Birth Story Part 1

Darin and I woke up on Tuesday morning so excited to know we would get to meet our baby boy very soon. Long story short I went to a last minute appointment on Monday the 13th and the midwives decided that I needed to be induced and we scheduled it for 7:30 AM the next day which luckily was my estimated due date. We woke up that morning, took showers, I made some toast to eat in the car on the way there, and packed our last minute items like toothbrushes, chargers, etc. Of course we did this all in Hiatt Standard Time so we didn't make it to the hospital quite by 7:30 haha.

We get to labor and delivery and Darin and I realize we have no idea where to "check in". We did the tour but those things kind of go out the window after a few weeks. Luckily we saw Lin and Maria the midwives and they wished us a good morning and seemed so excited to see me. This made me feel so relieved, not that I was super nervous but just happy to know we were in such good hands.

We met our nurse Julie and she was great! We had to wait 45 minutes or so for the midwives to come around to break my water and while we waited Julie hooked me up to the fetal monitor. When Lin our midwife came in she checked my cervix and I was already dilated to a 4 and 80% effaced! The day before that I was at a 3 so one centimeter over night yippee! While she was checking my cervix she felt a contraction and asked me if I could feel it, sadly I couldn't but it was still cool knowing that things had already gotten started. She broke my water at around 8:30 AM and boy was that stuff warm. They saw that the water had meconium in it so that meant that they had to go ahead and keep me hooked up to the wireless fetal monitor the whole time and that they would need to examine the baby immediately after the birth to make sure his lungs were okay.

At around 9:00/9:30 ish they said they could see that I was having contractions but they were like 12 minutes apart. I still couldn't feel a thing and I was beginning to think labor would be easier than I was expecting! Darin and I decided that we were going to do everything we could to get the contractions to be longer and closer together because we did not want pitocin! We walked up and down the halls a few times and after a few minutes of doing that I started to feel some pain in my lower back and I thought that it might be a contraction! I was super excited at this point. We went back to the room and we could see that at the time that I had felt this pain, the contraction chart showed I was having a contraction. Once I knew what they felt like, Darin got his contraction timer app out and started to time them for me.

We continued to walk up and down the halls, I sat on his lap in a rocking chair, and then Darin suggested doing squats. Every time I did squats it would bring on a contraction so anytime that the contractions started to slow down Darin had me doing squats which I didn't like but it was super helpful. Contractions were starting to pick up now and it still felt like the worst back pain in the world. I thought I would feel it more in my abdomen but I felt most of the contractions in my lower back which was probably because the baby was already so low.

They brought lunch by and I didn't have a huge appetite but I ate half of it and shared the rest with Darin. Darin helped me to drink tons of water and I also snacked on some goldfish during labor. One of the worst parts was going potty which I had to do a lot. Nothing is worse than having a contraction on the toilet because most of the time I wasn't prepared for it. The whole day I had been listening to my hypnobabies tracks on my phone which really did help me to relax through most all of my contractions. There were a few that were impossible to relax through and Darin was so encouraging through those. At 4:30 PM, Julie checked me and she said I was at around a 6 or 7. I was so happy that progress had been made and decided that it was time to get into the tub. I could only handle the tub for like 30 minutes because I got way too sweaty and because of my pregnancy rash I also got way too itchy. It did feel really good at first but then I think I was beginning transition which is the hardest part of first stage labor. We went back to the room and I am pretty sure I had the rest of my contractions laying down and I remember these were the hardest ones. I started to feel the urge to push probably around 6:30 PM or so but it wasn't super strong yet. They checked me and told me I just had a tiny bit of cervix left to go.

At 7:00 PM Julie's shift was over and I met my new nurse Erica. It was absolute perfect timing because I was getting ready to push as Erica's shift started so Julie didn't have to leave in the middle of me pushing. I was grateful for that. Lin my midwife came in and rubbed lavender oil on my right leg and gave some to Darin to massage my left leg with and that helped a lot. I started to push with my contractions but didn't really know what I was doing. I remember going over breathing through pushing in our Bradley class but then somehow in the moment everything else I learned I forgot about. Pushing was probably the hardest part of this whole process. It wasn't as painful as contractions but it was so tiring and I literally felt like I was going to pass out. I kept saying "I'm gonna pass out, i'm gonna pass out" and they all kept saying don't worry you are doing great. Well, I didn't feel great haha. Towards the end Darin had an oxygen mask in his hand and he would put it on my face in between pushing to help me catch my breath. I felt the ring of fire when the babies head started to crown and that made me happy because that meant I was getting so close to the end. Before my last three pushes Lin said "okay with this next set of pushes lighten up a little bit." Well I didn't know how to do that so the rest of his body came out rather quick and before I knew it there was a little body on my chest and shortly after that my son was peeing on me!

Cohen Lynn Hiatt was born at 7:50 PM on October 14th, 2014 his due date. He was 5 lbs 15 ounces at birth and 19 1/4 inches long and super alert! Everyone was so surprised at how open his eyes were and he's been like that since his birthday. It's so adorable.

After Darin cut the cord they had to take the baby away from me which was so sad but I knew they needed to check his lungs. He was healthy as can be. Darin and I were so excited we got to have an unmedicated birth like we had hoped for even though they had to induce me with the breaking of water that morning. I couldn't have asked for a better birth story and a better son. We are seriously so blessed.

We love you Cohen!