Looking back on it, I knew our baby was coming soon. Duston had offered me a date night on a Wednesday night to replace our typical Friday night ritual “just in case”. He also knew that I was exhausted, couldn’t do one more walk around our neighborhood or spend the evening just sitting, waiting, and bouncing while eating pineapple popsicles. I really had only been in full “go” mood for several days since we were not even a week over due; however, the waiting game had already begin to play a toll on my anxiety. I did not really want to commit to anything, make any plans, or anticipate much because of the ever looming unknown of when we were going to go into labor.
We headed out for our date night later than our normal dinner time. Duston had encouraged me to take a shower, reset from the day, and get dressed. I proudly slipped on a non-maternity sun dress 40+ weeks pregnant and out the door we went. With one dinner option in mind, we immediately started to go back and forth if we should be traveling 30 or more minutes away from the house without the hospital bags just for dinner. He kept asking me if I felt like I was going to go into labor. I kept assuring him I had absolutely no idea what that even looked like and I could not promise either way. I knew I did not feel 100% fine, but I also was not sure it wasn't just because I was over ten months pregnant, and because of that, we opted for the Red Robin down the street.
We sat and talked and laughed about so many things that night. We discussed how to be intentional with our upcoming changes and making new habits. We chatted about what was important for our family, regardless of outside standards or expectations. We agreed that there was an order in life: God, our marriage, then our kids… no matter what. It truly was a fulfilling date night with such deep and connecting conversation.
We wrapped up our conversation around 8:30 and headed for the car. The moment I sat down and we pulled out of the parking lot, I felt my first major contraction. I counted through it. I breathed through it. Once the pressure in my lower back relieved, I looked up at my husband and said, “If this is labor, this is going to be suck.” Dang, it hurt.
I had a few more contractions throughout the evening; however, I encouraged Duston to go to the gym “just in case he wouldn’t be able to go for a few days”, finished packing some hospital essentials, and sat down at my dining room table to shoot out some work emails that would wrap up a few loose ends. By 11:30, I was tracking my contractions. They were becoming more frequent but similar in intensity. I knew I wanted to stay at home as long as I could; however, the app that I was using kept telling me to head to the hospital. Even though we attempted to go to bed, it did not last long before my app told me to call the 911 immediately. I felt like the app was a little dramatic since I had not been having contractions for that long; however, I did not necessarily know how quickly my labor was going to progress, so off to the hospital, we went.
Once we arrived at the hospital, we were checked in and they begin to monitor my progression. To our surprise, we were only measuring at 3 cm. Although I was a bit disappointed, especially since the iPhone app I was using was so urgent, they told us to get comfy, assured us that we were not going to be sent home, and when we left the hospital, we would have a baby. I encouraged Dusty to get some sleep since I expected for a long night, and the nurse mentioned something to me about aiming for a noon delivery.
As the night progressed through the wee hours, my back labor intensified a lot. Each contraction was worse than the last and it was everything I could do to stay standing. I rocked and walked back and forth through the hospital room as Duston slept. I watched a few episodes of House Hunters, Property Brothers, and Treehouse Masters until the infomercials came on. Only progressing another centimeter in the first few hours at the hospital, the nurses continued to check on me and encouraged me through the back pain. At this point, I was only feeling pain in my back and really could not focus much on my abdomen. I found out later, once I received some medicine to dull my back pain, that I was having decent contractions throughout the way; however, I could not feel them because of the pain in my lower back.
By 7 am, I was only at 5 cm which was much slower than they were expecting. I was explained that they wanted to go ahead and break my water, and I was given the option for an epidural at that time. I did not necessarily want to have an epidural this early; however, it was either now… or closer to 11 am based on some scheduled surgeries and patients needs. They also explained that if things began to progress quickly once my water was broken, there may not be time to issue my epidural prior to delivery. I was not up for committing to having my water broken or delivery with an epidural. Additionally, I did not really want to sign up for more pain for the next five hours.
