A Birth Story

My due date was set for August 17th (we thought it was the 16th until my appointment the week before my due date), so I arranged everything at work with plans to be done August 2nd with two weeks to prepare for this baby. Well, those two weeks came, and then went right along with my due date. I was officially overdue, and pretty bummed about it. I had really wanted to go into labor naturally, without being induced. I would have loved for her to come a little bit early too, but she had other plans. As I look back though, I see that she came with perfect timing. By accident, our dog Sophie was due to have a puppy on my same due date. I ended up delivering that puppy on the 15th, and then Sophie did the rest. My mom was extremely relieved as well that she didn't have to be the one to deliver the puppy. James' grandpa also passed away suddenly the week before my due date, but since the baby was late, James was able to go to his funeral.

Because this was our first baby, I wasn't allowed to be induced until a week after my due date. The Wednesday before that date I had an appointment where the doctor had told us to bring our stuff just in case. He looked for any possible reason that he could use to start my induction, but everything was perfect (bummer!). So, we went home to wait two more days until Friday evening for my induction. We were both pretty grumpy about it.

The doctor told us to call labor and delivery Friday night at 5:00 to see how busy they were. Unfortunately, they were finishing up a couple other deliveries, so we had to wait until 7:30. James played some video games, and I read a book to try and occupy our minds to pass the time. It was awful! By the time 7:30 rolled around, I was feeling really emotional and scared. James could tell and so he offered to give me a blessing before we left. As soon as the blessing ended, I felt much more peaceful, and ready to bring this baby to the world. I'm  so grateful to have the priesthood in our home!

We checked into the hospital around 7:45. I changed into my hospital gown, got an IV and monitors hooked up, answered a whole bunch of questions, and then they started the pitocin. For a long time I didn't really feel any contractions, but the machine said I was having them, and they were starting to be more regular. I was also on a fluid drip to keep me hydrated. All I noticed was that I had to pee a lot, and moving around with all those tubes and cords was sure a hassle.

The hospital had a Redbox downstairs, so James rented "Life of Pi" for us to watch and pass some time. Neither of us have any idea what happened in the movie since the nurses came in every half hour, and we were both anxious to get the show on the road.

Around midnight, my doctor showed up to break my water. After that, I started to feel the contractions and I was getting pretty uncomfortable. At this point (2:00 AM) I was still undecided about getting an epidural, but after talking with the nurses and James, I decided to get one. The anesthesiologist wasn't in the hospital, so the nurses called him in from home. I wish we would have taken a picture of him, he was really tall with a long face, and a poofy hair net and he rolled in there with a large cart filled with tubes and needles and all his gadgets. He was the nicest man ever, but he sure was funny-looking.

Getting the epidural was pretty uncomfortable for me (especially because I couldn't see what was going on back there), he kept asking me to arch my back towards him, but that was the opposite of the way my body wanted to react. In the end, I'm really glad that I got the epidural (even though it would have been awesome to tell people I was tough enough to do it without), otherwise I definitely would not have been able to get any sleep and that made a huge difference.

After the drugs kicked in, the nurses put my urine catheter in and got me situated to get some sleep. Luckily I was able to get a little sleep even with the blood pressure cuff going off every half hour, and nurses coming in to roll me over and check things. James got some sleep as well (probably more than I did).

When the doctor broke my water, he also inserted a catheter that would measure the intensity of my contractions (I had a monitor on my tummy that could tell when I had a contraction, but it didn't sense the intensity). After he left, the nurse took it out saying that it wasn't in far enough, so they wouldn't be able to get an accurate reading. Later that night after I was asleep, she came in and put another catheter in. Shortly after that, the baby's heart rate dropped. The nurse pulled out the catheter, and called my doctor in immediately (he was sleeping somewhere in the hospital). They had me all prepped to do a c-section--someone came in from the laboratory to draw my blood, I had a hairnet on, the doctor and nurses were all prepped in their scrubs and masks, and I was told to breathe deeply into the oxygen mask. For some reason, maybe shock or the epidural, my body had been shaking/shivering a lot, but I wasn't cold. When her heart rate dropped, my body started shaking uncontrollably. Poor James, all he could do was stand there an hold my hand. Luckily, after about five minutes, her heart rate went back to normal, and I wasn't taken for a c-section. I was pretty out of it at this point, so James told me about it later, but apparently the nurse told the doctor about how she had put in a new catheter shortly before, and that she probably shouldn't have done that. My doctor told me that baby's heart rates can drop for any number of reasons, and he wasn't sure what caused that to happen, but he was pretty short with that nurse afterwords. It did turn out that the cord was wrapped around her neck twice, so that could have been the reason for the drop as well.

