On Saturday night (July 19th), at 10:30pm we finished watching a Redbox movie and started to get ready for bed... And totally unexpectedly, and just in time for me to miss out on a good night's rest, my water broke! I called my midwife group and after almost 2 hours of trying to get ahold of them with no success, we made the decision ourselves to head to the hospital (because we live an hour away and this was my third baby, which everyone told me would come faster). Thankfully we had a good friend we could call that late at night, and she came over and stayed with Isaac.
When we arrived at OB Triage, they confirmed my water had broken, and they monitored baby and my contractions. My contractions had been mainly mild and intermittent, but at one point they were regular, coming every few minutes. Unfortunately when they finally checked me at 2am, I was only 3cm dilated and not enough was going on to admit me. But because my water had broken, this was my third time giving birth, we lived an hour away, I was dilated and having some contractions, they kept me walking around the hospital for two hours to recheck me to see if I made progress.
Unfortunately 4am rolled around, they rechecked me, and no more progress. Since, again, we lived an hour away and had a toddler who would be waking up to start his day a couple of hours later, and we had had no sleep, we decided to check into a nearby hotel and try to get some rest and stay close by in case of any sudden progression. We were told we had 24 hours after my water broke until they would have to admit me regardless of contractions, etc. and would have to look at inducing. We managed a couple hours of sleep and had a little bit of breakfast at the hotel. Nothing else had changed so we decided to spend the rest of the day at home with our son, relieve our friend, and then would head back to the hospital when we needed to - and that's what we did.
So it was now Sunday, July 20th, in the afternoon, we did some things around the house, went to Publix to pick up some needed grocery items to hold us over, and spent some time together as a family. That evening I made my husband get me eggplant Parmesan (without the cheese), drank raspberry tea, and took some evening primrose oil in hopes of helping myself along (all things I did the day before Isaac came on his own). After we enjoyed dinner together as a family, we went on a walk around the neighborhood together (again hoping to help myself along). By the time Isaac's bedtime rolled around nothing had noticeably changed so we called our next friend to come over and stay with Isaac while we headed back to the hospital so they could admit me at 10pm just before my 24 hour window was done.
So we arrived at the hospital again but directly to be admitted instead of triage. The place was packed, and we waited an hour before getting a room. Eventually around midnight after monitoring me and checking me, I had made no changes so they induced me with pitocin to get labor started so that I didn't run into any complications for myself or baby.
Isaac was a completely natural birth from start to finish, but Hailey was an early induction so I had a bad history of hating Pitocin (aka labor on steroids). Thankfully they started me on a low dose and my contractions started; they had to keep upping the dosage however. And while I was not confined to the bed, I was strapped to monitors and an IV which is never fun and worst of all I couldn't labor in the shower which I think helped the most with Isaac's labor.
At 3:20am on July 21st I was dilated 4cm and effaced 80%. At 5:30am I was dilated to 5cm and 90% effaced and my contractions were intense and working. Thankfully they lowered my pitocin and eventually took me off to see if my body would kick in on it's own. This was a wonderful, welcomed relief, and I jumped in the hot shower for 30 minutes. Unfortunately when they checked me again around 7:30am they had to put me back on pitocin but a much lower amount since my progress had stalled. My labor grew increasingly painful and intense (as it should).
Around 10am I was completely effaced and 9cm dilated, but wearing very thin due to no sleep, no food, and my labor on steroids . At this point it was Monday morning and I hadn't slept more than a few hours total since Friday night (that boils down to a few hours of sleep in almost a 60 hour time period) and had had no food in 12 hours. Although my birth plan and goal was natural again and knew I could do it since I had already done it once before, I was to the point physically were I asked for some interventions to finish Isaiah's birth.
After some welcomed relief and continuing to labor, my urge to push finally came at 11am. Thanks to the wonderful coaching and support of my husband and midwife, the experience of giving birth to Isaiah was amazing. At 11:14, our son, Isaiah John Vanderlip, was finally here! After almost 10 months of wondering and waiting, we had all our answers, Isaiah was healthy and perfect. The relief, joy, peace, bliss, etc. that we experienced at meeting and holding our healthy son is indescrible.
So our second rainbow baby, Isaiah, was born 8 days early, on July 21, 2014, weighing 7lbs 1.5 oz, measuring 20.5 inches.
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