Madelyn Bree's Birth Story (Part 1)

Disclaimer: This is a birth story. There are details. Read at your own risk. I am also dividing Miss M's birth story into 3 parts (pre-labor, labor, and post-labor) so that the blog doesn't go on for forever. Below is pre-labor.

Guess what?? I am no longer pregnant!!! You probably heard the shouts of joy and tears pouring early Thursday morning. I swear, I felt like I was part of the never-ending pregnancy.

However, she did come and what an entrance she made!

Her birth story started the week before Miss M made her debut. I went to my doctor's appointment as usual only to discover that for the second week in a row I was still stuck at 4 cm and 70% effaced. For those who don't know what this means, basically everything was locked and loaded but refusing to fire. My midwife decided to go ahead and try to induce me in the doctor's office by stripping my membrane. This procedure had worked with Bradley, who was 9 days late, within 48 hours. I just knew that by the weekend we would have a little girl in our arms.

Well, Madelyn and Bradley had other plans. That weekend Bradley came down with a 103 temperature, complaints of his ear hurting, followed by a day of throwing up. I was a nervous wreck. I didn't want to leave B that sick and I didn't want Madelyn coming home to a brother that sick. I am so thankful for a wonderful pediatrician who got B an antibiotic that really helped. Within 48 hours, B was better and I was more comfortable with the thought of leaving him to birth his sister. My mom also came to help and decided to stay until Madelyn came which had to be any minute, right?? No.

That was one long week. I had cleaned my house about a million times, watched everything possible on netflix, went down a list of things to do to induce labor: eggplant, peanut butter parfait, walking, pineapples, crawling, etc., and finally sat down in a huff bored out of my mind. Madelyn had decided that my uterus was a five star resort and she was vacationing until the last possible minute!

I was shocked that I ended up making it to my NEXT doctor's appointment. I was now 9 days late and worried sick I was going to be induced. You see, I'm really nutty and prefer to do labor and delivery without meds. Inducement for us crazy people is never really ideal since it can possibly slow down labor and/or make laboring worst. I knew ultimately it was in God's hand and I could handle whatever needed to be done, but was really hoping Miss M would just come on out!

Well, that doctor's visit didn't go all that well. I was to have a non-stress test to make sure M was moving, active, and had a good heartbeat; a ultrasound to ensure I had enough placenta to keep going to the 14 post due date mark which was the last possible moment she could stay inside; and to meet one more time with my midwife. This visit usually takes an hour and a half. I was there for THREE HOURS. The office was super crowded so I immediately added 30 minutes to that time. Then, come to find out they had screwed up scheduling and I had gotten bumped further back. I added another 30 minutes. THEN, the person before me on the non-stress test couldn't get her baby to move. My sweet Madelyn wouldn't stop moving. This added to my frustration. When I finally got on the test, it had been an hour. I was in a room hooked up to the baby monitor machines alone. Madelyn was moving well. Then, an alarm starts to go off. I have no clue what this alarm means, but no one comes running. In fact, the alarm went off for about 10 minutes before I finally got pissed off enough to go (while still attached to the monitors) and yell at a nurse who had obviously forgotten about me. She came in, said the alarm didn't really mean anything, turned it off, and left. I had been in the room plenty long. (This wasn't my first time doing this.) I was getting quite hungry and even more upset. About 10 minutes later, the ultrasound technician came to check on me. She had been equally upset about the mistake made earlier with scheduling and more frustrated that it took so long for me to get on the non-stress test. The minute she walked into the room I burst into tears. She immediately gave me a hug, unhooked all the monitors, and told me I was done. She, then, proceeded to yell at all the nurses and doctors for not taking better care of me and leaving me for so long. She made sure that within 2 minutes I was with my midwife. I praise Jesus for that sweet, sweet woman.

So there I was with my midwife baffled at why Madelyn refused to come. We had done e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. and I was still stuck at 4 cm. We had no choice but to schedule an inducement. She decided to schedule the following Tuesday giving M the weekend to make the decision herself. We, then, continued to talk about what could be going on with my body. She told me that it could be that Madelyn wasn't position correctly and so she was refusing to come out. The midwife suggested some exercises to do if Miss M was indeed posterior. We knew her head was down, but because of her movements our theory was she was sideways.

That afternoon, I went home and did the exercises the midwife had suggested, but nothing happened.

However, the more I thought about our conversation the more it made sense. The more it felt like this was exactly why Madelyn wouldn't come. So I decided to do some more research.