My first epidural started around 8 am. After explaining that I still could feel half of my legs and core, they encouraged me to flip from side to side to help distribute the medicine. Unfortunately, the urinary catheter and my water being broken all happen without an effective epidural. The urinary catheter was causing me such pain that after almost two hours, they took it back out and issued another epidural. After a third attempt, the epidural was a success. Thank goodness!
By noon, I had not progress any and they recommended pitocin to help speed up the process. Overall, we started out with a small dose of the medicine and then continued to a larger dose after little progression was made. My afternoon was spent laying from side to side, helping distribute the epidural medication evenly throughout my lower half and hanging out with Dusty and my parents. Time moved really slowly and there was not much to do.
When the nighttime nurse arrived back on her shift, she was surprised to see that we had not given birth yet. Little did we know at the time, we still had quite a bit to go. Around 7 pm, we were told that we were getting close and the team started to prepare for labor. Everything after that begins to be a blur.
Sometime in between 7:30 and 8:30 pm, my temperature began to spike and caused our baby’s heart rate to jump as well. As they monitored us, they quickly decided that he needed to come out as quickly as possible. The doctor explained to us to avoid a c-section, he was going to attempt to delivery with a vacuum. I knew this meant that I would have to push even harder, but probably for a much shorter amount of time. Our baby’s heart rate had jumped into the 200s and they had determined that he was stuck facing sideways instead of facing up or down like he should have been.
After 15 minutes of pushing, once with the vacuuming popping off our baby’s head, our little guy entered the world at 8:52 pm. They laid him on my chest and I could not believe that the little man was the same baby I had been growing. It was a complete miracle. Because of the high fever, high heart rate, and a shoulder dystocia from birth, we only had a short hour from birth until they whisked him away to the nursery. In midst of family coming in and seeing our baby for the first time and the doctors stitching me up, cleaning our baby boy, and Duston holding him for the first time, the doctors began to explain that he was really sick. They estimated three days to three weeks in the hospital.
As soon as the doctors, family, and our baby was all out of the room, I laid in the hospital bed still unable to move from the epidural and looked up at Duston. I lost it. I cried so hard. It was like the past 24 hours I was determined to stay positive, stay strong. Then they took our baby to nursery. I felt like they had taken him away forever. Soon enough, I gathered my composure to shower (assisted by the nurses) and they wheeled me down to the nursery to feed.
Time moved so fast that it was almost 1 am by the time I got to see him again to feed. He was hooked up to so many wires and monitors. Dusty and I sat there in silence and watched our little boy figure out how to nurse for the first time. His little bottom lip quiver as he got upset during latching and he snorted as his head bobbed back and forth, excited to eat. We continued to visit the nursery every two to three hours to nurse until the following morning, where our baby was healthy enough to return to our room. He had made great progress by the middle of the next day. Testing continued and wires were still everywhere, but our baby boy was back in our room.
The next morning we found out that our little guy had jaundice. His levels were so high that he required a 24 hour stay underneath the bilirubin light. Although this did not sound too bad at first, after about the third hour of him laying cold, un-swaddled, and scared, we quickly realized it would be the longest day of our little man’s life. A mask that could compete with Zoro’s was required to help protect his eyes and he could only come out to eat and for short amounts of time.
After a day of fighting too small of a mask to too big of a mask, our bilirubin day was over. Duston spent a good chunk of the time with his pinky finger in our dude’s mouth, allowing him to use it as a pacifier for comfort since we were attempting to avoid early nursing confusion. None of us really slept much but now we just had to wait to see if his levels were back to normal and we could finally go home.
About six hours later, we got the clear to head home. I had been officially discharged the day prior so my room had became our baby’s room. We packed up our second home for four days and was finally able to take our Oliver Hayes home.
Overall, we had a pretty rocky start to parenthood. It’s funny how you picture a perfect with followed by days in the hospital full of visitors, laughter, and photos. There was definitely a lot of that; however, there were also loads of doctors, tests, and explanations. There were questions, confusion, and trust in God. It truly was another reminder that God is writing our stories, including this one, and He probably doesn’t care about the perfect Instagram photo. And honestly, we did not much during that time either. We spent so much time in the moment, watching, listening, and caring for our little Ollie. We spent time in prayer and with each other, which is really the most important thing.
