It's a GIRL: Fallon's Birth Story

Hello friends, it's been awhile! I'm so sorry it has taken me this long to post again but life has just been crazier than I imagined the past few weeks. When I last posted I was 38 weeks pregnant and experiencing prolonged prodromal labor. Today I have a beautiful baby

girl who is already over a week old. This post is as real and raw as they come and I decided to share the pictures that help tell the story. They were taken with iPhone cameras in the moment with no concern for the perfect shot. Most of them are completely unedited with no makeup and bad lighting. But they capture the joy, the heartbreak and the overwhelming love we felt that day. I'm warning you now, this kid had quite a dramatic entrance into the world so you're in for a long post.

Let's take it back to June 25th, the day I was matron of honor in Kristina's wedding. I started having contractions that felt different than Braxton Hicks about halfway into the day. We started timing them but they stopped once I sat down inside and cooled off. And then they came back with the start of the wedding and hung around through the reception. I was determined to give my speech and see the first dance before leaving, thinking we would be going to the hospital to have a baby. We went home and timed my contractions and called my doctor when we were sure they were 5 minutes apart, lasting for at least 1 minute for over 1 hour. But at the hospital I was told I was still just 2 centimeters dilated and to come back when the contractions were closer together. Sunday night we headed back to the hospital with contractions consistently 2-3 minutes apart. Yet again, I was told I was only 2 centimeters dilated and could not be admitted. The nurse said she thought I had some scar tissue, a minor complication that would prolong the first part of labor as it would take a lot more contractions to break it down before I could progress to active labor. I was given Ambien to help me sleep and give my body a break but the contractions just returned the following day. This continued to happen every single day. My contractions would start over again and progress to less than 5 minutes apart, hold steady for several hours and then taper off only to start over again the next day. 

The morning of 39 weeks I called my doctor because I was scheduled for a prenatal appointment that afternoon and still not in active labor. She advised I could be induced or come in for my visit and see if she could manually break up the scar tissue. Part of me wanted to go for the induction and finally get to meet my baby. But the other part of me wanted to avoid induction and hope I could still go into active labor on my own. So I went in for my appointment only to find out I did not have scar tissue and there didn't seem to be an obvious reason why I hadn't progressed to 3 centimeters. It was starting to look like just one of those things that sometimes happen and nobody knows why. We scheduled induction for the following Wednesday, July 6th but my doctor went ahead and stripped my membranes in hopes of helping things along.

Fast forward to Tuesday, July 5th. It started out just like every day since June 25th. I was having contractions throughout the day and by early evening they had progressed right to the point that they had been. But then as the night went on things started to feel different. I ignored it at first, thinking maybe it was all in my head and I was just nervous about my induction the following morning. Chris and I watched TV, I folded laundry and double checked the hospital bags. Then I tried to go to sleep but the contractions all of sudden seemed to be coming back to back and were getting very painful. I called my doctor and we headed back to the hospital. The pain in my lower back was becoming excruciating with each contraction and the drive seemed to take forever. We finally arrived a little after midnight and I was officially admitted and given my epidural shortly after 1AM. I told the anestesiologist that he was superman coming to save the day. And he totally was because I then slept on and off, only feeling the pressure of each contraction until my doctor arrived around 7:30 AM. She declared me "complete" but I didn't start pushing until about 9AM.

The delivery nurses were awesome and coached me on how to push, chatting with me between each contraction and helping to keep a positive vibe. Chris stood right by my side the whole time because neither of us wanted him to catch the action at the other end of the bed! As a first time mom it wasn't surprising that my pushing time was creeping over the hour mark, but after switching positions and ensuring me I was pushing correctly, we all started to wonder why baby wasn't moving much further down. When my doctor came there was still no indication anything was amiss as far as the monitors were showing. But when I finally started to make some actual progress I also started to feel my epidural wearing off. Anesthesia was called to come give me a small dose to finish pushing but before anyone came the shit hit the fan. 

