The Birth of My Daughter | Emergency C-Section
Let me preface this post with a quick story about our little one. At 11 weeks we did the Sneak Peek blood test like we did with Benjamin, and they confirmed that this baby would be a boy. Up to that point in the pregnancy, I had a gut feeling that it was a girl, so the news that we would be having another little boy was uneventful. Fast forward to my 20 week anatomy scan, I walked in and let them know we had done this test and knew it was a boy. I vividly remember saying to the technician, “They say the test is 99.9% accurate, but there’s always that .01% chance it’s wrong.”
Sneak Peek was indeed wrong.
The technician waited until the very end of the scan to confirm the baby’s gender and sure enough it was a girl. I literally cried when she said the words “well it’s a girl,” and I spent the rest of my pregnancy in shock until Harper made her arrival.
So…
Around 33 weeks we went into Labor and Delivery due to preterm labor, with contractions lasting one minute ever 4 minutes for two hours straight. While we were there, the OB on call did a quick ultrasound to double check where baby’s head was, and turns out she was breech. Unfortunately for me, this meant no more heavy lifting, no more traveling for work, and weekly appointments to see if she flipped to head down.
On Monday, September 27th, I went in for my weekly ultrasound at 37 weeks. The ultrasound technician checked her positioning and sure enough she had still not flipped. I did notice that she became very quiet as she started measuring the pockets of amniotic fluid, and I could feel a tiny pit start to form in my stomach. After the ultrasound ended, I was taken back into a room where a student nurse took my blood pressure and whatnot, and then she left. I don’t think I waited even 5 minutes before the usual nurse I see came into my room and asked me when the last time I ate was - and hour and a half before my appointment. The nurse gave me a heads up (so that I wasn’t in total shock when my OB came in) and that we could pick today at the hospital I wanted to deliver at, or the next day at the hospital I didn’t prefer to deliver baby via cesarean.
I was shook.
The nurse left me to think about the two choices we had. That night or the next day. My OB came in and further explained what was going on and why my baby needed to be born in the next two days. The measurements of amniotic fluid around my daughter had dropped significantly in the last week since they checked them - 7 cm to 3 cm. I was diagnosed with Oligohydramnios, which in some cases can be fatal to mother and baby, hence why she needed to come out now. And, because I had eaten before my appointment, we would have to wait until 9:00 pm that night if we wanted to have her that day. I was hellbent on having my daughter at the same hospital my son was born at, so the nurses called Labor and Delivery and got me scheduled for a Cesarean that night.
I had texted my husband before my OB came in to let him know that tonight was the night, and it might be my favorite conversations with him thus far:
We need to find someone to watch Ben.
More details in the next few minutes but there’s no fluid
around baby and she’ll be here in the next 24 hours.
I’m sorry W H A T
So I zoomed home as quickly as I could (there was construction my entire route home) and we started preparing to leave. There were two things I was extremely grateful for that day. The first being that I already had packed and prepared the hospital bags and we just needed to throw them in the car. The second was that my husband’s youngest sister was in town and was fully open to take Benjamin (literally thank goodness for Sulli). We did a quick pickup, packed up Ben’s bags and kissed him goodbye, and zoomed back downtown to be at the hospital by 5:00 pm. My doctors asked that we be there as close to 5:00 pm as we could to allow my Covid test to run before the surgery. We got all checked in and got the process started.
I’m not gonna lie to you guys and say that I was perfectly calm and not worried in the slightest, because I was far from that. As far as I knew, my baby was okay but in danger, and a cesarean is major abdominal surgery - it’s no walk in the park. I’ve had surgery done before, but it was on my ankle and I was put under for that. I would be awake during this procedure, and that terrified me.
The wait between 5:00 pm and 9:00 pm were the longest four hours of my life.
I got the IV in (thank you to the nurse who got it on the first try - you were literally the best), peed in the cup, got my gown on, got wiped down, took some meds, got my covid test, and waited… and waited. The wait was the worst part. The nurse shift changed and a new gal came in and explained the entire process step by step. I thought this would help my nerves, but for me it made it that much worse and I could feel my anxiety hyping up. After the nurse left for a little bit I very distinctly remember bursting into tears because I was so scared. I am very thankful my husband, Jacob, could be there with me because his presence and voice are one of the few things in this world that can curb my anxiety. He gave me a quick pep-talk, said everything will be okay, and suddenly it was my time to go.
My OB came in and gave me the news that my covid test was negative and we were all set to go! I was wheeled off into the OR and greeted by and entire operating room full of women. I cannot say enough how calm, yet empowered that made me feel. The support I felt from every women in that room was completely different than what I felt when I had my son. I got my spinal done, and I was laid down, and they got started. My husband was brought in, and he sat by my head and talked to me to keep me distracted.
I’ve heard so many people say that you feel ‘pressure’ when they are getting baby out, but it didn’t feel like pressure at all. It just felt like giant invisible hands moving my body from side-to-side. What a bizarre out-of-body experience! Before I knew it, the covering of the little window was pulled down and there she was -
My daughter
My little Harper Louise. Born on September 27th at 9:27 PM, weighing 6 lbs 7 ounces and 18 inches long. My daughter was here, and she was not afraid to let us know. Her first cry broke my mama heart, but also filled it with so much love. Her cry meant that her lungs were working great, and there was a low risk of having to be taken away to the NICU (a possibility that I was fully aware of as she was born at 37 weeks and 2 days). I don’t remember crying when Ben was born, but there was something so different about this birth experience that I just let go of all my emotions and let myself cry. Her little cried made me cry, and it was such a beautiful moment.
I’ll go over in another post how my recovery has been and a whole postpartum update, but I cannot believe my daughter is here!!! I didn’t think having a daughter would be a possibility for me until I held her in my arms and could kiss and snuggle her.
