Grace Elizabeth Field Birth Story
It was a week and a day before my due date with Grace and I was at one of Stephen's football games. Something felt different, I knew that it was going to be less than a week before I saw my baby girl face to face. I increasingly was becoming more and more uncomfortable. Pressure, back pain, exhausted and walking like a penguin that I always dress up as!
On Sept 24, my mom and I went up to SLO for lunch at Village Host with Alyssa. I remember walking to the restroom at the restaurant and felt like I weighed 1,000 lbs. My mom warned me "the last meal I ate before I had you was pizza." Well after lunch we then headed for a much needed foot massage. During the massage, I told my mom I felt something pop...but never thought to much of it...just that it felt like I kept peeing in my pants throughout the night and couldn't control it. Amazing.
The next morning, Sept 25, after I got out of the shower and was getting ready to go grab a smoothie with Melissa, something was definitely off. Good thing we didn't go on the walk like we had been planning on doing. I text Stephen and said I thought something was strange, like maybe my water was breaking. We'll less than 5 minutes after I sent that text, it was like the movies, my water broke in a huge gush!! I yelled for my mom to grab me a towel as I called the doctor and continued to sop up the incredible amount of amniotic fluid now soaking into my mom's carpet. My poor poor mom's carpet!
Within an hour, I was being shuttled by my parents to meet Stephen at the high school where he drove me up to Sierra Vista hospital. I was immediately admitted and labor begins! When I got there, they checked me and I was only 1 cm dilated. So long to still go! I labored for 6 hours and decided enough was enough, I needed an epidural. They gave me the epidural and then checked me and I was only 1.5 cm ...are you kidding me?! Shortly after the epidural, my blood pressure dropped, I got nauseous and they had to give me medication to get me back to normal.That was fun...
Stephen was beyond amazing throughout the entire labor. The best coach (duh) I could ask for, supportive, hugged me when I needed it, kissed me when I needed it, gave me some space when I needed it and stayed by my side the entire time. By the way, he also had been working on a Pandora station for us so it was the perfect music for us the whole night, I loved it. The nurses always liked coming into our room too because we had the best music :)
The epidural ended up stalling my labor. Prior to getting it, I was contracting every 2-3 minutes and then after went to 5-7 minutes. So they ended up giving me Pitocin to help speed it all up. At 7pm (10 hours after my water broke) we got an amazing nurse, Heather. I can't imagine having a better nurse. She was phenomenal and helped walk us through everything. She would go above and beyond to answer our questions, made us feel comfortable with the whole process and really made the entire process a joy (yes a joy).
One eventful moment throughout the night was when Grace's heart rate sky rocketed and we didn't know why. Well Heather guessed it might be the 3 HUGE Sierra mist, cranberry and orange juice mocktails I had been consuming. I was only allowed to have water from there on out and fortunately that is what happened. Little Grace resumed back to normal heart rate after a few big glasses of water. At that point, we should have known how sensitive to everything our little Gracie would be (sensitive or dramatic.. take your pic).
After 22.5 hours, Grace decided it was time to arrive. I all of a sudden got the feeling like I wanted to push, so Heather said she wanted me to push and see how I did - a practice so to say. Well, I ended up being so strong, and so good at pushing (thank you Obsidian CrossFit) that she frantically called the doctor and told him he better hurry up! There were several contractions that I couldn't push- I just had to grunt through it because the doctor wasn't there. Let me tell you, not being able to push was the absolute worst part of my entire labor. Up until that point, it was easy. Pretty sure at that point I would have welcomed the laundry man to come in and deliver her if the doctor didn't get there.
My mom was also amazing through all of this. At one point also helping me hold my legs, all while taking some amazing photos. Poor thing, I am sure she was stressed out I gave her that task. I was so glad she was there with us!
At one point, Heather said "I can see her head!!" my first question was.. Does she have hair?! and boy did she!!
When Grace arrived, it was like a huge wave ran over me, they immediately put her on top of me... her little purple body started to turn a soft pink as she tried to cry (actually she was more of grunting than crying). I said "Hi my baby girl" and she looked right at me... I looked at Stephen and we both started to cry. What an overwhelming miracle she was.
Before labor, Stephen had said he wasn't sure he wanted to watch Grace as she entered the world. Well between him having to help me hold up my legs and coach me, he saw it all. He still talks about what an incredible experience it was to see. That never in his life did he imagine he would be so moved.
The next two nights at the hospital were a blur. With trying to learn how to nurse, all the standard tests being done, trying to make it to the bathroom in my adult diaper, and getting next to no sleep. We were so happy to head home on September 28!