Everything happened so quickly, it was a bit of a blur, but I remember most of what went down. All of a sudden baby's heart rate took a dive. My doctor had the nurses help me flip onto my back from my side and asked me if I thought I could push without a contraction. I saw the look on her face and even though I could feel EVERYTHING at that point, it didn't matter. I started pushing and I could feel the baby coming. When your doctor looks at you and says, "Mom, we gotta get the baby out now," you just give it all you have and worry about the pain later. The vacuum was used to speed things up and I could hear the nurses making calls for people to come to our room. I had no idea what was going on and when I saw my baby for the first time, I knew something was very wrong. Instead of being elated when my doctor held her up and said It's a GIRL, I was terrified. She was ghostly pale and when she was momentarily plopped onto my chest she wasn't crying. Before I could even ask why, there was a parade of people in our room and she was whisked away from me. Chris and I were frozen in fear, waiting to hear our baby girl make any kind of noise. The team was yelling out to us her weight and height and saying her heartbeat was fine but they were helping her breath. They had Chris take pictures of her, which I was too afraid to look at until today. As I lay there, helpless and doing my best not to break down in tears, my little girl was put into my arms for a quick picture and then taken away to the NICU with Chris in tow. 

The next hour and a half I don't even know what went through my mind. I was stuck in the delivery room to be stitched and cleaned up then monitored for hemorrhage. Thank God for cell phones because Chris was updating me from the NICU about the tests they were running. They were asking what her name was since we had no had time to give her one. I told Chris to pick between the 2 girl names we had decided on and Fallon Lynn it was. When I finally was able to go see my baby I was in a state of shock. Her face was covered with the breathing mask and she had tubes and wires everywhere. My heart was breaking in my chest. I was trying to understand what the pediatrician was saying but not much of it made sense. My little girl had the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck, came out sideways (shoulder up) AND swallowed meconium when she made her grand entrance. All this added up to an extremely difficult start to life and my baby was fighting to breath on her own. We were then hit with the news that she needed to be transported to the NICU at Children's Hospital as she would possibly need a treatment that our birth hospital was not equipped for. 

Our family members were able to come see Fallon and I was able to hold her until the transport team arrived. But here's when things start to turn around. The 3 person team was awesome and explained everything they were doing and why they were doing it. Her pre-transport exam showed that she already no longer needed any help breathing and her levels for other concerns were miraculously in normal range. Chris and my sister left to be at the hospital when she arrived and I was taken to a postpartum room for monitoring. My sister called me shortly after they got to the hospital to share the good news that Fallon's arrival exam was great, she would not need the treatment previously discussed and she was just going to be admitted as a precaution. Even though that allowed me a sign of relief, I couldn't stand not being with my baby. Typically I would have been kept for at least 12 hours post delivery at the birth hospital to make sure I was recovering well. But my amazing doctor made an exception and formally discharged me just 6 hours after Fallon was born. I had no complications from the birth and she understood I needed to be with my baby. I was running on adrenaline and barely feeling any pain so I got up and got dressed and got the hell out of there. We ended up staying in the NICU for 2 days but that experience is a separate post for another day.

 Wednesday, July 6th 2016 I was scheduled for induction at 39 weeks of pregnancy, 1 day before my due date, at 11AM. Instead, I ended up given birth to my beautiful baby girl Fallon Lynn at 10:50AM. She weighed 7 lbs 7 oz, was 21 inches long and laying on her left side. (This is very uncommon and was the culprit for my prolonged prodromal labor, My body spent a week and a half trying to flip her but she was out of room and stuck). It was one of the happiest and hardest days of my life. I don't want to remember the horror I felt on my baby's first day of life but one day I will be glad I wrote it down to share with her. I don't know why this happened or how my tiny little girl managed to bounce back so quickly. What I do know is that Chris and I are so thrilled to be her parents and are eternally grateful that today she is a perfectly healthy, normal baby. And if her birth story is any indication of her future, we are going to have a drama queen on our hands.