Eli David Smith's Birth Story

Well, it's about time I get around to this post!  Eli will be three months old tomorrow :)  I actually wrote my birth story (and journal entries for the first month of Eli's life) a while ago, but I'm just getting around to posting it.  I apologize if this is monumentally boring to you, but documenting it is important to me so here it goes!

Sunday, April 13th was a beautiful night, and we went out to dinner at Frida Batidos in downtown Ann Arbor.  We sat outside with our friends and their 7 month old son.  When we stood up from dinner, I felt a small gush in my underwear.  I went inside to check out what it was and it was “bloody show” (not my water breaking).  Based on what our Doula, Cynthia, had told us, I knew that this was a sure sign that contractions would be starting soon.  When I told Taylor, the look on his face was priceless – it was go time.

We stopped at 7-Eleven on the way home to pick up some 5 hour energy and Gatorade and headed home at around 8pm.  When we got there, I texted Cynthia who said to get some rest since we might not be getting any sleep the rest of the night and to let her know once contractions started and had been going for an hour to give her an idea of length, spacing, intensity.

Contractions didn’t start until around 12:40am, and they were very mild.  They increased in intensity and frequency throughout the night and by 8am were over a minute long and intense enough that I could not talk through them.  I also started vomiting and was unable to keep down any of the liquids I was taking in.  We stayed in touch with Cinthia throughout the morning.  Taylor was absolutely amazing throughout all of this.  He stood by me during each contraction, timed them, and coached me to stay loose in my hands and neck rather than tensing up.  I expected that he might stop doing this once other people were around and able to step in, but he never stopped being my coach, even until the very end when Eli came out.

At around 2pm, Cynthia decided it was time for her to come and observe my labor, which she did from 2pm to 5:30 when, based on the timing of contractions and on her observation of my pain, we decided it was probably time to head to the hospital.  Riding to the hospital, I was on my hands and knees on the back seat with my head over the carseat and a bowl in the carseat in case I got sick.  Not exactly the image I had in my head of Taylor and I lovingly looking at each other and remarking how our lives would never be the same :)  We arrived at the hospital, went in to triage, and started to monitor baby and contractions.  At this point, the contractions “spaced out” which is apparently normal when changing environments.  When the midwife came in to check me, she asked questions about intensity, frequency, and by the look on her face, I could tell that she didn’t think I was in active enough labor to be at the hospital.  However, when she administered my first exam, she (and everyone else!) was shocked to find that I was already 9 cm dilated! She confirmed that my water hadn’t broken and the baby was in good position.

With Cynthia in Triage

In Triage

This earned me admission to a tub room, and we headed up to labor for the final 1cm.  After a couple of hours without feeling the urge to push, the midwife checked me again to find that I still had a little more to go and we decided she would rupture my membranes to try to get things moving.  Another hour and she did an exam to find that I was fully dilated.  Now all that was left was waiting for me to feel the urge to push.

We waited another hour or so and still nothing, so the midwife decided to “teach” me to push while applying pressure in the birth canal in hopes of getting things moving.  I pushed through a few contractions and while I still didn’t feel the “urge,” it was making progress.  Once they could see Eli’s head, they inserted a heart monitor under his skin because they were having trouble finding his heartbeat.

As he made it down the birth canal, they continued to “lose” his heartbeat on the monitor and as he was close to crowning, became concerned enough that the midwife recommended and administered an episiotomy.  Of course, this was not what we hoped for, but it did the trick and after a couple more contractions, Eli David Smith emerged at 12:56am weighing 8lbs, 3oz, screaming bloody murder and healthy as can be. When he emerged, the cord was wrapped around his neck and tied in a knot, which they said was probably the reason that they were having trouble finding his heartbeat and that I was having trouble pushing him out the last little bit.  However, none of that mattered because our son was here and we were so in love!

One of Eli's first pics :)

I was so happy that my sister was actually in town the weekend Eli was born.  We had joked that if he came a little early she could be there, but never expected it to happen :)  She and our friend Carole waited patiently at the hospital the whole time and were able to come in about an hour after Eli was born.  They even captured his birth and first cries (audio only!) on their phones, which is really cool to be able to hear.  Shortly after Taryn and Carole joined us, we FaceTimed with both sets of parents (at like 3am!) to introduce them to their new grandson :)  It was a beautiful experience.

Afterward, I felt pretty good besides being very tired.  They moved out new little family to a recovery room around 4am and for the first time we were alone with our boy.  Since we hadn't really slept the night before, we went to bed pretty much as soon as we were in there, and got a couple precious hours of sleep before the long line of nurses and doctors started.  At one point, Taylor woke me up because he thought Eli was hungry.  I swear,  I was in such a deep sleep that when I woke up it took me a while to figure out where I was and what had just happened!  We stayed one more night in the hospital to get past the 24 hour mark and were discharged on Eli's actual due date.  Overall I had a fantastic birth experience, I wouldn't change a thing!