Shiloh’s Birth – Part Two

With cervidil started, and contractions settling into a regular pattern, I grabbed my walking pole with IV’s and monitors and started my pacing of the maternity ward loop. For the first couple times around the block, Jeff joined me, but I soon sent him back to the room for some sleep. He was coming off of two incredibly busy weeks at work, as well as single parenthood and running of the house on his own. The boy was running on near empty, and we had no idea what we were facing in the coming days and weeks.

And so I found myself strolling the loop again and again. At times with our amazing nurse, and dear friend, Jenni, but a lot of times alone. The same loop I had paced countless times in labor with Arabella – that time the majority of the night with our friend and photographer Kristin. This time Kristin was getting a few hours of sleep before heading over to Seattle in the morning to be there for the birth. She had been waiting on the results of the version, but by the time we got Shiloh turned it was too late to head out that night.

With each loop, though, I passed by the vases of red poppies tucked into cases in the wall. The poppies that had brought tears to my eyes when I had first noticed them halfway through the night in labor with Bella. Poppies for our poppy – that visible reminder of the Lord’s presence that showed up again and again during our pregnancy with Arabella. And with each pass this time around it was almost like I could hear the Lord whisper, “I am faithful. I was with you then. I am with you now.”

In the wee hours of the morning, as tiredness started to win its war with me, I let Jenni help me get tucked into bed with numerous pillows to try for a bit of sleep. Contractions were coming regularly enough at this point that cervidil was stopped and the order was put in for pitocin. Jenni said the OB would be in right after the shift change in the morning to check my progress – and while for my sake she hoped she would not be present for the birth when she came on again for the night shift, she would not be disappointed if Shiloh held out for her.

After breakfast the OB came in to check me and I was pleased to find out that I was at four centimeters, even though the pitocin had yet to be started. That was hung and soon after Kristin showed up. Kristin had brought along her friend Anna, who over the next 24 hours would become likely a lifelong friend to us as well. From her experience last time, Kristin knew she would be too tired to drive home safely alone after the birth, and so set about to find a good companion for the journey. Anna, a fellow heart warrior mama, seemed to be the perfect fit – Kristin knew she’d be comfortable with the long hours in the hospital.

Soon after the arrival of Kristin and Anna, my dad showed up with the girls for a morning visit. In this way, this labor was so different from the last. While I had a great amount of peace while laboring with Arabella, I was so focused that I didn’t really want visits from anyone. This time, though, a visit from my two littles was the perfect distraction.

I hugged the girls goodbye with a little bit of tightness in my chest, knowing that all of our lives were about to be changed in the next few hours – I just wasn’t sure in which direction. But I knew things in our family would never quite be the same again.

And then began the laboring and waiting. We swapped life stories with Anna, I paced the room some. Friendships began to be forged, laughter flowed easily, as well as hope as past faithfulness was shared. A bit before lunch one of the anesthesiologists showed up. They were concerned if they didn’t turn my epidural back on soon, the current placement might not be effective. I really didn’t want to have a third epidural placed, but asked if we could wait just a little longer so I could have lunch and also do some “spinning babies” exercises with one of the nurses trained in the method to try to get Shiloh in a bit of a better position. The anesthesiologist agreed and said she’d come back in a couple hours to get the epidural going again.

And so I ordered lunch and set to work on the exercises – which were particularly fun with the labor girdle I had on. I had my last supper, and my nurse Anna (who was amazing as well – and had been hand picked by Jenni) helped get me settled into bed. The epidural was turned back on…without great effect. The anesthesiologist returned to do her test, and soon discovered it wasn’t working at all on my right side. She decided to dump in one more dose of medicine to see if she could get it working on both sides. If that didn’t work, they would have to place it again. The minutes ticked by, and nothing happened on my right side. She came back to check and then said she’d talk to the attending and then come back to place it again. Thankfully, just after that visit things started to go a little numb on my right, so we stuck with that placement.

Soon after the OB returned to check me. I was measuring at a 5 and Shiloh was in a good position, so they decided to go ahead and break my bag of waters. This was another strikingly different experience than what I had with Bella. When they broke Bella’s bag of waters, she was floating so high that there was a large team of doctors, nurses and residents in the room in case we had to rush into an emergency delivery. There was one person on an ultrasound, one resident with her hand you know where feeling to make sure there wasn’t a cord prolapse, a nurse emptying my bladder with a catheter, and the doctor pricking the bag with a long needle and slowly letting the fluid drip out. And that list of participants doesn’t include the large team standing by “just in case.” It was one of the most tense moments of the delivery, and for me one of the scariest moments.

This time around, just one resident came into the room. Throughout the day, there had seemed to be an atmosphere of ease and confidence among the doctors and residents. Unlike last time, we were not constantly asked to recite what was going to happen after birth, and how our baby was expected to be doing. In fact, that wasn’t even discussed once. There was no meeting with the neonatologist, or anyone from the NICU team. Everyone knew we had been here before. They knew that we knew the spectrum of possible outcomes. And yet there was part of me that wanted to say…you do know there’s no guarantee? That this baby may not thrive like Bella did?

But in this moment, the relative ease and peace of the procedure was welcome. The resident did a quick ultrasound to verify Shiloh’s position – which meant my girdle was removed, this time for good – can you see the joy on my face?

Once our girlie’s head down position was confirmed, she pricked the bag, allowing Shiloh to smoothly engage herself in the birth canal. Breaking my water with Bella the last time had sped up labor incredibly – about an hour and a half later she was born, so I expected a similar result once again. The resident, knowing my history, said she’d come back in 45 minutes or so to check where I was at.

To be continued…