Fynn’s Birth Story

His entrance into the world was not what we expected

I told myself that I wasn’t going to write about Fynn’s birth story, but it was such a different experience from what I had built up in my head that I want to share it for other new moms.

When you’re pregnant, especially uncomfortably pregnant, you think ahead to what your delivery is going to be like. Pregnancy and birth is often portrayed one way on TV, in movies, etc. But in reality, it’s a very unique and personal experience. We were lucky to have great healthcare providers that prepared us a bit for a unique experience…but I was still surprised just how unique it can be.

If you’re just here for the knitting and not the Birth Story, here are two free baby blanket patterns:

Double Seed Stitch Blanket and Basketweave Blanket

The early stages:

In the weeks leading up to your delivery, you’re likely to feel your body preparing. You might get practice contractions as your muscles learn to all work together to deliver the baby. Personally, I felt like utter crap the two days before having Fynn. At the time, we didn’t know that he was going to be arriving shortly. He was 2 weeks and 4 days early. I thought I was nauseous, tired, crampy, and cranky.

I actually stood in Target looking at all of the food and nothing was appetizing. So I grabbed a bag of Fritos and some ranch dip. And for dinner that night had Ramen…my husband wasn’t thrilled about my nutritional choices.

Thankfully I had talked through what my water breaking might be like with my doctor, because it was anything but what they show on TV. Rather than a damn breaking and letting loose gallons of water, my water broke gradually. Initially I even thought I might have just peed a bit. But when it kept happening, water leaking again and again with contractions, I figured out what was happening…mind you this was at 2:55am after having just binged Vikings on Netflix until Midnight.

Prelabor:

My contractions really started to kick in then. But I knew you could have them for hours if not days before active labor started. So rather than wake up my husband, I pulled out my phone and started timing them- their frequency and their duration in a note on my iPhone. When they got consistent and about a minute in length I woke my husband up.

Chris grabbed our laptop and googled when you should go into the hospital. About a half and hour later we were packing up and getting ready to go in: Our birth story was beginning. I took one last shower. He made tea and let the dog out (The dog was freaking out by the way: knowing I was in pain and seeing two bags ready to go).

Off and On Our Way

I think the rule we went by was like the 4:1:1 rule where they’re at least four minutes a part, for one minute in length, persisting for about an hour. By the time we made the 30 minute drive to the hospital and were seen in triage, I was five centimeters dilated.

For those who have their water breaking over time: grab some tea towels and washcloths for the road. My water continued to break for the entire drive in and the walk (I was against a wheel chair) to triage. I even stuck a washcloth down my pants on the ride in to save my pants (or try to) and the car seat.

Active Labor: Chapter 2 of Fynn’s Birth Story

By the time they had confirmed we were actually in labor, the contractions were really intense. My nurse actually promised to have the anesthesiologist do the epidural in triage if they couldn’t get us a birth suite soon. But they were able to and off we went, with our nurse giving us a tour of the hospital to which I was oblivious.

We were lucky to not only deliver at Magee Women’s Hospital here in Pittsburgh, but we had an amazing team of nurses throughout our entire experience. The doctors and residents were great too – but it’s the nurses who really spend the time with you. We had a younger nurse who was precepting a student nurse – both of whom I appreciate so much. I felt so much more at ease and confident during my first birth experience because of their reassuring, patient, and confident nature.

The Epidural:

When my mom delivered me, somehow her epidural was messed up and she got a terrible headache from it. I’ve grown up hearing how this experience marred her first birth story and was nervous to get the epidural. In speaking with my doctors up until this point, we had left it as an option but were cautiously optimistic about delivering without it. I have a pretty high pain threshold so I thought maybe I could give it a go. Boy was I wrong. By the time we were in the birth suite, my nurses were tracking down an anesthesiologist for me.

I had a young guy, a resident do it for me, and I really appreciated his bedside manner. He made me feel calm about it, and was cracking jokes with my nurse of a husband – the whole experience was pleasant…and not just because the pain was abating.

Go Time: Chapter 3 of Fynn’s Birth Story

The hospital uses two monitors, one to track your baby’s heart rate and the other to measure your contractions. After the epidural though, the contractions monitor wasn’t able to pick them up for some reason. So no one knew to come and check on me to see how close we were to delivering. After some hours, my nurse suggested that together we manually track them to check. After about ten minutes she was off and bringing her nurse leader and then a resident to check on me.

It was time to push. It also turns out that there was a more critical birth happening somewhere else that was demanding the attention of the other hospital staff. I’m okay not having a reason to have had more attention, but I was thankful for my nurse’s attention to my needs.

I’m not going to go into the nitty gritty about all that happened at this point – but we pushed for an hour and a half before Fynn made his way into the world. I think everyone was a bit surprised at how quick our labor went because at one point they were scrambling to get everything unpacked and set up.

We had a baby!

When they placed Fynn on my chest, I looked at my husband and asked him:

Can you believe they let us make one of these???

Me, delirious, to my husband.

The whole room cracked up.

Then a nurse asked us what we were going to name him. Our answer to this and just about every question up until this point was: we thought we had two and a half more weeks…

Chris looked down at me and told me to pick his name (we had it narrowed to two). So I picked Fynn and made Chris pick his middle name. We chose Christian’s father’s name.

This whole time, the two residents were continuing to work away. Apparently I had a few minor tears from the delivery and the one was difficult to sew up. I’m sure they didn’t want to worry me but I would have appreciated knowing what was going on and why I couldn’t move to a more comfortable position.

The rest is history:

Maybe I’ll share the rest of his birth story in another post but for now, that’s what happened. I’m so thankful for my husband and his medical expertise. He didn’t panic, instead he made me feel calm. He understood what I was experiencing and helped me manage the pain, and everything else that came with it. Chris was present and an active part of the decisions that we had to make. And he supported me at every part of the process. I’m truly blessed to be so well loved and cared for by him.

I want to thank you all for being patient with me and the release of new knitting patterns and for the baby spam that has been all over my blog and social media.

In an upcoming post I’ll share more about what I bought to take to the hospital/what I didn’t need/what I wished I had/etc.