Sloane’s Birth Story
Where to begin? Maybe let’s talk a bit about my pregnancy first!
For those who don’t know, I got pregnant with my first baby in March of 2021. It was a super standard pregnancy as far as having all the typical things such as mild morning sickness the first trimester, feeling super sleepy really the whole time, swelling up as soon as we hit summertime, and having heartburn pretty much everyday by the time I hit 20 weeks.
Fast forward to the last couple weeks of my pregnancy, I was then going in for check ups every week in preparation for labor and birth. Everytime they checked me, baby girl showed no signs of “dropping” or looking like she was going to make her way earth side anytime soon. As my due date came and went, I went ahead and scheduled an induction date. Here’s where I’ll get more detailed with you all!
I went in at 5:00 pm on Thursday December 9th to begin the induction process. They started me on a Foley Bulb, which would remain in place for 12 hours and hopefully get me dilated from a 1 (where I started) to at least a 5 or 6. However, the Foley Bulb fell out after 2 hours, which is very rare. We all hoped and assumed this meant I was dilating quickly — but alas, I hadn’t progressed at all.
The next step was to try Cervidil, a drug that would hopefully also get me to dilate more within 12 hours.
The next morning (Friday the 10th), after being on Cervidil for the full 12 hours, the doctor came to check me around 7:00 AM and I was only dilated to a 2-3. MAJOR disappointment after a long night of discomfort and nerves. I probably only got 2 hours of sleep that night.
At this point, they broke my water and started me on Pitocin. While I had been contracting this whole time and actually had been having contractions for days (no one tells you that not all contractions are painful and in the beginning you may not notice them at all lol), it wasn’t until THIS point in the process that the contractions became increasingly painful and uncomfortable. I wasn’t able to keep my cool during my contractions anymore, so I went ahead and ordered up my Epidural. I wanna say that there’s a HUGE fear around epidurals and the process of getting one put in. Compared to the contractions, the epidural was a BREEZE. So just a little notion of comfort for anyone that’s super anxious about that step in the process. :)
Now that I had my epidural, was on Pitocin, and my water had been broken, the goal was to get me to keep the momentum and keep progressing. The way you do this is you have to be constantly switching up body positions in a way that encourages your body to keep progressing. So every 20-30 minutes, the nurses would come in and switch me from laying on my side, to sitting up, to being on all fours, then repeat. Keep in mind — the entire lower half of my body is numb at this point. So do to all this, I needed help from multiple nurses at a time. Exhausted doesn’t even begin to cover how I felt that entire day.
The doctor would come in and check my dilation every 2 hours or so, and each time my progression would be minimal. I was progressing, yes, but extremely slowly. By around 6:00 PM, after a full day of laboring and nearly no sleep, I had progressed to a 7. And that is where I stayed.
Hours went by, still switching up positions constantly, still getting no sleep. One side effect of labor that I was not expecting was having the shakes. I could not stop shaking (think how you shake and shiver when you’re extremely cold) pretty much since that morning when I got my epidural. It was super frustrating because the shaking also kept me from any type of nap or relaxation.
Before we knew it, midnight had rolled around. My doctor had still been checking me constantly, and I was still just chilling at a 7. At this point, my doctor was feeling uneasy about me continuing to labor in this stagnant state. Baby had not dropped below a “zero station” and was showing no signs of progressing labor-wise at all. She asked me my thoughts on moving forward with a c-section, and being the child of a woman who had all c-sections, this was something I was not surprised about nor worried about.
We made the decision to move forward with the c-section. By 2:00 AM (Saturday December 11) I was in the operating room. Matt was gowned up next to me, and honestly I was resisting the urge to take a nap hahaha.
At 2:23, Sloane Louise was officially earthside! While they were taking her out of my body, my doctor exclaimed more than once, “oh this is a BIG baby”… Sure enough, sweet baby girl was 10 pounds 10 ounces and 21 inches long. Biggest baby on both sides of the family so far hahaha. For reference, the average weight of a newborn is closer to 7 pounds, and height closer to 19-20 inches. It makes sense now that she was so snuggly and stuck where she was lol. :)
Over the next 24 hours, we figured out breastfeeding, basic soothing, swaddling, etc etc. Our sweet nurses helped out a LOT that first 24 hours, as both Matt and I desperately needed to sleep in order to start parenthood off on the right foot lol. I’ve heard this a lot from other mom friends that those first couple days, baby can be really really fussy and are only happy when held and rocked. I don’t blame the babies, I’d be grumpy too after being so snuggly in my mama’s tummy for months! So don’t feel bad or weird asking your nurses for help so you can get in some good naps yourself.
Now here we are 4 months later and birth/labor seems like a whole lifetime ago. It’s been an absolute blast figuring out what works best as a parent, what works best for her, and now really starting to see her personality and curiosity about the world around her shine through. It truly does keep getting better and better!
xo, Kyndal Elise