Stauder Stories: Logan's Birth Story

Well, here we are 2 and a half months later, and I am finally getting around to writing Logan's birth story! I guess you could say I have had some other things on my mind lately... :)

Anyway, here it is! The story of how our sweet and perfect babe made her way into this world.

It was Friday, August 12th. I was 40 weeks pregnant. I was over it. I wanted to meet our girl!!! I was already 2cm dilated and 80% effaced. My body was ready! But, I guess our little one wasn't. ;) As much as I wanted to go into labor on my own, my OB had expressed that she didn't necessarily want me to go much past 41 weeks because of complications that could bring for the baby. So, I scheduled an induction for the following Thursday morning.

I was picking up the house (which is actually a hilarious phrase when you think about it...) Wednesday evening around 5pm and felt what I hoped was my water breaking, or at least leaking... so I went to check and it was actually blood... bright red blood. I sort of freaked out a bit, called the charge nurse at the hospital, and she told me to go ahead and come on in. I called my mom and Drew and they both started heading that way also. Here I am, driving myself to the hospital during rush hour on Wednesday night, when I had pictured us driving together bright and early the next morning! What can I say? You make plans... and God laughs!

After I was admitted, the nurse got me hooked up to the monitors and baby girl looked great! Which was the most important part. Honestly, no one seemed worried at all about the bleeding. (Turns out, it was caused by a placental abruption. It sounds worse than it is, it's basically just the placenta tearing way from the uterus, which usually happens during labor, but probably happened early with me since I was overdue.) They did decide to keep me overnight to monitor baby and I. Because of staffing, they weren't able to induce me any sooner than my originally scheduled induction. So, the plan was to stay overnight and hope and pray that maybe I'd go into labor on my own. Drew went to get us Chipotle so that we didn't have to eat hospital food and we watched the Olympics while we ate! I got mayyybe 3 hours of sleep, those monitors and hospital beds are super uncomfortable. Plus I was SO excited and anxious for the next day!

The nurse came in to wake me up bright and early at 5am... GO TIME! They started Pitocin at 2 and they raised it by 2 every half an hour all the way to 20. By 8am the Pitocin was all the way up to 14 and I was still only 2cm dilated. At 9am, my nurse came in to tell me that my doctor would be there in 45 minutes to break my water! I have heard from so many women that after your water breaks labor typically picks up and moves along super fast. Not knowing what to expect and also just being a bit scared, I asked for an epidural. My contractions weren't terribly painful at this point - probably a 5 or 6 out of 10 - but I knew they would get worse. I got the epidural about 30 minutes later at 10:30, minutes before my doctor broke my water.

My husband's lovely sense of humor...

My nurse checked me around 11am and I had progressed to 4cm! At this point I realized the epidural only took to my right side, so I was fully feeling contractions on my left side. So strange! They rolled me over on my left side and let gravity work its magic so that my left side would go numb as well. That took about 45 minutes, so during that time I was having some pretty strong contractions that I would put at a 9 out of 10 on the pain scale... Drew told me later that he had no idea I was in that much pain! Once I felt better, they rolled me onto my back.

My sweet sister playing with my hair to distract me.

I sent out a text to a bunch of friends and family updating them that I was at 4cm at 11:50am. We figured it would be a while before it was actually time to push, based on how I had been progressing, so my nurse suggested that I try to get some sleep. My mom and sister went to walk around and get some lunch. We had actually written down our guesses of her arrival time on a white board... Drew's guess was the earliest @ 2pm. Little did any of us know that Logan would be here an hour later!!! As soon as my mom and sister left, I told the nurse that I felt a lot of pressure really low, and it felt different than the contractions. She didn't seem too concerned yet and just assured me that baby was probably making her way down the birth canal soon. But I told her that I had a serious urge to push, so she checked me again and I was fully dilated! I'll always remember what she said: "You better call your mom and sister back here because you are having this baby SOON!" Oh my gosh! What?! Then, all I felt was pure excitement. Not nerves like I would have thought. We were gonna meet this tiny chick so soon!!!

The nurse called my OB who was already back at the clinic. She had me do a practice push while we were waiting and immediately told me we wouldn't be doing any more of those because she didn't want to deliver this baby herself...HAH! Right around the time my doctor got there at 12:30pm, I went into transition labor and got sick, not fun. Apparently 80% of women vomit during labor, so I'm not alone. :)

I started pushing at 12:46pm and pushed through two contractions. I truthfully had no idea if I was doing anything right, but my doctor and nurses were encouraging me to keep doing what I was doing. I was pushing so hard I felt like my chest was going to break! We were waiting for a third contraction so I could push again, and I didn't know it at the time but her heart rate was dropping (the umbilical cord ended up being wrapped around her leg), so they had me push without waiting for another contraction... and with the third push she came out right away!!! The most magical moment of my life! Born at 12:55pm, she had a FULL head of thick, black hair. Who would've expected that?! After Drew cut the cord and they quickly wiped her off they put her on my chest basically right away. I just kept looking at her and at Drew in disbelief. She was crying right away when she came out and while they wiped her off and then stopped crying as soon as they gave her to me. Talk about my first emotional moment as a mama! <3 We did skin-to-skin for almost two hours, which was pure heaven! We tried nursing and she took to it like an absolute champ. Pretty sure she ate for almost an hour. Someone brought me a turkey sandwich and I think I ate it in 3 bites while nursing her. We were both starved!!! Haha!

Look at my mama back there!

Our perfect family!

The happiest state of human existence.

Our long and skinny girl!

One proud papa.

Labor and delivery were absolutely nothing like what I expected. The whole experience was honestly so enjoyable. I will always have fond memories of the events that took place for Logan to get here!

We got to go home Saturday afternoon... and to be frank, we were both really excited to be out of the hospital, but also a little terrified. They were actually going to let the two of us take a baby home?! Because we have no idea what we're doing!!!