Declan's Birth Story

I've been meaning to sit down and write this story for two weeks now, I've had a hard time finding the right words. But days are passing by at lightening speed and I know the details will start to get fuzzy. 

 The last week of my pregnancy passed by with a lot of anxiety. The constant not knowing when it was going to happen was brutal for my type A personality. Then I hit the 12 days out from due date; the same time Garrett was born. I was pretty moody that day but tried to make peace with it. I had my appointment with my midwife on Friday July 11th at 38 weeks and 6 days. I told myself I could make it to my appointment the following week and then we could discuss trying to jump start things.

Friday night Mike and I were watching the Orioles game and I headed to be bed around 10:30. I got up to use the bathroom around 11:30 and was having a pretty strong Braxton Hicks contraction but it definitely wasn't uncomfortable. I got up again around 12:30 when Mike came up to bed and the same thing. I woke up around 1:30 to another contraction with another bathroom break. This time there was some spotting so I was pretty sure things were getting moving. I tried to lay back down to rest but was too excited. I went downstairs around 2:15 and started to time the contractions as they were getting more uncomfortable. I decided to call my midwife around 2:45 because I didn't remember bleeding with Garrett and wanted to be sure it was normal. 

 

I called the after hours line and Paula, the midwife on call, assured me it was normal. I told her the contractions were coming about 2 1/2 to 3 minutes apart but that they weren't very intense. My plan was always to labor at home as long as possible so she said I could hold off on heading in until the contractions were intense enough that I couldn't talk through them. I called my dad so he could be on standby when I needed him to come pick Garrett up. When I went upstairs Mike was up with the light on, realizing there was no point in trying to get a little more sleep. I packed the hospital bag while Mike took a shower. I had intentionally not packed the bag ahead of time and just created a good list. Since I knew I'd be at home for a while, I was hoping to have something to distract me and it worked exactly how I planned.  Garrett woke up at some point and after explaining that I was in labor I told him to go back to sleep. 

Around 5am I decided (with some persuasion by Mike) that it was probably time to head to the hospital. At that point I had to stop during contractions and really work my way through them. They were still coming 2 1/2 minutes apart so I felt like there wasn't a lot of down time in between once they got really uncomfortable. At this point Garrett was up again. He was super cute following me around, asking a million questions and trying to help when a contraction would come. He helped me pack his bag, take some scraps into the chicken coop and clean up the kitchen. Finally around 5:30 my dad showed up and we headed out to the hospital. I was feeling a little nauseous before we left and the contractions in the car were definitely worse because I couldn't move around. Thankfully we made it to the hospital in a little under 20 minutes with no incidents. 

When we got the hospital it was pretty deserted. We headed up to labor and delivery and they checked us into triage. They needed me to lay in the bed while they monitored my contractions and the babies heart rate. The contractions in the bed were more intense but thankfully Paula came in to check me pretty quickly and they let me get back up after seeing I was 5cm dilated and clearly in active labor.

I was planning on having a water birth but there was a small issue which I had been told about at one of my prior appointments. The permanent tub was cracked and a new one wasn't available until August. There was a temporary tub in the meantime but I would only be able to labor in the tub, not deliver. Thankfully the tub room was available when they moved me to the labor room. Paula worked with one of the nurses to start getting the tub ready while another nurse attempted to get an IV into my arm. I was GBS positive so they wanted to get me hooked up to antibiotics as quickly as possible. Unfortunately I have difficult veins and it took what felt like forever to get an IV in. It's funny because I had the same issue when I was in labor with Garrett.  It's on of my most vivid memories from his labor because I wanted an epidural and I couldn't get one until they were able to get the IV in and a full bag of fluids in.  I may have yelled at a nurse....  Back to Declan's labor.....I'm sure it felt longer because I was confined to the bed which made the contractions almost unbearable. At one point I looked over at Mike and told him I wasn't sure I could do it without an epidural. He just shook his head no and the nurse got my IV in so I was able to jump out of the bed. 

