Happy [BIRTH]day!

Okay, so I've been waiting a little while to post my birth story because I wanted to make sure I didn't scare anyone else before their labor day.  I have two fellow blogger friends and we were all due around the same time and I was the first to go into labor.  My story was a little traumatic for my taste and didn't want to scare these ladies before they had the chance to experience their own birth story.

So here we go ... WARNING:  This post may ramble a bit ... bare with me.

It was a dark and stormy night .... kidding.  It was Sunday, and our friends were gracious enough to throw us a diaper party before little miss made her debut.  We hung out all afternoon, ate, talked about babies, life, and shared lots of laughs.  That evening, we were showing some friends our new house and I noticed I felt a little more uncomfortable than usual.  My first thought was I had to pee.  Visiting with friends superseded potty breaks, so I thought I had just let my tiny little peanut bladder get too full.  After numerous potty breaks I noticed that I went from uncomfortable to slight pain ... I was having contractions, again!  As we timed them they were about 6-7 minutes apart ... we got no sleep as they continued all night into morning.  Since it had been 12 hours of continuous contractions we decided to make a trip to labor and delivery where they monitored me for an hour.  I was dilated to 1cm and thinning out ... I was in early labor and the nurse suggested I labor at home for a little while so I'd be more comfortable.

We headed home and started discussing ways we could get the ball rolling on this labor train.  We spent the day walking around the house and my husband made checkpoints at which I would do 3 squats.  Fun! Especially 39 weeks pregnant while having contractions.  We also took a walk around the neighborhood and chowed down on some Kiwi and Pineapple to see if those would jump start anything.  About 9pm I noticed the contractions getting stronger and more intense in the pain department but they were still holding strong at 6-7 minutes apart.  Frustrated, pained, and tired about 11pm we decided to make another trip back to Labor and Delivery to see if anything had progressed.  An hour of monitoring later and up to 2cm dilated we were admitted to L&D and were on our way to having a baby!

Once admitted things progressed quickly and naturally ... I was thankful my body was doing things on its own and at that point didn't have to use Pitocin to make things progress.  Around 2:30am I was sitting in the room by myself while my support team took a coffee break when my belly shot toward the ceiling, I felt a pop, and gushes of water filled my bed.  My water breaking was one of the neatest yet weirdest feelings and I'm was excited I got to experience it naturally instead of having it broken for me. I opted for the epidural which was heavenly ... it made for a happy contracting preggo until about 7cm. This is where things get hairy.  7cm brought on a lot of pain ... and for having an epidural I shouldn't have been having that much pain.  The pain radiated in my hip down my left leg.  I could feel every single contraction on the left side of my body as the baby was sitting on a nerve.  The anesthesiologist was brought back in to administer more medicine into my epidural line to provide relief ... this was done 3 more times as I progressed to 9cm.  The epidural and extra medicine was not touching the pain, my nurse put me on all fours to allow the baby to hang to see if it would relieve any pressure.  I spent 2 hours on all fours hoping that would allow my body to progress even further.  In those two hours my body only progressed a half a centimeter bringing me to 9.5cm and hour 15 of labor in the hospital.  Exhausted was understatement.  The next step was to push ... to see if we could get her to labor down the rest of the way so I could give birth ... we tried three rounds of pushing which allowed the baby to get down where she needed to be but as soon as I stopped pushing she went right back up to where she was before.  Still not progressing and still feeling every contraction in my left side things were getting tricky.  It had been a while since my water had broken so this baby needed to come out ASAP.  Exhausted from labor and the intense nerve pain the baby started suffering and her heart rate began to drop during contractions due to Momma's inability to breathe through the pain.  It was about that time that I broke ... I had tried everything I possibly could to labor this baby naturally but the Doctor had to make the call.  We had to get the baby out and the only way was a C-Section.

Scary.  The very thing I tried to prevent was happening.  I knew going in that I had to allow this to be a part of my birth plan.  Whatever way to get the baby out the safest was my plan ... unfortunately, the safest was a cesarean.  Prepped and ready to go, scared out of my mind, we had started and new within minutes I was FINALLY going to see my baby girl.  As the Doctor made his incision he said, "Whoa!" Awesome right?!  That's what every expectant mother wants to hear as she's strapped to a table as you cut on her.  When he made his incision he saw a baby face staring straight back at him.  An ultrasound earlier in L&D proved she was in the correct position and head down, but when I labored on all fours she managed to flip herself sunny side up which is why we were stuck at 9.5cm.  A few minutes and a couple of tugs later, I finally got to see the first glimpse of my baby girl over the curtain.  I couldn't contain myself and turned into a hysterical crying mess.  It had been a long day and she was finally here and healthy.  My husband took off to the nursery with the baby to get her checked out while I was being stitched up and prepared for recovery.  All of the anticipation, adrenaline, and excitement made for a sick Momma resulting in a vomit fest all over myself, my bed, my nurse, and the operating room floor.  I've never been so embarrassed and more apologetic in my life.  I felt so bad ... especially for my nurse, who took it like a champ.  As if my day hadn't been traumatic enough, my little vomit fest landed me an hour in recovery isolated from family and my baby to make sure I was stable before allowing me to have any contact with anyone.  It was the hour of torture.  All I wanted to do was see my baby, and my husband of course!

Finally stable, in walks both grandmothers, my husband, and my beautiful baby girl!  I couldn't believe how pretty she was ... and I created that!  She weighed 7lbs 2oz and was 20 1/4" long.  I found out after all was said and done that even if little miss wasn't sunny side up I still would've delivered via cesarean because there would've been no way she would've fit through my hips.  Momma baked a pretty healthy baby despite this super petite frame.

Just when I thought we could relax and enjoy our baby, we found out an interesting piece of news regarding baby and her health.  She had low body temperature in her first couple of hours of life and developed a mild case of Jaundice.  This happened as a result of something called "the setup," which is in regards to your blood type and bilirubin count.  Normal newborns make bilirubin (bil-ly rub-bon) and pass it which prevents them from being Jaundice.  Mykenzi was found to have her fathers blood type which is different than my blood type.  So my body created antibodies that destroyed Mykenzi's red blood cells which created a sudden buildup of bilirubin in her bloodstream causing her to be midly Jaundice.  It was kind of scary as they were trying to explain all of this to us.  Basically my body managed to carry a foreign object without rejecting it for 9 months.  Not unheard of but my pregnancy and birth could have been a lot worse.  Thankfully, she is a little trooper and this "setup" provides no further complications since she passed the excess bilirubin.  In worse cases, high counts of bilirubin can cause deafness, cerebral palsy, or other forms of brain damage.  So needless to say, Mykenzi's first hours of life provided a lot of chaos and a lot of heart attacks ... which I'm sure are only the first of many heart attacks to come.

Despite all the drama with labor and delivery,  she was well worth every single minute.  We are all happy, healthy, and doing well.  Becoming a Mom is the greatest thing I have ever done with my life.  I'm so excited to begin our future as the Browns: Party of three.  I will try to be back to the blogging world sooner than later ... I still have my final Nursery post pending that I will be able to get up soon.  So stay patient, enjoy your weekend, and I'll be seeing you all soon!