Landon’s Birth Story

I started this blog almost 3 years ago, and what began as a home décor/remodeling blog has quickly turned into a lifestyle, but mostly baby related, blog. To those who started following me in the very beginning, I’m sorry if this has taken a different turn than expected, but if you’re reading this then hopefully you’ve decided to stay on this crazy, twisty-turny road with me. Fast forward to now, and nearly every post is somehow related to this little munchkin who has taken over every part of our lives, in the best way possible!

As a blogger, who then found herself pregnant, I had to decide if I was going to go down the “mommy blogger” road. I haven’t officially written any mom advice posts but may decide to in the future. We will see. One thing that certainly ran through my head was the thought of writing a birth story. I didn’t know exactly what writing a birth story meant so I researched a bit, reading a few birth stories from some of the mommy bloggers I had come to enjoy following. I’m still not sure that this is a blog-worthy topic but the more I think back to the days surrounding Landon’s birth, the more I realize, I have a terrible memory! Some of the details are already starting to fade but I want to remember those things forever. And so, my loyal followers, you’ll have to bear with me on this one. I’m going to be a bit selfish and share this story so that I can always look back on it and remember every little detail.

Tuesday, October 18th
Landon’s due date was Wednesday, October 26, 2016. By most measures, I had an easy pregnancy. The biggest hurdle was being diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes, however, “hurdle” is probably not the right word since my numbers were the tiniest bit over the line of normal and the diabetes caused no problems other than Landon’s blood sugar dropping too low the night he was born and needing to be given some donor milk to get his sugars back up. What the diagnosis did lead to was extra testing and caution at the very end of my pregnancy to be sure 1) the baby didn’t get too big to deliver naturally and 2) that my placenta didn’t wear out as the due date approached, which could cause problems for the baby as well. At my 38 week check-up the week prior, the doctor mentioned a scheduled induction at 39 weeks. She wanted to put the idea in my head in case he started measuring too big and didn’t want it to be a shock if she brought it up at this appointment. As in, “SURPRISE, want to have your baby today?”. My uterus had been measuring right on track for the entire pregnancy so we weren’t really too concerned with Landon being too big. At this point I had finished working and was officially on maternity leave. I was feeling good and very rested so I was ready to wait the baby out and do as much as possible to avoid a C-section. After that appointment, I began having 2 ultrasounds each week to check baby’s movements, breathing and heart rate. While it was a bit of a pain to make the trek to the hospital twice a week…ahem…my own fault for choosing that hospital and for scheduling the appointments first thing in the morning during rush hour :)…I secretly loved being able to check up on the little babe so often.

Thursday, October 20th
That evening, I was getting out of the shower and (sorry if this is a bit graphic) felt a gush of fluid. I stood there for a second collecting my thoughts. I was mostly dried off so I knew it wasn’t just water from the shower. Jeff was at work and wouldn’t be home for a couple hours so I got dressed, lied down on the bed and began to google. What did we do before google, by the way? That is all I ever do now! Especially with pregnancy and a new baby. Pain in your abdomen? Google. Baby won’t sleep? Google. Baby’s poop is a funny color? You get the picture.
I read that if you think your water broke, to lie down for about half an hour and see if it continues to flow or leak after resting. Your body will continue to produce amniotic fluid which will create a steady leak of fluid. (Sorry, this is even graphic for me and I went through it!)
Now, maybe this was just my anxiety, but I also started paying attention to the contractions because I was feeling tightness in my uterus. The fluid did not continue to leak but the contractions became slightly more intense and closer together so in my mind I thought, this has to be it! (Looking back, if that had been what labor pain feels like, there would be no need for drugs of any kind! Rookie mistake.) By the time Jeff got home, I was on the phone with Labor & Delivery, asking what I should do and if I was in labor. They said the only way for me to know was to go in and get checked out by a doctor.
So, here we go, 9pm at night, hospital bags in the car, thinking our little babe was going to arrive very soon!!
5 hours later…contractions had subsided and I am discharged from the hospital. That really shouldn’t be allowed, small gushes of fluid that don’t mean anything. I mean, what a head game for a woman who has never been through this and doesn’t know what to expect!!

Tuesday, October 25th
At my 40 week check-up, 1 day before the due date. Baby is still measuring on track and the ultrasounds are all showing great breathing and heartbeat. Everything at the check-up looked great, baby was in head down position and sitting very low however I still had not dilated at all. It’s worth mentioning that a few years ago I had some pre-cancerous cells removed from my cervix, they call it a Leep procedure. Women who have had this procedure done tend to have trouble dilating on their own because of the scar tissue left behind. This had been one of my concerns all along, that I wouldn’t dilate and they would need to induce labor to get things moving. My fear with inducing, as well as any sort of medical interference is that it forces the process and leads to a higher chance of C-section.

Thursday, October 27th
I had been having contractions for most of the day but they were maintaining their strength level, i.e. they were not getting more painful as time went on and didn’t get closer together than about 5 minutes. Then I got a terrible headache. No big deal. I get migraines and deal with the pain. Except, a severe headache at the end of your pregnancy can signal some not so good things. Same situation as the previous week, Jeff was working late so I lied in bed trying to assess the situation. I called Labor & Delivery again and they said because of the headache, they really thought I should come in to be checked out because if the baby was in distress, they would want to induce labor. Here we go again. Jeff got home, we gathered up our stuff and headed to the hospital. This trip didn’t feel as exciting as the first. I was in a lot of pain (mostly from the headache) and was more worried about what might be going on with the baby.
Fast forward about 4 hours…not in labor, test results came back fine and the baby was not in any danger. As a precaution, the doctor I saw wanted me to do a 24 urine collection (yep, that’s right, 24 hours worth of urine…in a large jug…gross…pregnancy is so magical, huh?) to make sure I didn’t have pre-eclampsia and to see my regular doctor the following morning.
Back home we go…

Friday, October 28th
Over it…I’m pretty sure that’s how I would have described myself at that point. I was exhausted from being up most of the night and embarrassed from going to the hospital, twice, thinking I was in labor. I went in for a check-up with my regular doctor after the visit to Labor & Deliver the night before. I had been walking the hills around our house every single day for the past week in an effort to get my cervix to dilate so I was in pain because of how low the baby was sitting from all the walking. Nothing. No change in my cervix. I’m pretty sure the doctor could see it in my eyes, I sat on the exam table and was on the verge of tears. My doctor tried to comfort me by explaining why she thought I would be going into labor very soon. She decided to do a membrane sweep. I know, I know…the name sounds disgusting. If you don’t know what this is and want to know, google it, because I am not going to explain it. #sorrynotsorry and you’ll understand why when you find out what it is. Basically, something super painful that is supposed to jump start dilation and kick you into labor without the help of drugs. My only hesitation with this is that my doctor was going to be out of town over the weekend and I so badly did not want to go into labor when she was out of town. But, I mean, what am I gonna do if he decides to come while she’s out of town, hold it in for the weekend? Right.
My mom decided to drive down that day and spend the weekend because she too was convinced that I would go into labor very soon. We spent the weekend walking, walking, walking. Up and down hills, shopping, anywhere and everywhere. We finished up some organizing in the nursery. The whole weekend came and went. No baby. By Sunday, my mom headed home and the minute she left I collapsed on the couch and just decided to give up the labor inducing practices. Like I said…over it. I decided in that moment that when we went in for my 41 week check-up on Tuesday I would ask to be induced.

Tuesday, November 1st
Back at the doctor for my 41 week check-up. I was rested and relaxed. When I figuratively threw my hands up on Sunday evening, a weight was lifted. I slept a bit better, I wasn’t worried about every little pain and feeling. I had come to terms with being induced and was ready. Everything at the appointment checked out just fine, and again…not dilated. Put me on the schedule doc! She wanted to do a membrane sweep again. Really? Ok, fine.
Jeff and I went home, he had the day off and we were prepared to just relax together, our last day as a childless couple. I was scheduled to be induced the following day, Wednesday, November 2nd at noon. We went to breakfast after my appointment, then to the grocery store to get something for dinner and finally home for a lazy day on the couch.
Literally, such a lazy day. I don’t think I moved off the couch much until around 5:00pm when I got up to make dinner. I don’t remember what we were having that night but we never ate dinner 🙂 As I walked to the kitchen, I felt a pain. Way more intense than the other contractions, actually painful, not just tightness around my abdomen. I brushed it off and kept walking. By 5:30pm I was doubled over the kitchen counter in pain. This had to be it!! Right?!?! I was second guessing everything, so afraid of going back to the hospital just to be sent home again. I thought back to all the things my friends had said or I had read about going into labor…
“the contractions will give you pause”
“you won’t be able to walk or talk during the contractions”
“sitting down will not make the contractions go away”
Check. Check. Check.
I guess the membrane sweep did the trick.
I started timing the length of each contraction and amount of time between each one. By 6:30pm I was at the “time to go to the hospital” level. Contractions lasting at least a minute and less than 5 minutes apart for at least an hour. At this point, Jeff is freaking out, head in his hands, “call the hospital, call the hospital, tell them we’re coming”, me being the stubborn thing that I am, was refusing. “Nope! I want to be absolutely sure. I’m not getting sent home a-g-…..”. What was I thinking?!?! I couldn’t even finish my sentence as I cringed in pain. Ok. Time to call.
As Jeff called Labor & Delivery, I remember thinking to myself, “WTF was I thinking the last 2 times?!?! That pain was NOTHING compared to this!! How could I have thought I was in labor before?”
All the rooms in L&D were full. The on-call doctor gave us instructions to continue timing the contractions and to wait for him to call us back in a few minutes, he wanted to make sure there was a room for us when we got there. Thinking back, that’s weird, right? I mean, what if there wasn’t a room? Was he just gonna call me and say sorry, can you wait until tomorrow? 🙂 30 minutes went by and the doctor hadn’t called back. Jeff is usually very laid back, goes with the flow and let’s me do what I want. This was not one of those times…when the doctor hadn’t called back and I was nearly crying from the pain, he put his foot down, got me in the car and off we went.
This was it! Baby was coming!
We got to the hospital around 9:00pm. The on-call doctor had called when we were on the way. There were no Labor & Delivery rooms available at the moment but there should be one within a few hours, until then I would just be in Triage. That’s fine, right? No big deal. Still a bed. Yes, still a bed, but no epidural.
I had planned all along to have an epidural but they can not give it to you until you are in your Labor & Delivery room. Until then, I could only have Fentanyl. This took the edge off for the first hour but as the contractions increased in intensity the Fentanyl proved ineffective. We got into our L&D room around 11pm and by midnight I had the epidural, one of the things I was MOST scared of for some reason but actually turned out to be quick and pretty painless. However, now that I’m sitting here writing this I’m thinking maybe it was painless because I had already had some pain meds? Hmm.

