An Uncomplicated Life Blog: Otto's Birth Story

Monday, January 4, 2016

Otto's Birth Story

I love reading other people's birth stories on their blogs! I think once you become a mom, you're immediately interested to hear how everyone else gave birth. You can nod in agreement of learn something or think, "what the heck?!" to everyone's story. Actually, I liked birth stories before I even became a mom, so maybe it's just me and my love for babies. Regardless, here's how Otto's birth played out!

You read this post on how we had a trial run before the real thing happened, right? Every stupid pregnancy book will tell you that when the time has come to have your baby, "you'll know." I'm here to tell you that's complete crap, as evidenced by a second time mom having a trial run. You don't automatically know anything. Shut up pregnancy books. Anyway. Moving on.

A story of one little baby and his birth

It's 2:30am on Dec 18 and I wake up to my water breaking. I think. I wasn't really sure. There was no move-dramatic "gush" and and immediate shriek of, "OMG, my water broke!" just thought to myself, "That's weird" and went to the bathroom. Being 2:30 in the morning and only having contractions every 10 mins or so, I decide to go back to bed. No sense in being sent home from the hospital again, right?! At 4:30, I woke up from a light doze to Otto moving viciously in the womb. And then, I got my dramatic gush that confirmed my water had in fact broken.

I tell hubs what's going on and decide to take a shower. I speak to my OB and she says to head in to the hospital. I kid you not friends, I had to play navigator to my husband AGAIN. He still had no clue how to get to the hospital despite our trial run. Man has a negative sense of direction, I tell you what...

We get checked in and assigned to a nurse named Steve. He was hilarious. I was wearing black stretch pants with a cardigan and he was setting up my tests to confirm that my water had indeed broken. He says, "Awwww, see I already know your water broke! Women who come in in black stretch pants water's are always broken! They don't wanna ruin they nice pants!" Steve my friend, you were correct! And your sense of humor and jolliness at the end of your shift at 6am really brightened my day.

Henry was an emergency c section, and I knew I wanted to try a VBAC with Otto. Turns out that when you VBAC, you have to constantly be hooked up to monitors for the baby to make sure they're doing ok. So there I was at the hospital with broken water, only 3cm dilated and stuck in a hospital bed. Not my dream labor situation, but hell - WAY better than another c section! So we settled into our room and chilled.

He is the sweetest, calmest baby!

Between 6am and 11am, I hadn't dilated at all, despite my contractions getting much stronger. The nurses pulled out a breast pump for me to trigger even larger, more consistent contractions. The contractions came - the dilation did not. So 11 hours into labor, I was given pitocin. That stuff is NO JOKE. Within a half hour, my contractions went from painfully manageable to MISERABLE. I was sweating in pain, gripping the handles on the bed frame and moaning. So at 1pm, I called it quits with my natural childbirth plan and got an epidural. That was pretty much the best decision of my life.

After finally getting comfortable, I was able to nap a bit. At around 3:30, I could start to feel contractions again, so I look at my monitor to see if that was really what was happening. They were at the top of the charts for strength! The nurse came in and told me that there's a window of getting more medication before they can't give it to me anymore, so I opted for another dose. As I was waiting for the second "top off" on my epidural, I started to feel really ill. I chalked it up to the epidural, but something just felt off...

I got more meds and the contraction pains went away again. The nurse said she'd check my dilation again in an hour or so. "No... I think you're going to want to check me now" I told her. A resident waked in just then, and I told her I thought I needed to be checked. All she did was lift my blanket and said, "Well, I can see the head! He has hair!" Turns out the illness I was feeling was my "transition" and that pitocin got me dilated from a 3 to a 10 in about three hours!

We waited for my OB to arrive for an hour. Nurses monitored Otto and he was chillin nicely at my crown. I had a good dose of meds so I was chillin nicely waiting to push. It was all good! My OB finally arrived and it was time to push. See, I thought pushing was a constant process until you got the baby out. Oh no - you have to wait for each contraction to roll over you and push with the contraction. I put my hands on the top of my belly so I could feel when they came and could get to pushing. It took me 8 minutes to get Otto out, most of which was waiting for the contractions!

That was those yoga and barre abs I maintained throughout my pregnancy, and gave me the strength to get the job done! Just another reason why working out while pregnant is so important. Ok. PSA over.

Otto came out screaming at 5:08pm, weighing 6 pounds 9 oz and 20 inches long. Long and lean, just like mommy and daddy! I had him latched within 15 minutes, and he's been a great nurser ever since. I did manage to get a good tear, but it wasn't a big deal with the epidural. I'm SO happy with my decision to VBAC, and can tell you all with 100% certainty that a c section is SO MUCH WORSE than having a vaginal birth. Why women elect for those I don't know, but I hope I never have to have another. I was up and walking in a few hours with Otto, and driving my car 3 days later. VBACer for life over here!


