Birth of Ariah – March 24, 2012
Our story is unique in that we can’t really say when we went into labour but our best guess is the Wed night. I came home and I hadn’t been feeling well all day. I insisted to Scott we pack our bag because if the last couple of weeks were going to be as hard as that day, I wanted to get packing over with.
My back had started really hurting too during the packing but that wasn’t really anything new. Scott went to bed but I was restless and my back was hurting more and more. I couldn’t sleep and eventually woke Scott up when I couldn’t handle the pain alone. Scott gave me counter pressure and helped a ton but the pains were all over the place. I would have one last 1.5 minutes to the peak then have 30 second break and another one lasting 30 seconds would start. We got nervous so we paged our midwife who told us to get in the bath and call her back if the pains got into an established pattern. None of us was sure it was labour…
The bath helped and I was able to slow the pains down to every 20 mins or longer. We had a midwife appt on Thurs am and I knew I had lost my mucus plug sometime the night before. The midwives told us we could have started labour but that it could still be weeks before anything else happened.
We had dinner with Laura and Justin which was great because we were both having contractions! On Friday I found if I stayed still I could be relatively pain free but if I got up and walked around – immediate contraction. In hindsight had we known it was labour we would have worked with it more.
Friday night I needed to go to work to clean my office and drop off my phone. While there contractions kept getting worse – all still in the form of back pain – (Ariah was not posterior so it remains a mystery why I felt everything in my back) and I stopped being able to pee. Contractions still were not in a consistent pattern. We called the midwives when we got home as I knew I couldn’t take much more pain and not being able to pee was making it worse. Christie came over to check me and give me a catheter and I told Scott if I wasn’t dilated at all I was going to need drugs… I was prepared for pain but not that type of back pain. Scott needed to give me counter pressure on my back and hips for each contraction. I am not sure how he did it but I am so grateful as it helped so much.
Christie arrived and checked me and told us we were 9.5 cm dilated. We needed to get to hospital. Scott and I couldn’t believe it. We were finally told we were in labour and were almost done!
We headed to Rockyview where I finally got my catheter and we started pushing. I found this to be BY FAR the hardest part. My hips were screaming in pain and my arms ached from having to hold up my legs. The fetal heartrate started to slow and the midwives seemed concerned. My water broke only about 20 minutes prior to delivery and there was meconium in the fluid. They called the code and drs and nurses came into the room to suction baby once born. I finally got baby out and had her on my chest for a few seconds while cord was cut and drs took her. We didn’t even know it was a girl until we asked a few minutes later. Ariah was quite flat at birth and had an APGAR score initially of 1, then 7 and then 8. Scott went with her to NICU and after some more suctioning she recovered quite quickly.
Ariah was 5lbs 8 oz and born at 5 am Saturday March 24th.
We are overall happy that Ariah arrived safe and sound! My only true disapointment was not getting the initial skin to skin bonding at birth as that was my main motivation for a natural birth. However, I would trade my healthy Ariah for that any day.
We were very happy to get home the following Thursday after I was finally released.
Erin & Scott
