Topher's Birth Story, Part 1

If you’ve ever been pregnant a full 40 weeks, then you know the misery of those final days. Now imagine being pregnant for TWO MORE WEEKS!! That’s how long I was pregnant with Topher, 42 weeks. I ended up having to go back to the specialist group twice that first week past due, just to make sure fluid levels were okay for me to continue being pregnant. Since they were fine, I was given the go ahead to keep waiting. I was obviously looking forward to Topher’s arrival and I was eager to see how the story of his birth would begin. Would my water break first? Would I labor at home, and then rush to the hospital for a quick delivery? I was certain this delivery would be quicker and easier than my first. Isn’t that true for every second child?! Well when my due date came and went, I was still sure that any day or any moment I would be in labor. Yet the clock kept ticking and the days crept by. I even got to the point where I debated using castor oil to jumpstart my labor. Luckily I decided not to. I was an emotional wreck one minute and optimistic the next, knowing it had to be soon. I treasured the moments rocking Liam to sleep those last two weeks knowing he would never again be an only child. I went and saw a movie with my girlfriends, went to lunches with my mom and sister, and made special tea’s that were supposed to help ripen my cervix. I walked, we had sex, and I even drank wine to try to relax my way into labor; supposedly all of these things have worked for OTHER women, but they certainly didn’t work for me!

Originally one of the midwives planned to bring me in Sunday night for a Monday induction, 7 days past my due date. I felt that was too early and had it pushed back to a Wednesday induction. But at my appointment that Monday, we decided to push it back even further to Saturday. Sitting at that appointment I was a wreck. I was frustrated feeling like I was fighting for a birth with no extra intervention, yet here I was making decisions about how and when this baby was coming. What day would I be induced? Would I get cervidil to ripen my cervix the night before? Or we could do a balloon catheter to help me dilate which would hopefully send me into labor. Or what about just breaking my water? Ugh…I just wanted to go into labor and have a baby without intervention…I held out hope. The midwife scheduled another appointment for Friday afternoon where we could decide on doing the catheter (where I could go home and wait for labor) or going in for Cervidil for the formal induction. As this was my second pregnancy, Tania (the midwife) really felt like either one would jumpstart my labor and it would be all I needed. I really wanted to avoid pitocin if possible. At every appointment for the past several weeks, I was dilated only to a one and I wasn’t having any further development, which was awful, because I was having tons of contractions, making me feel they were completely useless. By Wed my contractions were so consistent I swore I was in labor. I even downloaded a contraction timing app on my phone and they were definitely coming every 5 minutes apart. I went and took a shower and told Will I was going to lie down and rest until they were stronger and closer and felt we should leave. Then, when I got in bed and completely relaxed, my contractions slowed and became inconsistent. Ugh, so I went to sleep. It was like this every day, but I stopped timing my contractions much because I figured I would know when it was REALLY time. Plus I was tired of being disappointed when after hours of consistent contractions they would stop, so I mostly started ignoring them.

Finally, my appointment Friday rolled around. March 11. I was dilated to a loose 2/tight 3. Woohoo! This seemed like big news, at least SOMETHING was happening. The midwife felt the balloon catheter wasn’t really an option now that I was dilating some on my own. So, even though she felt comfortable waiting it out until Monday, we opted to head back to the hospital that night for the cervidil. Plus I really liked and trusted Tania (as she saw me both Monday and Friday that week and she was on call to deliver for the following day). I might have been crazy enough to go back home and wait it out the weekend, but at that point I really felt like if we didn’t do something I was actually going to be pregnant forever. Plus, though Will was being totally supportive and giving me the freedom to make decisions, I wasn’t sure he could stand me pushing back the induction date another minute. So, we went home, hung out a bit with Liam and then went to dinner before heading to the hospital. For the several hours leading up to the hospital, my regular contractions were back. I was so used them by this point that though I mentioned them to Will I certainly didn’t worry about them. I joked though that we were going to get to the hospital and I was going to be far enough into labor that we wouldn’t have to have anything at all. Will was less optimistic of this and was simply glad to know that no matter what we were finally going to have this baby soon.

We got to the hospital a bit early, so I insisted we walk around before heading in. When we went back to the car for some of our luggage, I took the stairs. Anything I could do to encourage Topher out on his own I did, lol. We finally made it to the L&D floor and filled out the paperwork for admission. I told them I wanted one of the rooms with a tub, as I was striving for a natural birth and didn’t want any pain medication. Since we had to wait for them to clean a room, they put us in another room to wait. The nurse came in to ask a bunch of pointless questions to complete my paperwork. She was very nice, but spoke with an accent, and I am horrible with accents. I kept looking at Will for assistance on the simplest questions because I didn’t understand what she was saying. HA! Finally we made it to our room and they began to check me out. My contractions were indeed very regular and they didn’t see any need to administer Cervidil. I think I did a happy dance in my head. I was thrilled. I told Will that after all of the waiting Topher was going to come on his own. Summer, the midwife that night, felt we might even have a baby by morning. I was thrilled. I called my mom and told her we were going to try and get some rest, but that I’d call her once I started progressing further. I also called our photographer to tell her the same. But when I went to sleep, my contractions did the same thing they’d done every other night that week. They slowed down and became irregular. So morning rolled around and I wasn’t any further dilated than I was when I left the office visit the day before. Ugh….so much for my happy dance. At this point we were talking about starting pitocin, which would hopefully send me into labor and we would be able to stop it once things really started moving. But we decided to wait until Tania did rounds before starting the pitocin. Since we were sure that things were really going to start moving once that started, both my mom and Carleen, our photographer, came up to the hospital for the ‘fun’ to begin. Little did I know, the fun was going to last another 16 or so hours before Topher would FINALLY make his appearance….