Baby Lily

Lilian Marie
November 14th at 9:18am
6lbs. 8oz., 19inches

Our Birth Story - A Labor of Love
Knowing we didn’t want to be overdue, Casey and I had started to discuss ways to help natural induction. We didn’t really think anything would work since Lily was on her own time schedule. Thursday, the 12th, I had spicy Vietnamese soup for lunch and since we were at 38 weeks Casey gave me a light acupressure massage that night. Who knew it would work that very evening at 11:30 p.m. I started cramping and excitedly got up to tell Casey. “I think labor has started.”

I let him sleep until about 5 a.m. while I watched television in the other room due to my anxiousness. (*Tip – Sleep as long as you can. You’ll need all that energy later.) By 7 a.m. we called our doula, Julie, to report contractions had been sporadic, anywhere between 9 minutes to 3 minutes apart with growing intensity. We continued to go into active labor at home using different positions learned in class like sitting backwards on the toilet, walking with Casey, and cat and cow. (*Tip – Change positions, listen to your doula and husband.)

By 1 p.m., I was ready to go to the hospital; the contractions were 3 minutes apart and growing with intensity. The nurse did a vaginal exam and gave me the disheartening news I was only 2 centimeters dilated. We had not yet been admitted and based on our birth wishes the nurse recommended we go home and labor some more. Once admitted you are on the hospital’s time schedule, so we took her advice and made the uncomfortable trip back home to continue labor. (*Tip – We brought Sees candy and lollipops and taped our birth wishes to it.)

Once home, I took a bath and that seemed to get contractions going again and we stayed home until about 5 p.m. If I had my way I wouldn’t have left home. I kept telling Casey and Julie “I’m not going back to the hospital, our neighbor Mike (who is a fire fighter) can deliver her.” I still am not sure how they got me back into the car. The ride over was not good. My knees were on the seat with my elbows on the headrest. Luckily, we only live 8 minutes away. Once admitted the nurse insisted on another vaginal exam. Casey asked that she please only tell him so I wouldn’t hear. Unfortunately she blurted out “5 centimeters dilated”, again so disheartening. (*Tip- being able to wear my own clothes and not the hospital gown was comforting). We then thought it would be best to labor in the warm shower sitting down leaning on the wall with Casey and Julie taking turns pouring the warm water on me and putting pressure on my lower back. What made the labor most difficult was me throwing up after every contraction. I would either point to the ice chip cup or the throw up bucket. After a little more than an hour in the shower I had to get some more IV fluids and antibiotics for my positive strep B, so we made our way to the hospital bed.

After the fluids, we labored in a couple different positions for a few more hours. At approximately 11 p.m., the nurse checked me again and said I was at 8 centimeters, still very disheartening. Casey and Julie suggested that we labor in the shower again since the warm water brought the most comfort in labor. After a long while in the shower and a couple more different positions on the bed and on the ball, we waited until 6 a.m. to be checked again. 8 centimeters she said again. 8 centimeters for 7 hours. Very, very, discouraging. The nurse called Dr. Echt and she suggested a very small drip of pitocin to get the contractions to become stronger and more frequent so my cervix would continue to open up. We asked the nurse if she could give us one more hour to try walking around and a few more positions to open me up. Casey and Julie did everything they could to try and get me up and moving. However, between the very strong contractions and throwing up every time, it was very hard to move at all. We tried our best to open up however when the nurse came back and checked me I was still at 8 centimeters. 8 centimeters for 8 hours. At this point we talked it over agreed to only a very small pitocin drip that would increase as needed.

Within an hour, I felt like pushing just when the hospital had a staff change. I held it back for a little bit when just a little later an angel named Nurse Heidi came into our lives. She floated into the room, checked me, asked if I felt like pushing, and just took over the whole labor with thoughtful words of encouragement and knowledge. Nurse Heidi, Nurse Carol, Casey, Julie and I all worked together harmoniously for approximately 45 minutes pushing, working the baby out slowly. At approximately 8:50 a.m., Dr. Ramos, who was covering for Dr. Echt, was called in to deliver our baby much to our delight. She is an amazing woman also. At 9:18 a.m. baby Lily Marie Groves was born. She had passed meconium so the NICU team took her to the little station they had set up in the room, cleaned her up and passed her to Casey within 3 minutes of being born. He held her as I was passing the placenta and being stitched up. Once I was stitched up Casey gave her to me and she latched right away. We couldn’t have been more happy, blessed, and satisfied with what just had happened over the course of 32.5 hours.