Wednesday, November 2nd
I’ll be honest with you all. I did not have a birth plan. I read a bit about them when I first got pregnant but, for me, it just didn’t make sense. This was my first baby. I had NO IDEA what I was doing. Other than the fact that I knew I wanted to deliver in a hospital and I FOR SURE wanted an epidural, everything else was a bit up in the air. I kept hearing that things very rarely go as planned and that birth plans tend to change once you are in labor due to unforeseen circumstances. I guess I didn’t want to be disappointed when things didn’t go how I planned (because I’m a control freak and I tend to get that way) and I wanted to be open to the advice of the experts. I absolutely LOVE my doctor and trust her opinion 1000% so I knew that whatever her advice is would be best for me. So, I kind of just researched a bit of everything so that I would have some idea about whatever might pop up and resolved to try my best to go with the flow.
By 1am, the chaos of the nurses, doctor doing a cervical check (still at 2cm btw) and the anesthesiologist in and out of our room had died down. Time to finally get some rest?
Nope. Turns out, the epidural wasn’t super effective for me either. The pain was at bay until about 3am, then the intensity of the contractions outweighed the pain meds. The anesthesiologist came back and gave me a bolster of medicine which took the edge off but by 7am that pain was pretty unbearable once again.
7am must be a shift change because my doctor arrived, new nurses and a new anesthesiologist came to introduce themselves. We chatted with my doctor a bit about what had gone on the night before, how I was feeling and what to expect. She performed another cervical check. 3cm. Ugh!!! That’s it?!?! We decide to move forward with a shot of Pitocin, the labor inducing drug, to move things along. Jeff asks if it is safe to go get breakfast 🙂 the doctor says yes, it will still be a few hours.
Between 8am-8:30am…
Jeff leaves to get breakfast
Our mom’s both arrive at the hospital
I get another cervical check…8cm!! What?!?!
Jeff gets back and is shocked by what took place while he got to stuff his face 🙂
I think I was allowed to have some chicken broth. Womp womp.
They continue to check me every hour, but by noon I’m still at 8cm. This is where the Leep procedure becomes important. The scar tissue on my cervix was keeping me from fully dilating so my doctor had to massage the scar tissue in order to break it up and hopefully release allowing my cervix to fully dilate. This did the trick! By 1pm it was time to push!!!
Everything from this point on was a bit foggy. Not because of the drugs, which by the way were still not working, but because of the exhaustion. I had been in active labor for 20 hours at this point and had been awake for 30 hours with just little cat naps here and there when the pain was tolerable.
I pushed for 5 1/2 hours, every 2-3 minutes, each time I felt a contraction coming, I mustered up all the strength I had to push. Landon was facing up (when he ideally should be facing down) and he was stuck above my pelvic bone. For 5 hours, at any given time, there were at least 5 doctors and nurses in my room, all standing around the bed waiting for a contraction and then intensely watching the fetal monitor to make sure the baby wasn’t distressed from the intensity and the pushing. My doctor and head nurse took turns trying to turn the baby once or twice an hour with no luck. The pain was so intense that I tried every position possible to alleviate it but the best option seemed to be sitting up in bed with a bar in front of me to grab onto during each contraction. I remember being, what felt like at least, in and out of consciousness. I would feel a contraction coming, I would move a bit and Jeff and a nurse would push me up towards the bar. I would push my way through the contraction and as soon as it was over I would drop back on the bed and close my eyes, hoping to sleep for 2 minutes until the next one came. In those 2-3 minutes, it got to the point that everyone in the room was just so quiet while they watched the monitors that I needed some noise, something to focus on or distract me. I asked Jeff to turn on some music. He asked what kind of music I wanted. I’m pretty sure I said, “I don’t care. Anything.” What do you think my comic of a husband played?…
Push It by Salt & Pepa
Everyone in the room started laughing. Including me. It was a welcome distraction. I can always count on Jeff for comic relief just when I need it 🙂 After that I think he turned on Brandie Carlile.
At this point it was almost 5pm. I was fading fast. I was running out of energy and I didn’t know how much longer I could push. My doctor had somewhere she had to be that night so she couldn’t stay much longer, but the on call doctor had also been in the room most of the afternoon as well as another doctor that she had called to be there for support as well, both were amazing! My doctor tried to turn the baby one last time before she left, she didn’t think it had worked.
I found out later, from my mom who had been sitting just outside my room, that my doctor and her colleague were outside the room discussing a C-section right before she left. Around 6pm, the on call doctor was beginning to mention C-section to us, they were mere minutes from wheeling me into an operating room and I was minutes from saying out loud “I can’t do this anymore”. In fact, I think I may have said that at one point. During the very next contraction, the nurse felt the baby drop down, and he was face down. He had flipped! Somehow 🙂
All of a sudden I got a huge burst of energy, I have no idea how. Adrenaline I guess. Pushing for that last hour seemed like nothing, I didn’t feel any pain.
At 6:30pm, on November 2nd, 2016, the doctor laid the most perfect baby boy on my chest. Landon was so wide-eyed from the very beginning. Moments after they laid him on my chest, he opened his eyes and looked up at Jeff and I. (I’m crying now by the way)
In the moments that followed, I forgot all about the pain, I forgot all about how exhausted I was. Jeff and I were both crying, just amazed at what had just happened. We spent 9 months waiting for this little guy to arrive and now he was here and I was overwhelmed with the most intense feelings of happiness and love I had ever felt. In that moment I knew that our lives would never be the same, that becoming parents had changed us forever in the best way possible. Every bit of pain and exhaustion was worth it. All the fears about what kind of mom I would be were gone, replaced with eagerness to just hold and cuddle this little baby, to love him and to teach him about the world.

*All photos by Janine Soltman Photography