After that ordeal, we went back to sleep until I woke up feeling nauseous. James barely woke up in time to bring me the trash can so I didn't have to barf on the floor. I threw up twice more after that. I'm not sure what caused it, but my body was definitely calming down after those scary five minutes.

I woke up again at 6:00 AM when I started to feel pressure like I needed to use the bathroom/push out a baby. The nurses brought out the leg rests, and I started pushing. They had me do three ten-second sets of pushing each time I felt the pressure coming. They had James do the counting, and sometimes I wished he would count faster. Everything was going really well, and the baby was coming right along. The nurses called in the doctor (he came in in basketball shorts and a t-shirt because he was just about to leave to play some football--we caught him just in time), and I pushed probably three times with him and, with one small, uncomfortable break for the doctor to take the cord off her neck, she was here!

I had asked for her to be placed on my tummy right after birth, so they plopped her on a blanket on my stomach so I could see her and then she was taken to the warmer to be cleaned up, weighed, etc.

The warmer table was in my room, so I got to watch from a distance while the nurses checked everything and got her cleaned up. James was right with her and it was fun to watch him ask the nurses questions and see his first encounter with his little girl. She weighed in at 6 pounds, 13 ounces, and was 19 inches long.

After I was stitched up (I just had a small tear--the doctor called it a first degree) and cleaned up, we called and texted family to let them know she was here while I sipped juice and ate graham crackers because I hadn't eaten anything since 5:00 the evening before. We tried nursing then, but she was too tired, and I didn't really know what I was doing, so that didn't happen. After about an hour, they took us up to our room. I changed into a new gown and got settled while the nurses came to check everything out. We were taught how to bathe her, and then our first visitors came. It was fun to get to see everyone, and have them meet our new baby.

Later in the morning, the lactation consultant came and we tried to nurse again. The baby still didn't want to wake up, and once she did, she wouldn't/couldn't latch. The lactation consultant had me pump, and we fed her by having her suck on James' pinkie, and then put a tube in her mouth attached to a syringe with the colostrum. The lactation consultant kept bragging to everyone about how I had pumped copious amounts of colostrum. I thought that was weird, since it was only a syringe full, but apparently that's a lot. It took us until later that night to actually get her to latch, and I had to use a breast shield to even get that to happen. The girl just wanted to sleep!

We kept her in the room with us that first night and she slept really well. It was the nurses that kept waking us (or at least me) up all night. Because she was small based on her gestation, she needed to have her sugar levels checked every six hours. All of them came back great, so they didn't have to keep checking her for too long. The nurses came in every few hours to give me medicine and check my vital signs as well, so that was a pretty long night especially after not getting a full night's sleep before, not to mention delivering a baby.

Since everything looked great, we were able to check out the next morning. It was so nice to be home and be able to wear my own  clothes and relax a little bit and enjoy our new baby.

If you noticed, I didn't say her name at all during this post. That's because she really didn't have an official name until about a minute before we checked out of the hospital. During my pregnancy we had kept her name a secret because we were going back and forth between Claire and Clara. The first day we were calling her Claire, but then we decided to switch to Clara. We figured we could still call her Claire if we wanted to if her name was Clara. Then we couldn't decide if we wanted to give her a middle name or not. We decided not to, and I turned in the paper for her birth certificate. Then as we were leaving the hospital, we decided we wanted to give her a middle name, so we stopped on the way out and added a middle name to the form.

So, without further ado, we introduce Clara Lynne Dryden!

This is right after she was cleaned up.

Hanging out with daddy.

Home!

I started this post a couple weeks ago, and just barely got around to finishing it. Clara is now 7 pounds 13 ounces and is 20.5 inches long. She sleeps really well. In fact, sometimes she makes it through the night (hopefully that will continue)! If she doesn't make it through the night, she only wakes up once to eat and then usually goes right back to sleep. She loves taking baths and hates getting her clothes changed. It's definitely been a change in routine at our house, but it's been so fun to learn how to take care of this little sweetie. We love her so much and we're excited to see who she'll become!

Here are a few more pictures: