Makenna's birth story

Makenna Blake Williams
February 16, 2018
5lbs 15oz
20in

Makenna's birth story:

I feel like part of her birth story is how i felt the whole pregnancy.  I never felt like she was comfortable inside me. I kinda felt she would come early, maybe thats because she terrified me in the womb or maybe that was supposed be be my warning to prepare for her to come early! I made them do an ultrasound at 32 weeks cuz i needed to make sure she was ok. Then at 35 weeks i got the stomach flu and she tried to come out early. I was super dehydrated, they gave me 5 bags of fluids and then finally a shot in the arm to stop contractions completely and all was well. Then at my 37 week appt my midwife gave her the ok to come out, trying to be funny and also reassure me she would be ok if she came out and i guess she listened haha.

So the evening i went into labor i was sitting on the couch and scottie and i were talking and Makenna was going nuts inside me.  I wish i got a video of it but i didn't. She seriously had never moved so crazy and so much my stomach was shifting side to side and all over the place.  Scottie was like holy cow i think she is trying to escape haha. So prob 15 min later we head upstairs to bed. We had just got into bed and scottie was reading me some funny article he had found when bam water broke. I get this odd pressure and kinda a pinch feeling and then goosh. Warm water haha. I was shocked and said “um babe i think my water just broke". The look on his face was priceless. He sat straight up in bed and was like “um ok we gotta go, call your mom I'll call mine" he is saying this as he is already up and in the closet getting a bag together for the both of us. (3 for 3 having no hospital bag packed when i went into labor, what the heck ha). My mom wasn't answering but alisabeth answered right away. She answered like she already knew what i was gonna say haha but she was so excited and said she would keep trying to call my mom. My water broke at 11pm and we were leaving the house at 11:30. My in-laws showed up and we were already in the car. (Side note: my other labors went super quick after my water broke so the only thing scottie was thinking after i told him it broke was, i am not delivering this baby in the car haha.) So anyway i only had a couple contractions so i felt like we were gonna be just fine. We get to the hospital and end up having to wait before getting checked into triage. Finally get checked in at 12:30 meanwhile alisabeth and my mom had showed up and were waiting with us in the waiting room. So they had to confirm my water broke before getting us a room, it was a super busy night so everything was taking a while, and that was just funny to me cuz i was soaked haha. I had a bath towel in between my legs and it was soaked, i told them they could just ring out the towel to test it but they didn't go for that. They checked me while she was trying to get fluid to test and i was a 1. A 1!!!! I have never checked into the hospital at less than a 6 so this was really kinda sad haha. We knew this one would take a while. So finally at like 1:45 they came back and said yes your water did break…. obviously haha and we were in a room by 2am.

At that point my midwife came in and told me i had a premature rupture which means my water broke before i was in active labor. So now i needed to try and get my body to get into active labor cuz she couldn't stay in there forever. She said we could start some pitocin or i could try and get things going on my own.So we started walking….. scottie got comfy on the couch and my mom alisabeth and i went walking. We did literally millions of laps, chatted, laughed, squated,  high knees, everything we could think of. I maybe had a contraction like every 12ish min, and a lame contraction at that. So at like 4:30 i was so tired. Hadn't slept and nothing was happening so i took a nap until 6am. Then i got up and walked some more, did some ball bouncing, took a shower, and more walking. Then my midwife came in and said we better start some pitocin just to help my body know its in labor and then she said it would probably remember and we could turn it off. So at 10am she started me on pit. also side note: i never got to get my mani pedi and my nails were naked hahah i was so worried about it ha. i kept asking everyone if they had nail polish, no one did. but my sweet mother-in-law and mom both went out and got me some haha. so my mom painted my nails and toes while i was having contractins haha it was so nice!!

The pitocin was set at 3 and i started feeling contractions at 10:15. At 10:50 they upped it to 5 and then contractions were consistently 5 min apart!! We were so excited things were finally getting going!! Also we had the cutest nicest nurse named Joan. She was amazing. So during this time there were occasions where makennas heart rate would drop during the contractions and then go right back up, but i didn't like it. I prob asked like 500 times if that was ok. Joan kept saying she is just getting ready to come out, and i guess i believed her. My mom and sister left to get us food at like 10:45 and at 11:30 i had scottie call to see how close they were cuz i was super hungry but also feeling some serious pain and i wanted to eat before the epidural. But didn't want to wait too long cuz pain isn't to fun when you can do something about it haha. They came like 2 min later. I scarfed some food but felt kinda nauseous so i couldn't eat everything i ordered. And then immediately asked joan to get the epidural person!

