January 1, 2011

Baby Sheena arrived on january 1 2011, weighing in at 7 pounds 13 ounces!

As Kirsten’s due date of December 24 came and went with few signs of labour her doctor said it would be best to go for a postdate ultrasound and non stress test to see how baby was doing on the 29th. After the ultrasound and 2 hours hooked up to a fetal heart monitor with four different nurses and doctors telling us how happy and healthy baby looked, one of the doctors decided it would be best to do a pelvic exam just to be sure and asked about breaking Kirsten’s water. Shocked they would even ask, we responded no, saying that it was not in our plans to have that done (We had already been told by Kirsten’s Doc that she wanted to induce on the 4th if we had not gone into labour by that point). Once the doctor had finished with the pelvic exam she started to talk about her plans to break Kirsten’s water, to which Warren reminded her that we had already said we didn’t want that done. We were so thankful for your class at this point knowing how that situation could have snowballed on us.

The 30th passed with little signs of labour. Then at about 4pm on the 31st Kirsten started have some serious cramping and contractions. We laboured at home and went for dinner with our parents. We got back home around 8 when things really started to roll. We watched movies and tried different positions till about 2:30am on the 1st when we decided it might be best to head for the hospital. When we arrived we were taken into Maternity triage as it was a very busy night (apparently lots of people want new years baby’s lol). Kirsten was checked at 4am and was found to be 4cm dilated. We walked the halls and used the shower and birth ball for the next couple of hours. At this point Kirsten’s contractions were coming about 4 mins apart while she was sitting or laying down and just a minute apart while we were walking or standing. We thought we were doing very well at this time and had been told we would be moved to labour and delivery within the hour. Three hours later we were still in triage trying our best to stay positive and keep working. At about 7am they asked to put Kirsten on the monitor just to check up on baby. This is when things went down hill, the nurse’s, after looking at the strip, decided that they were not happy with baby’s heart rate and needed to continuously monitor it. This meant we would be stuck in the tiny room and only able to move around about five feet. Warren asked if we could only be on the monitors for short but frequent times as moving around was really helping speed up labour and manage Kirsten’s pain, to which to the reply was a very stern “NO you cannot do that”. Knowing that we weren’t going to win that battle we let it go and did the best we could given the circumstances and figuring it couldn’t be to much longer till we got a bigger room. After another three hours and Warren pleading with the doctors and nurses for some time off of the monitors she could move around better, we FINALLY got in to labour and delivery at 10am.

When we got into our room things took a turn for the better! Our nurse form triage was called away and the new nurse we got decided she could keep good track of baby’s heart rate with a doptone, which finally meant we could move around a bit more. Another exam revealed Kirsten was at about 7cm. With our ability to move around coupled with the more space in the room really calmed us down and things started to get much easier. At about noon Kirsten was checked again and was elated to find she was already 9cm. With the contractions practically running on top of each other by 1:30pm Kirsten was fully dilated and ready to push. But things did’t just go smoothly at this point, Kirsten’s Doctor said he was still worried about the heart rate and that if we couldn’t deliver soon he would have to do a C-section. To give us more time he thought it would be best to use the monitor that clamped to baby’s skull, to attempt to avoid any more talk of c-sections we easily agreed. After about 30 minutes of pushing Kirsten really started to get in to rhythm and an hour later, after pushing in a very good squatting position, Sheena was born at 3:09 pm, no drugs or intervention involved. Yipee!

Despite the speedbumps we went through with a long wait in triage and limited movement for a lagre part of labour, we couldn’t be happier with our birth. Warren is so proud of Kirsten for not giving in and really pushing through the pain and Kirsten really appreciated Warrens wonderful coaching, especially during pushing. Kirsten and Sheena were released on the 3rd and are both doing great.

Your class was so helpful to us thanks you so much.

Kirsten, Warren and Sheena