Boston's Birth Story

I still hadn't gone into labor the weekend after my due date so I called to schedule an induction. We checked into the hospital on Tuesday, October 6 at 7:15 in the morning and got settled into our room. Since I was group B strep positive I got going with some antibiotics and they started some pitocin at 9 am. They slowly increased it through the morning as we watch Jimmy Fallon clips and laughed through the start of contractions. 

I wasn't feeling many painful contractions until the doctor broke my water at 11:45 and boy did that get them coming. I walked around and sat on a big exercise ball while Eric rubbed my back. He was such a supportive and nurturing husband throughout the whole process which I was so thankful for. By 2:30 the contractions were coming every two minutes and getting stronger so I got my {heavenly} epidural and was able to relax and rest for a while. I had gone from being a "tight 3" on the dilation scale to a "roomy 3" at the point and remember feeling so discouraged at my slow progression.

At 3:30 the nurse came in to check my cervix and I was dilated to a 4 (progress!). She also checked my blood pressure and it had dropped to 90/50. She quickly gave me some ephedrine in my IV to bring it back up. The monitors had also been showing occasional decelerations in Boston's heart rate during some contractions and about this time those decelerations started happening more frequently. The nurse kept having me shift from side to side (not an easy thing to do when you can't feel your legs!) to find a position where his heart rate was steady.

At 4:00 Boston's heart rate really started dropping and the nurse quickly put an internal monitor on the his head to get more accurate readings and put me in an oxygen mask to see if that could help boost his HR. It seemed to help a bit but everyone was still concerned. 

By 4:55 I was feeling a lot more pressure down low and was dilated to a 7 and bleeding a bit. The nurse was concerned and had the doctor come in to check things out. By 5:05 the doctor checked me and said I was completely dilated to a 10 and could see the baby's head! Everyone quickly got things set up and I started pushing within minutes. 

By this time everyone was really concerned about Boston's heart rate. It would drop into the 40's each time I pushed and I remember feeling a sense of panic in all of the nurses' voices encouraging me to push harder with each contraction. But the doctor remained completely calm which was so reassuring. 

By the fourth contraction of pushing, Boston's head was out and his shoulders were beginning to show. There we could see that the umbilical cord was tightly wrapped around his shoulders and was being compressed  with each contraction. The doctor moved quickly and deliberately to pull the baby out even though the contraction had ended and our sweet Boston was born at 5:19 pm.

Seconds seemed like minutes as we waited for his first breath and cry. He was so purple and limp. But then we heard it and our worries ceases as we basked in the moment of our sweet boy's arrival. His apgar scores were great and he was perfect. The doctor took some blood gases from the umbilical cord to make sure the heart decelerations didn't affect Boston and they checked out perfectly. 

We are so happy and feeling extremely blessed for the safe arrival of our sweet baby boy. We are so glad to have him in our family!