and drove us back to my place. In the car, I asked my mom if she thought I'd have a Heidi baby or a Hans baby. I have two cousins, who are siblings one year apart, whose birthdays are the 18th (Heidi) and 19th (Hans). My mom enthusiastically answered, "I think it's going to be a Heidi baby!" In between contractions, I packed some things for Stella to spend the night at my parents' house.

Also during this time, my mom asked for some scratch paper and a pen to write down the contraction times (up until this point, she had just made a mental note about their length). I was so out of it, I didn't even know how to answer where pen and paper were, so my mom grabbed a piece of junk mail and found a pen somehow. Haha!

So far God was answering two of my prayers: that I would go into labor on my own, and that we would have the logistics of Stella getting to my parents at a reasonable hour of the day with plenty of time to get ready for the hospital. When Brett got home, we said goodbye to Stella, and my mom left with her. 

I was still being all "it's probably nothing" because I wanted to prepare myself that this could be false labor. When the contractions got progressively painful and close together, Brett called a labor and delivery nurse at the hospital to ask a few questions and she said that when I had experienced contractions that were five minutes apart, one minute in duration, and for at least one hour then we should come in. Brett ate some dinner, and we went downstairs to watch tv. I felt like watching something funny to get my mind off of things, so we watched Seinfeld. The contractions were getting more and more painful. I would signal to Brett when one was starting, and he would time it on his phone, and write it down. Eventually I found myself doubled over in pain, lying on the floor when a contraction hit. We turned off the tv and went upstairs. I tried lying on the bed, but nothing was easing the pain. I told Brett, "I do not want to have this baby in the car!" He called the nurse again, and she said to come in. I threw some last-minute things into the hospital bag, and we headed over to Methodist Hospital. Brett was driving like a race car driver. Having contractions in the car is NOT fun. I would hold onto the inside door handle for dear life as I went through it. Since Brett couldn't write down the contractions, he would tell me what time it started, and I would quickly write it before the next one started. 

Once we got to the hospital, Brett wanted to drop me off at the door, and to start walking toward the check-in place, and I said, "I CAN'T WALK ON MY OWN THAT FAR!" Luckily we found a good parking spot, and I leaned on him to walk in, and he had me sit in a wheelchair, and then he was pushing me down this super long hall as he was running. LOL! I felt so embarrassed for some reason when we got in the elevator, and people were staring at me knowing I was in labor. When we got to triage, they said I was 5-6 centimeters, and baby was bearing down, so they admitted me. What a relief to know THIS WAS IT! One of the nurses was trying to get an IV hooked into me, but she couldn't get a vein twice, so I had massive bruising from that. Finally they got me checked in, an IV line ready in my hand, and then wheeled me into a labor and delivery room. The contractions were so painful - pain that I have never experienced before (didn't feel contractions with Stella because I was already in the hospital and had pain meds before my labor really kicked into gear). I would grip Brett's hand and squeeze it until I got over the peak. The nurse was coaching me how to breathe through it because I was holding my breath and she didn't want me to faint or start throwing up. Seriously, it is one of the hardest things to breathe through a contraction, but I finally started to get the hang of it. I can't believe how much it helped to hold Brett's hand…later I discovered that I almost broke (not literally) his hand I was holding on so tightly! When we got to the room, the nurse was getting some things ready, and Brett was hanging up jackets and getting some stuff out of the hospital bag, and I felt a contraction coming on. I was trying to get Brett's attention because I didn't want to go through it by myself. Finally he noticed I was writhing in pain and, after that contraction, I told him not to walk away at any moment because I needed to hold onto his hand. I think he got my point! 

So we got to the hospital around 6:30; I got my epidural around 7:30 (I think). Once the epidural was in, I felt SO MUCH BETTER. I still felt considerable pressure during the peaks of the contractions, and I felt when the resident broke my water at 8 cm a little while later, so the nurse got an epidural pump, and I pressed that button a few times, you better believe it. Brett had gone to get something caffeinated downstairs because he was thinking labor was going to take a long time like it had with Stella. When he came back, he was surprised to find out that they had just broken my water, and that I had progressed to 8 cm. It wasn't long after that I had gotten to 10 cm. The nurse asked me if I wanted to push a few times. I did and the baby "bulged" or something (I can't remember her exact words). She immediately called the attending doctor, and before I knew it the attending doctor, the resident, and four or five nurses walked in. In just 5 or 6 pushes, Grace had entered the world. One of the nurses said, "Happy Birthday, Grace!" They immediately put her on my chest for skin-to-skin contact. Since she looked a little pale, they took her for a few minutes, and she got pink right away, and that's when Brett took the first pictures of her. I was still in shock that she had come so quickly because I had pushed over an hour with Stella. 

Brett told my mom and sister they could come if they wanted, and they definitely wanted, so they showed up at around midnight or later, and stayed for just a little bit. 

Brett spent the night with us and left early the next morning to pick up Stella. I'll pick up there in the next post since this is getting pretty long...

I took this picture the following morning: