meet pebbles! - birth story and pics

We'd like to introduce you to the person that we've all known for the past nine months only as Pebbles.  Friends and family...meet Rebekah Michele!

We apologize in advance for being typical new parents and including more pictures than you are probably interested in seeing. :)  We had trouble narrowing down the pictures to include because we just think she's absolutely beautiful!

Birth Story (Kristin talking...)
Note: I'm pretty thorough in my description of events, but I tried not to include all the gory details. :)  Feel free to skip over all of this and just go straight down to baby pics if you aren't interested or tend to be a bit squeemish about birth stories.
 
I went in for my final appointment on the morning of February 1.  Everything was normal - Pebbles was kicking and had a strong heartbeat, while my blood pressure was still fabulous.  My midwife (Jeanean) guessed that I would go into labor on Sunday since Pebbles has always been such a spiritual kid (kicking up a storm during church, prayer, Bible study, etc.).  But, I happened to mention that I had been feeling a bit weird - I was warmer than normal, feeling anxious for no reason, having mild contractions, and...and this was the kicker...I'd been feeling "leaky" throughout the night as I'd get up to go to the restroom.

Jeanean was sure that what I was feeling was nothing, but we decided that I would go ahead and go to the hospital for my non-stress test and a test to be sure that I wasn't leaking amniotic fluid.  To both of our surprise, the amniotic fluid test was positive...Pebbles was coming!

Just after being admitted to the hospital...I look way too happy to be in labor!

 

Unfortunately, the fact that I had been slowly leaking amniotic fluid for some time put a kink into our birthing plans.  I wanted to be able to labor without electronic fetal monitoring and have the ability to move around, etc.  Instead, I had to be put on pitocin because you are at such a high risk of infection if your labor goes past 24 hours after your water breaking (and I was already 15 hours in, at least).  Being on pitocin meant that I had to have an IV and be confined to the bed with electronic fetal monitoring.  This was definitely not what I had wanted!

I labored alone until Nathan was through with his work day.  I was so excited when he finally arrived - I was so bored!  The pitocin had made my contractions pick up, and I was definitely uncomfortable, but my labor still hadn't progressed beyond 1cm.  It was going to be a long night.

I packed Nathan a goody bag to keep him occupied during labor.  It had a baby bottle full of M&Ms, tons of different types of snacks, and a book that he's been wanting.  He was such a great coach, though, that he didn't even touch the bag - he wouldn't leave my side! 

They continued upping my pitocin level throughout the night, making me more and more uncomfortable.  I thought that surely we were getting close, but then the nurses would check me and I hadn't dilated at all.  So much time had passed that they finally decided to hook an internal fetal monitor to Pebbles' scalp (not comfortable when you are only dilated 1cm!), and that finally broke the rest of my water. 

From there, things started to progress, but it still seemed slow.  I was sure I was at the transition point once, but measured only 3cm.  I guess that when your labor is controlled by pitocin, it's difficult to measure where you are by the intensity of your contractions.  At about 2am, I told the nurse that I was started to feel "pushy" - during my contractions, my body was starting to push on its own.  She quickly checked me, but I was just 7cm.  This is when things got really difficult.

Bad things happen when you push without being fully dilated, so I had to start forcing myself not to push.  Even when they lowered my pitocin level, though, I was having trouble forcing myself to relax.  This was the point when I really wanted to give in to medication - nothing hurts worse than not allowing yourself to push when you need to!  I had a really awesome nurse, though, who stayed with us the whole time.  She gave me suggestions for breathing and positions and never seemed to doubt my ability to go through with a natural birth, despite the pitocin.  Jeanean also arrived shortly thereafter and labored with me through the entire rest of the birth.  I never imagined that my health care provider would be so hands on - she definitely wasn't just there to catch the baby and then leave!  Between them and Nathan, I was provided constant encouragement to just hang on and keep going.

At around 4am (we think), I couldn't keep from pushing anymore.  I still wasn't fully dilated, but I was at least close, so Jeanean had me trying different positions to move things along.  When she finally gave me the go ahead to push, she had to literally force the rest of my dilation with her fingers (ouch!).  We were hoping that pushing wouldn't take too long, but we didn't get our wish.  Pebbles' heart rate would get erratic every time I pushed, so they got concerned that baby was in too much distress.  First we tried alternating pushing and then breathing through contractions to give Pebbles a break.  We tried all sorts of different positions to make sure that we weren't putting unnecessary pressure on the umbilical cord.  Eventually, Jeanean decided that we needed to wait for the OB on call to arrive at the hospital, just in case I needed a cesarean or forceps/vacuum assistance.  I once again had to stop pushing and just breathe through the contractions.  I can't say that I was very successful at this.

Once the on-call OB made it to the parking lot, they let me start pushing again, and things really started happening.  It wasn't too much longer before I had moved Pebbles far enough down that Jeanean and the nurses prepared to catch her.  I did have to have an episiotomy to help get her out, but we managed to go through with everything without the help of forceps or vacuum and without heading to a c-section.  Praise God!

Immediately following the birth.  Jeanean put a towel over Pebbles' lower half before handing her to me and let Nathan and I discover that she was a girl!  Our little Rebekah had arrived. :)

Looking back, I'm so glad that I chose to do everything unmedicated, although I admit that I seriously considered giving in several times during labor.  Not pushing when I wanted to would have been so much easier with pain medication, but I also doubt that I would have been able to push as effectively or with so much control when it counted if I had had an epidural.  Looking back, I think that I very well may have had to have a cesarean if I had accepted pain medication (although there's no way to know).  Either way, we couldn't have done it without the help of our nurse Whitney and Jeanean - they tried every trick in the book to help us deliver naturally, and it worked!  We are so very grateful to them.

Oh, and I have to brag about my husband for a minute.  He never once left my side!  Even when it must have been hard for him to watch, he kept encouraging me and telling me that I could do it.  Our nurse said that he was the best labor coach that she'd ever seen, and she kept telling it to anybody who would come in the room.  I knew I picked a good one!

Other Stuff (Nathan talking...) 
Kristin was and is absolutely amazing. Through the whole thing, she stayed calm and pretty well controlled.  One of the nurses told her that when she got to the transition period, she'd be yelling at everyone in the room.  Not only did that not happen, but well into the pushing phase, Kristin looked up at me between contractions, petted my face, and said, "You're doing great, Dear."  I don't know of anyone else who could be going through all that pain for hour after hour and still be calm enough and selfless enough to be encouraging others.

So I'm supposed to pick up the story after the delivery since Kristin still had more to endure (we won't talk about that here) while Rebekah got checked out.  I went with the nursery nurse as an observer while she cleaned Rebekah, suctioned fluid out of her lungs, measured and weighed her.  She was 8 pounds and 4 ounces and 21 inches long.

Whitney was our nurse through the night all the way through delivery.  She was great and was really supportive.  She encouraged Kristin to hang in there, and she was excited to be a part of a "natural" birth (I guess they don't get many of those anymore).

Once we got through the initial assessment and cleaning, the nursery nurse lead me (Nathan) and Rebekah to the nursery to get warmed up and further inspected by the pediatrician.  I know Kristin felt like she was missing out, but I really sat around for a while waiting on Rebekah's body temperature to come up to where it should be so she could be bathed and then waiting on her temperature to rise again before we could leave the nursery.  It was undoubtedly more fun than what she was going through, but she didn't miss much.

Our pediatrician was apparently very familiar with newborns and their parents.  He made sure to personally take pictures of me holding Rebekah in the nursery.

Kristin finally got to enjoy some time with Rebekah after all the nurses and pediatrician were satisfied.  At this point, she'd had the meager breakfast of a few crackers with peanut butter, and that was it since her oatmeal from the previous day's breakfast.  She looks really good after such a long, draining night and so little sustenance.

We enjoyed having Rebekah in our room throughout the rest of the day and into the evening.  Our pediatrician told us that she was "perfect"!  He also said that she was opinionated enough that we wouldn't need a baby monitor.  Most of the time, she yawns, but when she cries, she wails. :)

The first night as a family was a long one.  Kristin and Rebekah were still getting the hang of feedings (although they are overachievers when it comes to that now), and Rebekah was having a bit of trouble because of all of the amniotic fluid still left in her tummy from delivery.  We had planned to have her in our room with us all night, but it got to the point where we were scared to sleep because she kept spitting up really thick amniotic fluid and then choking on it.  We sent her to the nursery, where they suctioned out another 16cc's of fluid and then kept her for a few hours while we caught a few zzz's.

This was our "steak and lobster" celebration meal provided by the hospital.  It was pretty good, but we considered the Braum's detour on the way home from the hospital our real celebration dinner.

This is Jeanean, our midwife.  She was exceptional, and we consider ourselves incredibly lucky to have had her guiding us through the delivery.  She calls Kristin a "rock star".

 Getting the "going away" outfit on so that the hospital photographer could take some photos.  You would have thought it was a torture session!

Rebekah is already showing signs of devious plotting... that comes from the Stone side of the family.

We finally left the hospital on Saturday morning, a bit better rested and much more confident.  Rebekah loves her car seat and slept the whole way home, even during the detour through the Braum's drive through. 

This is Kristin as she's wheeled out of the hospital to go home.

The new Stone family is setting off on their own.

Crossing the threshold into our apartment...yes, she slept through the whole thing.  We'll have to reenact it again for her when she's awake.