Sweet Baby Rae: Raelyn's Birth Story

I didn't think I wanted to share Raelyn's Birth Story with the world, but here it goes anyway. I hope that it's an encouragement to any mother who ever felt like a failure because their body did not begin labor naturally. You are not a failure. You endured through birthing a child in some way, shape or form and your little one is now healthy in your arms. It's no small task.

My only goal was to get Raelyn here safely and not beat myself up about how it happened. Of course I had an idea of what I wanted to happen but at the end of the day we were both healthy even though things didn't happen as I expected.

Here's our story:

We had passed Raelyn’s due date (September 21^st) and we were anxious to meet her by this point. Induction wasn’t exactly what we were hoping for, but it was how we met our precious little bean. I went in to my midwife on Thursday the 24^th and we discussed the options. We scheduled the induction for the next opening at the hospital, which was 9:30pm on Saturday night the 26^th.

We waited patiently all day Saturday and called into the hospital at 8:30 to see if there was still an available bed. They told me to come in at 10:00 so we eventually made our way over there. Once we got there, checked in and were given a room number, my mom just kept walking with us and some how snuck back there too. Sneaky mom. I guess I was surprised that the staff didn’t ask about her specifically. We were a little early, so we sat around for about 10 minutes before anyone came in to talk to us.

I started the process by first getting an IV put in and hooked up to saline. They started the induction process with a small dose of Cytotec at around midnight. I had to stay on the monitors for 2 hours then I had an hour off to walk around or sit on the exercise ball, then back on the monitors for the last hour (4 hrs total) before they gave me another dose. Nothing much changed during that first dose and around 5am they gave me another dose of Cytotec. The process kept going and I received another does around 10am. The contractions weren’t that painful at this point, but I could definitely feel them. We did laps around the delivery ward and I walked with my awesome IV cart. The cytotec was doing its job and I was dilating over time, just not very quickly. We watched some Sunday football waiting it all out and around 2pm the contractions were getting more painful. I would breathe through them pretty heavily and squeeze the crap out of David’s hand. He was such a great coach through the whole thing. 

Around 8 or 9 pm I brought up getting the epidural because at that point I was crying through the contractions. At 10:30 I got the epidural and David had to step out, as it was a “sterile operation”. I probably squeezed the hell out of the nurse’s hand as I was getting a contraction while they were giving the epidural. That epidural was liquid gold! After I had gotten it though, Rae’s heart rate dropped as did my blood pressure and many nurses ran into my room in order to stabilize Rae and make sure she was okay. They threw an oxygen mask on me and other than that I truly don’t know what else they did. After they stabilized her and heart rate was back to normal, I was able to rest up and David came back in shortly after. He had no idea about the hiccup but there would be another one later. About an hour after resting on my left side, the nurse and Marsha came in to flip me to my right in order to move Rae down the birthing canal. Raelyn didn’t like my right side and her heart rate dropped again, bringing more nurses in to stabilize her and myself again. Another oxygen mask and David was actually there this time – he did really well through it all. They took off the external monitors and inserted internal monitors for both her heart rate and the contractions. After that point, they flipped me just a few more times every hour as Rae kept moving towards the exit. Next thing I knew I jumped from a 5 to an 8 pretty quickly. Gave me pitocin as well once I was stabilized after the epidural. They kept monitoring me and early in the morning Rae was ready to make her entrance!

At 4:30 in the morning it was time to push. Marsha was great at coaching me through when to push. I pushed for 45 minutes, on every other contraction. I couldn’t feel the pain, but I could feel the pressure. David would come up to the bedside every time I pushed so I could squeeze his hand. He did great too – because if anyone knows David – he doesn’t do well with anything related to doctors, hospitals or pretty much anything medical. I was pretty much ready for him to pass out.

Through the pushing, my legs and arms were shaking terribly – like I was shivering. My body was so tired and worn out, I’m truly glad I got the epidural because I don’t think I would have been able to relax my body for it to progress on its own. 

At 5:13, Raelyn Joy entered into the world and she was placed right on my chest after she was delivered. David and I were so thankful that Rae had finally made it and after 25 hours of labor (at least starting to feel the contractions all the way up to delivery) we were a family of three. She was born on September 28^th, weighing 6 pounds 9.5 ounces and was 20½ inches long. Our perfect little peanut brings us so much joy even through the sleepless nights and never-ending diaper changes. She’s wonderfully made and the Lord has blessed us with this precious gift.