Little Bug was born in June, 2015 at 5:05 am. This is his flashback birth story.
The day I gave birth I was having a lot of contractions, but they weren’t particularly painful — just kind of uncomfortable. I was also losing large chunks of my plug throughout the day. I went about my business and cleaned and got the house all tidy. LeLe and I took a nap together on the couch and spent some time playing and being silly together. By the evening, the contractions were getting closer together and were starting to be a bit painful, but nothing too bad. At 7 pm, we started our bedtime routine for LeLe. I showered with her and when I got out of the shower, I felt a lot of discharge come out. I wiped it all up; it was quite a bit and it was a bit tinged. I thought it was a little weird, but figured it was just more plug coming out. Except it kept coming. After the fourth time of rushing into the bathroom to clean up, I told Mr. Cereal I thought it was maybe my water breaking, but I wasn’t sure.
8 : 0 0 P M
At around 8, Mr. Cereal left to go play a softball game and while he was gone, the contractions picked up. They were consistent and getting stronger. I decided to get LeLe’s bag packed and finished packing my bag. I texted Mr. Cereal at around 9:30 and told him that I thought we were going to have a baby today.
Mr. Cereal got home around 10 and we decided to time the contractions for another hour and watch some TV. About a half hour into timing I decided to call my parents and let them know that we were probably going to the hospital in the next few hours. I started timing again and after another hour, the contractions were about 3 to 4 minutes apart.
1 1 : 3 0 P M
I decided to call my doctor to see what she wanted me to do. She called me back about ten minutes later and said that I should try to stay home for another hour or two. She also let me know that she was only on until 7 am. I told her in would be there in 2 hours and I would be ready to deliver at 7. I was just joking, but this ended up being the actual case.
I labored at home for another hour and a half and the contractions were getting pretty bad. Mr. Cereal got in bed and slept for a while while I labored in the bed. I got in the shower at 1:45 am and worked through the contractions for a half hour.
2 : 1 5 A M – G O I N G T O T H E H O S P I T A L
I woke Mr. Cereal up after I got out and told him to get LeLe ready to go. I got all the rest of the bags into the car while hilariously leaning against the car in my pajamas and called my parents to have them meet us at the emergency room. The drive from the house to the emergency room took about 10 minutes, and it was pretty awful as I was having contractions every 2 minutes. Once we got to the emergency room, I got checked in and Mr. Cereal, LeLe, and I went upstairs to labor and delivery. I changed into the gown and the nurse hooked me up to the monitors. And this is when it got real.
3 : 0 0 A M
We checked in at the hospital at 3 am and my parents finally got there to pick up LeLe after about 10 minutes. I cried when I said goodbye to her because this was the first time she would be sleeping anywhere other than with me. I was stuck in bed by then because they wanted to monitor me and the baby. Laboring in bed was incredibly uncomfortable. I was gritting my teeth and making a weird animal noise. Mr. Cereal tried his hardest to help me, but I was in a tremendous amount of pain.
E P I D U R A L
The nurse checked me and I was at 4 cm. I told her I definitely wanted to get an epidural. She let me know that I was the first in line and then she tried to start an iv. Because I was group B strep positive, I needed to have antibiotics 4 hours prior to birth. It took four tries and two different nurses to get my iv started. Shortly after that the anesthesiologist arrived and started that process. It honestly seemed like it took forever, but it was actually about 15 minutes and then I finally felt some relief. I remembered to tell the anesthesiologist about my weird blood pressure drop when I got the epidural with LeLe, so he stayed for a little longer to make sure that nothing like that happened again.
P U S H I N G
The nurse decided to check me again once I got settled in the bed, and she kind of freaked out because I was completely effaced and at 10 cm. She could feel the baby’s head and he was ready to come out. So the anesthesiologist came back and turned off the epidural. The doctor showed up and they broke down the bed. I practiced for two pushes, then started pushing for real. I kid you not, I pushed about 9 times for less than 10 minutes and Little Bug was out.
T H E B I R T H
There was meconium in the water, but Little Bug cried as soon as he was out so I got to have immediate skin to skin with him. He was very alert and so perfect. I delivered the placenta about two minutes later. From the time we arrived at the hospital to delivery, only two hours had passed. Little Bug latched pretty immediately and we spent an hour nursing and cuddling him.
I didn’t tear at all and the labor was really fast, and I am very grateful for that. Little Bug had to stay in the hospital for an extra day because I did not get even one full dose of antibiotics in before he was delivered. LeLe came to the hospital later that morning to meet Little Bug, and it was one of the best moments of my life. She was so enamored by him and she just wanted to sit and hold him.
And now we are a family of four. I can’t believe it!
apricot / 448 posts
I’m not sure if I’m following the math correctly, were you able to have the group b strep antibiotics for the full 4 hours before birth? If not, were the doctors concerned about it? I’m guessing not since it sounds like your doctor encouraged you to labor for longer at home.
blogger / kiwi / 626 posts
@AggieDaze: I was not able to get the antibiotics in time. The doctors were concerned and Little Bug had to stay in the hospital for an extra day and then we had to go to an extra check up each week until 21 days after his birth, which is when the threat of strep B is over. It was pretty stressful.
wonderful cherry / 21504 posts
@Mrs. Cereal: @AggieDaze: I am curious about this too- if they knew you were GBS positive and it was your second baby (therefore likely to be faster) why wouldn’t they have had you come in earlier instead of laboring at home for another hour? I ask partly because they thought I was positive (turns out there was a mix up) and from when I arrived at the hospital to baby in arms it was less than four hours, but I too was told to labor at home as long as I could- which I’m really glad I did but if I had been positive after all would have been in the same boat.
blogger / kiwi / 626 posts
@Foodnerd81: I’m going to be brutally honest… I went to a practice of OB’s and midwives and it was often that I had to remind them of various issues during my pregnancies. I don’t think that they were necessarily neglectful, but I also don’t think that they were amazing. In their defense, nobody expected me to deliver that quickly, me included, and my body apparently does weird things once the epidural has been administered. I pretty immediately went from 4 to complete with the epidural, which meant pushing quickly afterwards. I really didn’t expect it to go that fast.
wonderful olive / 19353 posts
Holy cow that’s a fast delivery and you didn’t even tear! That’s awesome!!
guest
I was also GBS positive and my doctor’s told me to err on the side of caution and come in semi-early so that we’d be sure I’d have time for the antibiotics. Your doctor definitely should have done the same once your cx’s were only 3-4 min apart!
And I had that same crazy blood pressure drop with my epidural. DH is actually an anesthesiologist so I was getting worried by the looks he was exchanging with his coworker that did my epidural. But I honestly never even felt lightheaded! I believe he told me the next day that it went to 40ish/something!
apricot / 448 posts
@Foodnerd81: @Mrs. Cereal: all of this is so helpful to hear. I was just diagnosed positive and am slightly scared I’m going to run out of time. I live about 45 minutes from the hospital… And my first labor was a fairly quick one (arrived at hospital at 7 am around 5 cm dilated and had the baby by 4 pm). Today, at 37 weeks, I was told I’m already 3 cm dilated.
Did y’all easily know when you were in labor the second time around? I’m terrified to wait too long so planned to head to the hospital at the onset (vs laboring at home) but I’m having trouble remembering how long I knew I was in labor last time around…. I know I felt bad enough that I couldn’t really sleep but can’t remember when my contractions became consistent.
wonderful cherry / 21504 posts
@AggieDaze: I haven’t had my second yet- I have the GBS test in a few weeks so I’ll decide if I need to worry about t then I guess. With my first I knew I was in labor for a long time because I had a long early labor, but I do expect this one to be shorter mom mostly worried about figuring it care for the toddler before we leave for the hospital.
blogger / kiwi / 626 posts
@AggieDaze: I knew I was in labor around 7 pm when my water started leaking. Up until that point I was getting some contractions but that had been happening for a few weeks. I honestly didn’t think it would go that fast.