So i got my epidural around 1 and they checked me and i was a 5! meanwhile having scottie squeeze my feet super hard during contractions, for some reason it made then feel better. Then i suffered through contractions for another hour cuz it wasn't working on my whole stomach. The back half of me was numb but i could still feel the whole front half. That was pretty lame ha but scottie just squeezed and i kept asking the lady to add more meds haha. Finally it was all numb around 2:00!! The nurse checked me again cuz she thought i may be progressing fast and maybe that's why the epidural had a hard time keeping up and i was a 7!! So backing up to like 12:00 makennas heart rate was dropping during most of the contractions, going back up quick but still totally freaked me out. They had me switch sides or positions to try and help but nothing really did. Everyone was being so calm about it but i kept making alisabeth go get joan everytime she left cuz i didn't want to be without her when i had a contraction cuz i hated hearing her heartbeat go down so low, and she was so good at reassuring me it was just cuz she was getting so close to coming! Anyway after my epidural finally took all the way they decided to do an amnioinfusion (my midwife put fluid back into the amniotic sac with a catheter) because babys heart rate was just going so low during contractions and they thought this may help it not dip. Low as in it would normally be like 130’s and during a contraction it would dip to like 90 or 50 or somewhere inbetween, totally freaky low and hearing it so slow on the monitor was horrible. I dreaded every contraction cuz i knew this was gonna happen and during each one i would close my eyes and just pray with everything in me her heart rate would go back up. So because the midwife was down there already and everyone was getting ancy for me to be dilated all the way they checked me frequently at this point. At 2:30 i was an 8 and they started me on oxygen to try and help her some more. (These things may not be too freaky to everyone but i didnt have any of this with my other 2 kids so it stressed me out.)

I knew that if i was stressed it could stress out my baby so i tried really hard to remain calm, but once they put the oxygen on me it hit me that this was not a totally uncomplicated birth and something could go wrong if we didn't hurry and get her out. So i started to cry. With my eyes closed while praying she would be ok. Just had a little moment and then i refocused! I breathed so hard into the oxygen mask just hoping it would help makenna not freak out during the contractions. As she held the catheter in there with the fluid she kept feeling around pushing back the cervix and helping me be complete. Finally at 3:17 she said i was a 10 and needed to start pushing.

At this point like 4 new nurses came in and they also called in the NICU nurses just as a precaution cuz she was having such irregular heart rates. This is freaky too. Im glad they were being cautions but i couldn't help but think there must be something they aren't telling me. And i was sooo sad joan wasnt going to be there. She was seriously so amazing and comforting and to not have her at the most important/scary part i was so sad. They said it was cuz she had too many hours and needed to leave but come on, there had to be another reason different nurses had to come in and she couldn't stay for another 10 min. So ya i was ready to get this baby out.

They took the oxygen off and wasted no time letting her come down like they did with my other kids, i started pushing immediately after being complete. At this point we were so close and i wanted her out so bad. She was not liking it in there. So each contraction i pushed and it was pretty quick. She started crowning, i reached down to feel her slippery bald head and then the midwife looked at the nurse and said “i can't hear the heart tones” the nurse looked at her and said “um those are the heart tones" this was a time they dipped to 50 and i wasn't even having a contraction and also a big gush of blood came. Mahshid my midwife looked at me and said “ok Brenee we need to get this baby out now, so push as hard as you can for me". And if that isn't motivating i don't know what is.  So i pushed with everything in me and out she came. I helped grab her out but not much cuz as i reached down to grab her she was pretty much all the way out hahha. She came out facing up so i got to see her face as she was coming on my chest. She was so blue and so tiny but started crying so good! I asked 50 times if she was ok and everyone reassured me she was doing great! She was so calm. Cried on and off a couple times but tried opening her eyes and was so content laying on me. I think she was just as relieved to be out as i was to have her laying on my chest. She was born at 3:36pm.

So as i was holding her they delivered the placenta like usual but it was kinda crazy. She showed it to us and it was so small ( she wasn't big so that made sense) but she said the placenta had marks on it showing that there was a placenta abruption at some point. She said likely during labor. She also showed us the cord. It was super skinny, prob like half the width of my other kids, and it was completely white. She said there was no blood left in the cord. Basically she said we are lucky that she decided to come when she did cuz she would not have lasted inside much longer.

At my 6 week appt Mashid explained more of what happened and what she found out. She said she sent my placenta into pathology, and turns out it was infected. She called it chorioamnionitis. She said prob in the early stages because i wasn't showing any outward symptoms and neither was baby.  But she is sure that is the reason i had a premature rupture of membranes ( my water broke before i was in active labor). She also said i had a placenta abruption right before makenna came out. There was a huge gush of blood and she knew baby needed to come out right then. That is why she looked at me and told me to push her out immediately. She said if i would have abrupted any min earlier it would have been an emergency c-section. She said mom and baby can bleed out quickly so if she wasn't going to come out in 1 push then i wouldn't have been able to do it vaginally. They quickly started me on pitocin after delivery to  stop the bleeding. She said these factors were prob the reason baby wasn’t handling labor very well.

I am always amazed when i am holding my baby on my stomach for the first time after they were just inside of me. But i have to say i was soooooo extra grateful to be holding my healthy baby girl at the end of this labor. She has had no complications and is just perfect. After reading up on all of this stuff and everything that could have resulted because of it I know without a doubt that we were being watched over. That my Heavenly Father’s hand was guiding my body this whole time. He knows me and by His divine design both Makenna and I are safe and healthy!!! Scottie had given me a blessing that everything would be ok and we would feel comforted as we waited to meet our baby. Now that it's over it’s cool to look back and remember that blessing. He did not bless me that it would be a perfect uncomplicated labor,  he said everything would be ok. I am so grateful that we were watched over and everything turned out perfect.

We love our sweet Makenna girl.  She is the perfect addition to our family. She is adored by her brother and sister and handles all the snuggles like a champ. We don't know how we lived without her! We love you baby girl!!!