Emberlyn's Birth

"Every husband out there listen up. Anna is worth every penny and then some,
it's hard to see your wife go through that kind of pain on your own.
Having Anna there to keep everything on track and know all the tricks was amazing.
Thanks for all you did."

                                                                                                 ~Jacob

"Anna was an an amazing help during the labor and delivery of my precious baby girl.
My husband tells everyone he could not have done it without her. He was amazing as well,
but he said it was great being able to just focus on my breathing with me and helping me
because she was being proactive and thinking of things he didn't have to.
She pushed on my back where it hurt, she had bags heated to help with the pain. She
insisted on me drinking water every chance I got and eating at least bread when I finally gave
in to an epidural. She stayed calm and was knowledgeable with information about the decisions we
had to make. If we have another child in the future, we really want Anna again.
We recommend her to everyone!"
                                                      
                                                                                      ~Brittani

Hospital Birth | Raleigh, NC

***Prior permission is always obtained from clients before sharing birth story
 
     At 6:00am on Sunday, June 28th, 2015 Brittani sent me a text. She asked me to give her a call. She said, “No rush, but things are starting to happen.” I called her. She said around 3:30am her water had broken. She said she wasn’t having very many consistent contractions. The ones she was having were about 30-40 minutes apart. Brittani decided to stay active for a little while to try to get things moving along a bit faster. At 9:40am, I sent her a text to check in. Brittani said contractions were still 30-40 minutes apart. She said she had been able to get a little nap in and had some breakfast. I advised her to next try nipple stimulation to try to get contractions closer together. She said she would.
               
     At 1:09pm Brittani texted me to say that she had pumped 3 times, gone for a walk, taken a shower, and eaten lunch. She said she did lose more fluid, but that contractions were still about 40 minutes apart, but that she hadn’t had any in the last hour. She called me, and we discussed a plan. We decided to try binding her belly, pumping for 20 minutes, then doing the miles circuit, pumping for another 20 minutes, and then seeing where we were then. I knew that would put us close to the 12 hour mark. Brittani was GBS+, and I knew her OBs would want her to come in to do antibiotics if things weren’t picking up by then. During the side lying part of the miles circuit, Brittani’s contractions started to pick up a lot. They became closer together and more intense. This lasted for a while, and then when she changed positions they began to space out again. I suggested that she try pumping one last time, and if that didn’t help that she call her OB.

                At 5:20pm, Brittani texted me to let me know that the doctor on call said to come in and that they were leaving for the hospital in about 10 minutes.  I agreed to meet them at the hospital to help with any decisions they might need to make. I arrived at the hospital around 6:30pm. When I walked in the room, Brittani was sitting on the birth ball and her husband, Jacob, was in the chair timing her contractions. Brittani was still very happy and was able to manage her contractions well.
               
     At 7:00pm, the doctor came in and checked Brittani’s cervix. She was 2-3cm dilated, 50% effaced, and at a 0 station. They discussed at this point putting a foley bulb in and starting pitocin in order to move things along faster. While waiting for all of that to get set up, Brittani’s contractions began to pick up again. They were about 5 minutes apart. Brittani and Jacob asked if maybe they could just start the foley bulb and hold off on the pitocin. The doctor felt like this would be a bad choice. So they  decided to go ahead and start both. The foley bulb was very painful at first, but Brittani handled it very well. Jacob was right by her head helping her breath and vocalize through each contraction. Brittani was having a lot of back pain with her contractions. So I applied counter pressure and heat to help. Once the pain from the foley bulb insertion died down some, Brittani was able to get up and move around. At 10:15pm, Brittani went to the bathroom and the foley bulb fell out.
               
     After the foley bulb fell out she came out and sat on the ball. She leaned on Jacob through each contraction as they vocalized together. I continued to apply counter pressure and heat to her back and hips. At 11:45pm the nurse checked Brittani’s cervix again. She was 6 cm dilated, 80% effaced, and still at a 0 station. The nurse said she felt like the baby might be occupit posterior (face up), because Brittani’s cervix was at 4 cm during a contraction. I explained this to Brittani and suggested that she labor on hands and knees for a while to see if the baby might turn. We did this for a while, and then Brittani really felt like she wanted some pain relief. She opted to try the IV pain medications first. Unfortunately, they weren’t very effective for her. After about an hour after receiving the IV pain meds, she decided she’d like to get an epidural. First she had to receive a bag of fluids before they could administer the epidural. She labored on hands and knees during this time. I noticed around 1:00am, that Brittani was grunting and pushing involuntarily during contractions. This caused the nurse to check her again. At 1:07am, she was 7 cm dilated, 90% effaced, and still at a 0 station. She said that it felt like the baby had turned and was now in a good position. However, it still wasn’t time to push. So we tried our best to encourage Brittani to resist the urge to push since this could cause her cervix to swell since she wasn’t fully dilated.
               
     Once Brittani was done receiving the bag of fluids, she received her epidural. This helped her a lot. She was able to resist that urge to push and get some rest. We all took a short nap after the epidural kicked in. At 6:16am the nurse came in to do another check. At this point Brittani was 9 cm dilated, 100% effaced, and at a +1 station. The epidural was no longer working quite as well so they gave her a little more medication. This worked for a little while, and Brittani was able to get a little more sleep. At 8:30am, the nurse came in for one last check and Brittani was completely dilated! The nurse suggested that she labor down for a little while and let her body do the work.
               
     Around 8:50am when the nurse was in the room, she noticed one decel in the baby’s heart rate during a contraction. The baby’s heart rate went right back up immediately after so she wasn’t too concerned, but she did feel like it would be a good time to go ahead and start pushing. Brittani worked so hard pushing and finally at 11:10am Emberlyn was born! Brittani and Jacob were so overjoyed to finally meet her. Brittani was so strong and brave. She worked so hard. Not everything went how they had planned, but they made great decisions when faced with tough choices.