Hellobee

by Maddy of Somewhere Splendid

This isn’t my typical post, but today I get to share with you one of the best days of my life. On Saturday, March 10, my husband Devon and I welcomed our first child – our daughter Aurora (we call her Rory for short). She was born at 7:49 in the evening and came in at 21 inches and 7 pounds, 2 ounces. Here’s the story of how our little one entered the world:

At 37 weeks, I had my first pelvic check. I go to a group where there are about ten different doctors, and they encourage you to see each one at least once since there’s no guarantee a particular doctor will be on call the day you deliver. The doctor on this day told me I was not dilated at all, but she was very concerned about the size of my pelvis, and told me to prepare for an almost certain C-section. Now, I was open to delivering any way that was safest for my daughter, but I’ll be honest and say it had me reeling that suddenly it seemed as though a natural birth was off the table. My husband and I discussed everything thoroughly, and decided to get a second opinion the next week since we were seeing another doctor at the practice. If she agreed, we were going to ask to schedule the C-section rather than wait until labor.

At 38 weeks, I had a fluid leak scare. It turned out not to be amniotic fluid (and it wasn’t urine either – we still don’t know what the leak was). But as a result, I finished up the week at work and went on an early maternity leave because I was at work when it happened, and we realized going into real labor at work would be too much on both my husband and myself. At our appointment, the doctor we saw agreed that my pelvis was small, but she felt that there was a greater chance that I would be capable of a vaginal delivery since my baby was on track to only be around 7 pounds. If the baby was much larger, she could see it being a complication, but she recommended I sit tight and not schedule the surgery.

Around that time, I started becoming really uncomfortable. On my days off (since I was now on maternity leave), my husband, who was working from home so he could be with me in case I went into labor, would take me to the Mall of America and other local shopping centers so we could walk around for hours. We were definitely initially doing it to “walk her out,” but I found that the extensive walking was actually helping to reduce some of the pressure on my pelvis, or at least make it more tolerable.

Our first walk was halfway through week 38, and the next day I started getting contractions. They weren’t Braxton Hicks contractions, which I had been feeling since week 36; they were true contractions that occurred from 2 am until I went to bed at 10pm (and maybe went on longer), and were 20 minutes apart and 30 to 40 seconds each, but they didn’t progress. Frustrated, I called my practice and the doctor on call let me know that what I was experiencing was called prodromal labor, also called false labor. I knew this could happen with Braxton Hicks, but I didn’t know it could happen with real contractions too! These contractions were never going to progress to real labor if they had been at the same interval for as long as they had been. It was likely that I may experience these contractions for up to a week before I went into actual labor.

After the call, I went to explain the situation to my husband, and I couldn’t even start talking without crying. I was uncomfortable from being so pregnant, and then even more uncomfortable because of the contractions, so the idea of having to deal with this false labor for another full week was utterly overwhelming. Fortunately, it was the only full day I spent contracting; the rest of the week, the contractions would appear in two to three hour spurts and then fade away.

At my 39 week appointment, I had apparently made no progress. I had been 1cm dilated for two weeks, and the contractions from the false labor had really done nothing except to efface me slightly. The doctor was pretty convinced I’d go over my due date and told me to set up a 40 week appointment if I hadn’t already. I was pretty “ready” at that point and had hoped the false labor would have helped me along, so I walked out pretty bummed out. For the next few days, my husband and I continued our shopping center walks, and on Friday of that week (39w 2d), we went back to the Mall of America to get lunch and do laps. We came home and had a quiet evening.

At 2am on Saturday morning (39w 3d), I woke up to more contractions. These felt more intense than the ones I had been feeling during prodromal labor, but I didn’t want to let myself down with another false alarm. I quietly walked into our home office without waking my husband and started timing the contractions. When I realized they were coming in 7 to 8 minutes apart, I instinctively knew that it was “go” time, but I didn’t want to alarm Devon. I woke him up, and explained the situation. We started measuring the contractions together, and within an hour they were at 4 to 5 minutes apart. We called my practice’s after hours line, and the on call doctor returned my call and gave me the green light to go to the hospital. At that point, we called my parents (so they could board a plane from New York as soon as possible) and my in-laws (so they could stay updated, too!), and packed up everything so we could be on our way!

Stay tuned for part two!