I had a few contractions while standing next to the bed and swaying my hips seemed to help. I also asked Mike to rub my hips but that idea was better in theory. I yelled at him to push harder but that didn't seen to help either. Suddenly I had an insane amount of pressure and I told Mike something was happening. No sooner than Mike took a step back away from me, my water broke all over the floor. It really was just like the movies, I heard a pop, a crazy loud splash and the last thing I remember really clearly was the sound of Mike gagging and jumping over to the other side of the bed.

Things got really crazy after that. I told a nurse behind me that I thought I was pushing. She told me to stop pushing until the midwife could get back into the room and I told her that I couldn't, my body was doing it on its own. She told me I at least needed to get into bed because I couldn't deliver the baby on the floor. Everything flashed like blur. I got into the bed but I was so scared from the pain on the contractions when I laid down that I went on my knees and leaned over the back of the bed.  To complicate things, they were in the middle of a shift change so I had four nurses instead of two and no midwife in the room. Thankfully Lauren was coming on duty and checked me to find me ten centimeters and gave me the okay to start pushing.

Pushing was super intense but it was such a relief to be able to bear down after trying not to push while they got ready. Mike was at the head of the bed holding my hand and he was pretty overwhelmed by the way things were progressing, not to mention he was completely new to the whole process!! After a few pushes they asked me to flip over onto my back because the position wasn't working and they couldn't get a monitor to read the babies heart rate. I rolled over, but only onto my side, when Lauren said one more push. Sure enough, his head came out on the next push and after another small push he was here! 

 

I reached down and grabbed him from Lauren and held him for about a minute before one of the nurses said "wait, we don't know the gender" and spread his little legs apart to find boy parts. I looked over at Mike who had come around to the side of the bed and he looked very proud and a bit overwhelmed. I can't say I blame him, from the time my water broke until he was born at 7:03 was only 8 minutes. It definitely took me almost an hour to really process the whole delivery. It was probably only 45 minutes between the time I was checked in triage at 5cm and the time I was fully dilated. 

I held him while they waited for the cord to stop pulsing which was a little awkward. I kept trying to pull him closer to my face and had to be reminded that he was still attached and I needed to wait to bring him closer. Mike cut the cord after saying the entire pregnancy he didn't think he would want to. I think at that point his gross factor had was maxed out and he could have handled anything.

We immediately started talking about names so that we could call Garrett and announce to the rest of the family. I didn't really keep it a secret during my pregnancy that I was really pulling for another boy so it's no surprise that our list of boy names was in better shape than the girl list. Thankfully we had a listening 3 that needed to be narrowed down: Austin, Declan and Everett. Everett was my first choice but Mike wasn't sold on that one so we agreed on Declan.  

 

Declan Augustus Gonano weighed in at 8 lbs 12 oz and 21 3/4 inches long. He was  almost exactly the same size as Garrett, just one ounce heavier.

Needless to say, it was an incredibly fast labor and I didn't get my water birth which was totally fine with me.  There was only about 3 inches of water in the tub when Declan was born and they barely got one round of antibiotics in. Thankfully he had no issues related to the GBS and only had to he treated with a little formula for low blood sugar, likely due to his large size and quick labor. I really still have a hard time believing how quickly things moved but it was a blessing because I'm not sure how much more labor I could have handled. Mike joked about it after the fact but I do wonder if the 2 pints of Red Rasberry Leaf tea I was drinking in the 3rd trimester contributed to my quick labor.  My natural delivery was definitely the most intense, empowering experience of my life. It doesn't take away from my experience when Garrett was born, both resulted in amazing, healthy baby boys. But from a personal perspective and what it meant for me and my body, this was truly an amazing, amazing experience and I now completely understand why women who have done it advocate so hard for it.  We are so excited to have Declan as part of our family and can't remember what life was like before he got here.