Our Story

When I first found out I had to have a c-section I thought that I was losing my birth story. A very wise woman and good friend assured me that every woman has a birth story no matter how the baby is born. She was right and baby Millie gave us quite a story to tell.

As most of you know, Millie was scheduled to be born by c-section on October 30th, just two days before her due date, because she was in frank breech position. Turned out Millie didn't want to wait that long. Saturday night, October 27th, sometime between 10:00 and 11:00 p.m. I started feeling cramp like pains. I had felt these before and assumed that they were simply Braxton Hicks contractions and would go away. These were stronger than before though -- they actually woke me up -- and seemed to keep coming. Because the pains were so low in my abdomen and I couldn't really pinpoint start-stop times to tell how long they lasted and how far apart they were, I wasn't convinced they were labor pains.

I woke about every half hour or so and went to the bathroom thinking that would help (apparently if I had gone through with natural labor, the loo would have been my place of choice to labor!) and breathed through the pains. Eventually I woke Scott up with my constant getting in and out of bed and loud breathing and he asked if I was okay. I said 'yes' and the cycle continued until about 12:00 when I decided to get up and go downstairs just to change positions for a while, again, thinking the pains would go away. Scott got up with me and we jokingly said we should probably finish packing our hospital bags just in case. We did pack them before going back to bed.

The pains continued coming while I tried to sleep, and I continued to tell myself it wasn't labor. That was a good story until my water broke at 1:30. There was no denying that -- my water REALLY broke. Before I bolted out of bed to go to the bathroom to clean myself up, I calmly told Scott that my waters had just broke. He proceeded to pop out of bed and get dressed and gather up our bags. We tossed a few last minute things into bags, called the Dr. on call, called our parents, called our doula, and headed to the hospital around 1:45 a.m. We arrived at 2:00 a.m.

There was less fan fare to our arrival than we thought there would be. No one was rushing around, I wasn't thrown on a gurney and rushed into surgery, in fact we sat around in the labor and delivery room by ourselves for at least 30 minutes. The nurse came and went from time to time to give me my hospital garb and to tell us what was going to happen. Eventually the Dr. on call came in and did a quick ultrasound to make sure the baby was still breech and to go through the procedure with us. The anesthesiologists came in and introduced themselves and explained the spinal, I was given an IV, signed some papers, and eventually was taken to the operating room. Scott had to wait in the recovery room while I was prepped and then he was allowed to come in and sit by my head for the delivery. Once the surgery began, it was only minutes before our little girl was born. We asked the Dr.'s not to announce the sex until we could see the baby so they took care of the cord and then lifted her above the blue curtain and announced that we had a little girl :). And she let us know she was here! Little Millie was quite vocal throughout her clean-up.

Once she was clean, she was brought to daddy to hold and for mommy to see. It was a wonderful moment, as well as the moment when we decided on her name -- she was a Millicent. Our moment didn't last long unfortunately as daddy and Millie went off to the nursery and mommy continued to get stitched up and then rolled to the recovery room to sit and wait. Mommy waited 2 1/2 hours before she was fully reunited with her family -- some time in the OR, 1 hour in the recovery room, and then an hour plus waiting in the postpartum room. It was a bit agonizing, but at least I knew that daddy and the doula were watching over Millie and making sure she was okay and getting the best care.

After her birth, Millie's blood sugar dropped, so the staff insisted on giving her sugar water. Daddy advocated well and made sure that they gave it to her by syringe and not by bottle. Unfortunately, the low blood sugar meant that Millie had to have her heel pricked multiple times throughout the morning. Fortunately, her blood sugar stabilized and we got to keep her with us for the rest of our stay.

All in all, it was a very satisfying and beautiful experience. I got to experience a few hours of natural labor, including my water breaking (and hopefully next time I'll be able to recognize labor a little sooner!), I learned that I was quite capable of handling the mental stress of a surgical birth (I didn't have a moment of fear or regret or panic throughout the process), and we were blessed with a beautiful baby girl who is healthy and happy. Shortly after Millie was born, I learned from my own mother that she had been praying hard to two of Millie's guardian angels to keep an eye on all three of us and they did just that. It was a special day for everyone that tied family members from across miles and generations together. In essence, it was the perfect story.