Grace’s Birth Story
Being overdue isn’t much fun. With Hudson I went into early labour a couple days before his due date and he was born just a day after. It was a long (slow progressing) labour, but I knew it was happening. I actually thought this baby would be early. People kept telling me that your second child usually is. Ha! Something I learned during this pregnancy, everyone thinks they know, but no one does. I kept being told I was carrying like a boy. All baby and big out front like a basketball….
Anyways back to the birth. May 4th was my due date (sorry Star Wars fans), and it soon came and past. The Royal baby was born and I knew I would be soon. I did ALL the things! I drank so much raspberry leaf tea I burned my tongue, I ate so much pineapple that the inside of my mouth felt raw. Two nights in a row we ate spicy curry, we had sex, I kept bouncing on the ball – seriously all the things! The midwife said at 9 days overdue they would offer me a castor oil “cocktail” – I really didn’t want to get to that point. I wasn’t too keen on a medical induction either, so I just kept moving hoping something would happen soon!
The early morning hours of May 9th I started feeling contractions. I stayed in bed and timed them on my phone. They continued to come regularly and I decided to call the midwife around 6:00am. After a quick discussion, she was on her way. My mom headed over as well so that she could watch Hudson while we headed to the hospital. The midwife checked me and I was 4-5 cm dilated. The contractions were coming closer together but were still quite bearable. Rather than stay at home and labour further, I was anxious to get to the hospital. I packed up my labour-aid (homemade hydration drink made from Coconut water and other things), and we headed out!
Contractions in a moving car are not pleasant! I had 4-5 on the way to the hospital. The elevator wasn’t working and we were given access to the service elevator. After registering we were given a beautiful big room on the maternity floor! ( I was the only woman in labour the entire day). Things were progressing quickly and I soon found the most bearable place was in the shower. I tried the gas, but it just made me feel dizzy (I remembered this with my first). The hot water made the pain a little easier, and I stayed in the shower for a good couple of hours. I kept trying to pee, but because babies head was so low and I felt so much pressure, I wasn’t able to. The pain was getting worse and I was starting to ask about an epidural. I kept saying “I don’t know how much longer I can do this”. My midwife said she would have to check me and then it could be an option. In my head I committed to pain relief if I was between 6-8cm. She told me “we aren’t talking hours, you’re already 9-10cm!” This meant I was so close and there definitely would be no time for an epidural. In fact I was already feeling the need to push! Because I hadn’t been able to pee, the midwife and nurse tried to insert a catheter twice but the babies head was in the way and this procedure unfortunately failed. When asked if I wanted my water broken I said “yes!” – Anything to speed up the arrival of this baby! I was in excruciating pain and I really didn’t know how long I could stand it. Once I was on the bed it was so much worse. This is what “transition” felt like. I was thinking to myself I never want to go thru this awful experience again.
One thing that kept me going was the Pinterest quote I saved saying “The day you give birth, 300,000 women around the world will be giving birth too”. It helped to think I wasn’t the only one going thru this enormous pain. My other thought was that “I can handle anything for one minute”. The breaks between the contractions were very short, and the final hour of my labour was excruciating. Anyways, my water was broken and I immediately felt the need to push. There was meconium (baby had a poop) in the amniotic fluid, which is not necessarily out of the ordinary, but they continued to monitor the heart-rate closely, which was fine the entire time I was pushing.
I pushed with everything I had and finally the babies head emerged. It was big and I needed to wait for another contraction to push the body out. I remember asking why I couldn’t hear crying, and my midwife said the baby was still attached to the umbilical chord. Once baby was fully out, the chord was wrapped all around and needed to be un-tangled. The midwife did this and then baby was immediately placed on my chest. The nurse started to clear the airways to get baby to breathe. Pretty quickly a “Code Pink” alarm was sounded and baby was whisked away from me and put on the “resuscitation” table at the back of the room. I saw 12-14 nurses and doctors swarm into our room and everyone focused on our baby. I felt helpless and scared. Mark kept saying “she’s going to be okay” – by this time he had seen it was a girl. I was just in shock and dis-belief, and still in pain lying there watching this nightmare of a scene unfold. It was the scariest few moments of my life, and I honestly felt pretty out of it. I heard people calling out heart rates and I felt a sense of relief. Everyone in that room had a job to do and I am forever grateful to each one of them.
Grace Valentina was born at 12:18pm and weighed a whopping 9 lb 10oz.
Once stabilized, she was wheeled to the side of my bed wearing her oxygen mask and I was able to touch her hand. The doctors told me they were taking her to run some tests. I immediately looked at mark and said “go with her!”. The next hour was tough because unlike Hudson’s birth I didn’t have my beautiful baby on my chest to distract me. Because my bladder still hadn’t been emptied, I was bleeding way more than normal, so they quickly took care of that as well as needing 2 stitches. Shocking really, as she was 9 lbs 10oz and way bigger than expected! A little while later Mark arrived back in the room with the pediatrician who explained to me her condition.
Baby Grace had inhaled some of the merconium during the birth. They don’t know if it was because she was in distress or it just happened, but unfortunately this went into her lungs and caused air to get stuck, which resulted in air pockets which caused what’s called a “pneumothorax“. Essentially this means she had a collapsed lung. The great news was that after her chest x-ray the doctor told us that she was already looking much better, and had started breathing on her own (room air). They decided to keep her in the nursery (NICU) to monitor her and watch her condition improve. She was on IV and I was told that breast-feeding would not be an option right away, as she was still in a very fragile state.
Early that evening the nurse came to get me from my room and told me that Grace was ready to breast-feed. She latched right away and they were so happy with how she was doing that they said they would come to get me in the night. I went down 3-4 times to feed her. It was truly remarkable how quickly her condition improved. We decided to give her “Valentina” as a middle name because it means “Strength and Health”. Our little girl was such a fighter.
Grace stayed in the nursery for 24 hours. She had a second chest x-ray that showed immediate improvement in her lungs and the doctor was very confident to say it would completely heal on its own. I was over the moon with this news. We couldn’t wait to introduce her to her big brother. We stayed another night at the hospital and Grace passed the rest of her tests with flying colours. Although her entrance was scary beyond belief, we are so fortunate with how it turned out, and we have a beautiful and healthy baby girl. I am also so grateful I chose to have her at the hospital, as a home birth was given to me as an option, I always felt that the hospital was the best place for us to be. If we hadn’t had been there, the outcome could have been much different for us. Thank you everyone for the positive thoughts, prayers, and well wishes on May 9th, the day we became a family of four!
