Welcome Baby!

My client due 7/20 had her baby this morning. I'm so glad I got to attend this birth!

She was great. Very calm, very in control. She called me yesterday afternoon to check in after her OB appt and let me know that she was 3cm/100%/btw 0 & +1. WOW! She told me her back was hurting her a lot. I had a nervous feeling, but told her to try some pelvic rocks and hands & knees.

She called me back a few hours later around 6:30pm to ask if she was having contractions. From her description, I confirmed that she was probably in early labor and told her to go rest, take a bath, relax and to call me back in 2 hours to let me know if things had changed.

She called again at about 7pm, to say she was bleeding. She felt like it was a lot of bright red blood, so I told her to call her doctor and ask what he thought she should do. He wanted her to come and get it check out, just to make sure there wasn't a problem. She has a 45min drive to the hospital. I told her I would meet her at there.

I arrived at about 8pm. She was checked at 8:15pm and was 4cm/100%/0. The blood was just bloody show, although a lot of it. She was admitted and we were in a room around 9pm and her antibiotics were started (GBS+).

Around 10pm, her contractions were about 3 minutes apart, and long (double peaking). I got her in the tub and it spaced her contractions out a bit and they weren't as long, and she said she felt a lot better there. After about 30 minutes, she got out and back to the bed to lay down.

At 12am on 7/7, she was checked again and was 5cm, her contractions were long again (90+ seconds) and about 2 minutes apart. Around 2am she went to the bathroom and said she heard a pop and thought her water had broken. She laid back down on the bed and was immediately shaking and showing signs of transition. After saying she was feeling some pressure and grunting, she was checked and was 8cm.

The nurse left us alone (again) and we talked her out of giving up. Several times I looked up at the door wondering why no one was in here checking in. After several contractions of uncontrollable pushing during contractions, I paged the nurse to come. A different nurse comes in and I tell her that she is pushing a lot with each contraction. It's been about 20 minutes since she was last checked. She tells me she will tell her nurse, but not to push (as if I can hold her baby in or stop her). We work to get her to breathe out and that works a lot to keep her from pushing. Finally (at 3am) the nurse comes in and I give her a look... you know the she is ready to have a baby look, and she checks her (she's complete, duh!) and she calls the doctor, and tells her not to push (hah!). I tell her to blow out again, but I don't try and stop her from pushing. She's complete and whether he makes it or not, wasn't that important.

OB comes in and asks how things are going. Watches her push a couple times and leaves. (This doc is kind of funny, he's sort of a interventionist, but he tries to be hands off) At about 3:30pm, she has moved the baby down to almost crowning and doc comes back in. The baby is born at 3:41am.

He is a cutie! Congratulations to the new mom and dad!