27 comments:

  1. Aw, congrats on your new baby! He's adorable and I'm glad everything went well with your delivery. I work at a hospital and I know the OBs here give women the option to have a repeat c-section after their first. A lot of women go with it for simplicity. I've never given birth but it was interesting to read your perspective having gone through both! Hope you and little Otto have an awesome New Year!

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  2. I'm so glad you had a successful VBAC. I had my second little girl 6 months ago and hoped for a VBAC but after 25 hours in labor, very little dilation, and a few other concerns we decided on a c-section. I wanted so badly your VBAC experience but it wasn't in the cards for us. Thankfully we just ended up with a healthy baby girl, that's all I could've asked for. It's so nice though to hear stories like yours of post-c-section births though, still makes me think if a third is down the road for us maybe, just maybe that'll be our VBAC. Congratulations mama! Enjoy that sweet, new little baby!

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  3. This gives me so much hope. I had an emergency cesarean with my first bio son two years ago and I'm aiming for a VBAC in March with our second bio child! I love reading VBAC stories, actually I really love ALL birth stories. Thankfully we don't have to be monitored consistently at our birthing center so I will still be able to move about ;)

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  4. See - I'm not a parent, but I have always loved reading birth stories - I think it's the maternal instinct. I'm not a mom, but I definitely have the mom gene. So do you!

    What a sweet, sweet day this was. I was so anxious to hear from you, and when you let me know he was here I was so relieved. Who says internet friends aren't real friends? :P

    So glad your family is whole and happy!

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  5. Oh man getting that epidural was the best decision of my life too. I was induced, so I was on Pit the entire time from like 4am and I still didn't get that baby out of me till after the next shift change/dinner time. I started to feel sick around when they had me start pushing, so now from reading this I know that means I was in "transition" and the baby was getting outta there, sort of. Thanks for sharing both stories!!

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  6. 8 minutes pushing him out - that's incredible - I've heard of it taking hours so happy to hear that yours wasn't as long!! LOLing over your last sentence - more babies in your future :) xo, Biana -BlovedBoston

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  7. I love reading birth stories for so many reasons but I always love hearing how the men handle it ;-) I am so happy you were able to have a VBAC and now you can compare the two. I have been in so many C-sections to know that I would not voluntarily sign up for one.....all those first time moms with scheduled c-sections is just craziness to me. Yes to working out throughout your pregnancies. My sister found barre with her third one and she said it made such a difference! Welcome Otto to the world and I'm glad you are soaking up all this time with him!

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  8. Congrats on the birth of your baby boy! I'm only a mom to my furbaby so any way of childbirth sounds rough to me lol. I'm glad this one was smoother than your last though!

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  9. Aww! I just love reading birth stories. Especially VBAC's :) Congrats!

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  10. Congratulations! I love reading birth stories too. Yours was a great one! For my first, I had a vaginal birth, and asked for the epidural as soon as possible. Too bad it only worked on one side! I had an emergency C-section with the twins, and could not agree with you more that the recovery was much, much worse. Congrats on your beautiful boy. I love the name too!

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  11. That little wrinkly head and hand is adorable!

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  12. Woohoo!!! Congratulations!!!! <3<3<3 Your little man is absolutely adorable!

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  13. I used to watch A Baby Story when I was younger. Have always loved birth stories. I'm so glad you had a successful VBAC and Otto is here and getting all the love from you guys. And amen for working out during pregnancy! Totally makes a difference!

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  14. Glad you were able to achieve a VBAC. Congratulations on your new addition. :)

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  15. I completely agree with you...I love birth stories! I think they're so interesting, especially now that I'm pregnant. Even though you did have that first trial run (which cracked me up, by the way), I'm so glad everything went well with your little man! I've always wondered that same thing about C-Sections. It's a major abdominal surgery and I've heard from so many women that the recovery is really tough! I'm glad you're back on your feet and feeling better a lot quicker this time around. Now if you could only get some sleep ;)

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  16. haha i love birth stories mom or not, so i'm with you there :)
    can't believe you had to play navigator again - hilarious! and steve sounds fabulous.
    c sections really do sound terrifying! i hope i never have to have one. congrats on your VBAC, and of course, Otto!

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  17. He is so cute! I love reading birth stories!!

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  18. Congrats! I'm like you, I love reading birth stories and I have no idea why!

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  19. I like the concept of the blog that you have posted about your baby's birth story. It gives me a lot of ideas now on how to make my own essay writing for my upcoming event in school. Wherein, I need to have some reviews of online writing sites that could give me some tips in making a unique content as well.

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  20. That was a fantastic and cool story of yours. I hope that your baby will grow up having a very adorable face. It was really nice to know your story because as a mother I can reflect it to myself.

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  21. Really Cool! That went straight to my favorites.
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  22. The story is really great and after reading of it i feel not so good because I remembered mine.

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