The Ongoing Planner: Marshall's Birth Story

Wednesday March 4, 2015 started with a 5:20 wake up by Vander. Vander hasn't woken up before 6:15 in months and he usually wakes up closer to 7:00. That was my first sign that I was likely going to go into labor.

I had my weekly doctor appointment at 8:30. After updating her on the continued contractions and my overall condition (good, but ready to have this baby!) we talked about next steps. We talked about doing a membrane sweep. This is where the doctor separates the amniotic sac from your cervix with her fingers. If your body is ready to go into labor, this can help encourage labor to start sooner rather than later. People will have their doctors do this in an effort to avoid an induction. She said we were technically a little early at 37 weeks 5 days, but she would do it if I wanted. She felt very comfortable that my body and the baby were ready for labor and delivery. I decided to go ahead and have her do it. It is a quick process and is a little uncomfortable but really not bad. Afterwards I was at 4 centimeters and my doctor and I said we would see each other that night or the next day to have a baby!

I went in to work and was totally calm and comfortable all morning and had no cramping or anything from the sweep that morning. I told my work that I was likely going into labor that day since I had the sweep done. The contractions started at 12:30 and by around 1:30 they were coming regularly at 5-6 minutes apart for about a minute. I texted Dylan that I would be leaving within the hour and left around 2:15. I drove myself home and put the last couple items in our hospital bag. Since my dad was staying with Vander that night I cleaned up a little bit while waiting for Dylan to meet me and drive us to the hospital.

We checked in to the hospital at 3:30. It was probably close to 5:00 before we were fully admitted but there wasn't really any question we were staying. My contractions were definitely getting stronger. I was at 5 centimeters. when they checked me. At about 5:30 they started me on penicillin, since I had the Group B Strep bacteria again, which is a very common thing to have, but they don't want the baby to get it during delivery. They ideally have you on the antibiotics for four hours so we anticipated delivery to happen sometime after 9:30.

I definitely made it longer into labor before asking for the epidural this time. At around 6:00 they started my epidural. I guess there are two ways to administer an epidural. One way goes into effect quicker but tends to have more side effects, which is what I had last time and I literally didn't feel a contraction again. This time the anesthesiologist wanted to go the safer route and it took thirty minutes and two dosage increases for my epidural to kick in. Once it kicked in, I was so happy for the break!

Unfortunately, the epidural couldn't keep up with how rapidly my labor progressed and I started feeling contractions again when my water broke right around 7:00. I had a really big contraction and pop! My water broke all over the bed.

Basically right after my water broke, my mom came with dinner for Dylan and her and two of my girlfriends came. I kept having to summon Dylan over so I could squeeze his hand when a contraction came. My contractions started coming every minute and a half or two minutes and were definitely strong enough to be felt through my epidural which had been increased several times and I even had an extra dose from the anesthesiologist.

My doctor came back in around 7:25, which was great since I had been asking where she was since I could feel the baby's head being ready to pop out. My girlfriends left when the doctor came in and my mom and Dylan stayed for delivery.

Once my doctor was settled, she told me to push once my contraction came. I had one big push and my doctor told me to slow down so I wouldn't tear. The next day she said she actually thought I was going to hit her in the face with the baby since my first push was so big. After less than one minute of pushing, at 7:31, Marshall Robert Otley slid into the world!

My epidural worked well enough since pushing and the couple little stitches I needed didn't hurt at all. My girlfriends were shocked when Dylan went out to tell them Marshall was born about 5 minutes after they left.