Garrett Ryan Plewe's Arrival

Tuesday, July 3rd:

- 2:00pm day before my due date, no contractions yet, Dr. appointment, I was 2-3 cm, Dr. strips my membranes for the 2nd time but I am still convinced that I am not going to go into labor on my own. The Dr. tells me he still won't schedule an induction until I'm at least 41.5 weeks. I leave feeling very frustrated and anxious about how everything is going to happen since I really want to have a VBAC and just had a feeling that this baby was a big one. Dr. insisted I was measuring "normal" and not to worry about it.

- 2:45pm after the Dr. appointment, since I had a babysitter and Justin was just napping anyway, I decided to roam Target for a little while and let my hormones calm down before going home. I thought, there is a small chance if I just keep up on my feet, walking around, something might happen and this baby might decide to come. Cried to my Mom for a minute or two on the phone and then felt a little better about everything.

- 4:00pm get home, Justin still asleep, sit down and watch some TV

- 4:45pm sitting on the couch reading to Justin when I think my water breaks

- 4:50pm I call Ryan at work and say, "I think my water broke, or something, I'm not sure, but I think you should come home right now." 

- 5:10 Ryan gets home, I had called Kaiser and was told to go to the hospital, we somewhat frantically pack a bag (I had made a list but didn't actually have anything ready to go), drop Justin off at a friends, call my parents and tell them it's time (of course my Mom laughed considering I was in tears just hours before talking about how this baby was never coming!)

- 5:45pm arrive at hospital and get admitted, up to this point there had been several leaks of water, but not one big gush or anything, still no contractions. {Side note: the midwife that met with us to go over the birth plan felt my stomach and estimated a 7lb. 15oz. baby. HA!}

- 8:00pm still no contractions. Ryan goes to get me some dinner, my parents pick up Justin at our friends and come to the hospital for an update.

- 9:30pm start walking around the halls, still no contractions

- 11:30pm trying to go into natural labor was not working, so induction began with pitocin. {Side note: David was our night nurse.  A really funny, older guy who has 12 kids of his own.  He reminded us of our good friend, Rob Moffat. He was all about getting out of bed and trying various "exercises" to try to get contractions going. He was disappointed that I didn't have the baby on his shift, but since I was still in labor the next night, he came in for a visit and was able to meet Garrett.}

Wednesday, July 4th `a

- 4:00am midwife tells me that because I still haven't gone into active labor after hours of pitocin, I probably have a forebag of waters still attached. Apparently, if your water breaks, but not directly in front of where the baby's head is, you can still have a "forebag" of waters that keeps the head from descending and therefore prevents that trigger to tell your body to go into labor. Said she had 3 other moms this past week with the same thing, so she had a hunch it may be going on with me.  Turned out she was right. Couldn't she had thought of that earlier?! Anyway, she broke it, and I started having BIG contractions about 20 minutes later, and since I had already been receiving pitocin for 5 hours, they hurt from the moment they started.

- 5:30am my plan was to just "see how things went" as far as pain management, but it wasn't long after those horrible contractions started that I asked for an  epidural. The anesthesiologist had to place it twice amid the horrible contractions. Not fun, but since I was still only at 3 cm, I felt like it was definitely a good decision.

- 6:30am Finally time to rest. Still only at 3cm though. Frustrated. Right side more numb than the left from epidural, but not too big of a deal. I was told it would even out and not to worry about it.

- 10:00am- At 5 cm. Hallelujah! Rested for a couple of hours before pain from contractions started getting really bad due to a “window” of nerves that wasn’t getting numb across the left side of my uterus. After trying various positions and lots of tears, called the anesthesiologist to come back and give a higher dose of medication. It gave relief for about 50 minutes before the pains started up again. Tried to handle it as best as I could, but it was awful. They were continuing to up the pitocin level as well because if they didn't, I still wasn't staying in active labor. They didn't want to replace the epidural again because it might not have worked to numb the "window" anyway. Dumb. Next time I will insist that the epidural be done correctly from the get go, none of this "it will even out" mumbo jumbo.

- 2:00pm 7.5 cm but in A LOT of pain. I got a fever, which made things worse, and pretty much all day I was quietly whispering self talk like, "you can do it," "it's going to be okay," "it's just temporary," "just breathe," "stay calm." I learned how truly powerful our minds are in being able to control our bodies. Even so, it was terrible.

- 4:00pm 9.5 cm but in more pain than I ever thought I could handle with silent tears streaming down my face for hours. At some point, the anesthesiologist came back and gave another high dose to try to help with pain management, but again, it only somewhat gave relief and for less than an hour.

- 6:00pm finally at 10 cm but wanted the anesthesiologist back because I was feeling pretty much everything at that point and felt what numbness was left on my right side going away. They told me because it was time to start pushing, they didn't want to get me completely numb in case I couldn't feel how/where/when to push. Not knowing any better, I went along with it. I started pushing, which actually felt a little better than the contractions did all day, but it was really intense and still definitely didn't feel good. I tried to be silent thru the pushes, but then I just couldn't hold back for one of them and totally screamed. I apologized and was told not to worry about it, it was my best push so far. After that encouragement, I continued to scream for the rest of the labor. {Sorry people in the halls...I was pushing out a 10 pounder with an ineffective epidural!}

- 8:34pm Garrett Ryan Plewe was born...but he was purple and didn't breathe for a minute or two. Kind of scared everybody. Initially they put him on my chest, but when he didn't make a sound, they whisked him over to the table to give him oxygen and try to get him to breathe. Ryan went over and started staying, "C'mon baby brother, you can do it, c'mon, you can do it," and at the sound of Ryan's voice, he finally started breathing and made his first sounds. Phew!

Garrett was:

10 lbs. 1 oz

21 1/4 inches long

My favorite moment of the whole experience was afterwards (obviously!)...I looked to my left and saw Garrett being attended to by Ryan and the nurses, my Mom was by my bed stroking my hair and telling me how amazingly strong I was, and then I looked to my right, and out the window about 30 feet back was Justin (with my Dad), with a red, white, and blue blinking necklace around his neck, waving an American flag in one hand and just waving his other hand and saying " hi mommy!" That was the BEST!

It was definitely a memorable birth, as they all are I suppose, but we are so glad that Garrett was healthy and feel blessed that although the labor was long and definitely not what I had imagined it would be, at least we weren't in the ER this time, and I was able to avoid another c-section.