August Donald Reynebeau

My most proud moment was becoming your mom.

After going through IVF, a velamentous placenta, months of a breeched baby, multiple ultrasounds confirming we were to have an 8+ pound baby with a very large head, and 40 weeks of pregnancy; we FINALLY welcomed our little man on his due date, Wednesday, November 20th, 2019.

As you might have guessed, our little man did not arrive on his own free will. After 2 failed scraped membrane attempts (only getting to 1cm dilated on my own), lots of curb walking, spicy foods, pineapple consumption, and more, the eviction notice was officially posted on Tuesday, November 19th, induction scheduled! My doctor was worried, that if all of our ultrasounds were accurate then I was going to have a very large baby and have issues delivering vaginally, so going over 40 weeks was not an option.

I ended up working a full day on the 19th, many of my coworkers (and my husband) thought I was nuts, but the distraction was great with the end of my pregnancy so near. My top three feelings for the day:

• Anxious. Trying to button up all of my work projects smack dab in our busiest time of the year. Taking a full 12 weeks off from my career makes me feel very anxious. I love what I do and I have never taken a large amount of time off in my adult life (the last time was probably my summer going into senior year of high school).
• Relieved. Pregnancy pretty much by definition is the unexpected is expected. To end my 40 weeks of pregnancy with a scheduled induction was pretty amazing for my type-A nature.
• Happy.  Leaving our house for the last time as just the two of us, knowing when we would return, we would be bringing our baby home was the best feeling in the world (this made me cry happy tears while we drove to the hospital).

So the plan for our induction was, that I would be given 3 rounds of cervix softener throughout the night and Ambien to “sleep.” The goal was for me to continue dilating throughout the night, but soften my cervix so my OB could break my water in the morning. The night of sleep actually wasn’t terrible, the sleeping pill helped, and I woke up Wednesday morning ready to be a mom.

My OB ended up breaking my water around 8:30am and I was 2 cm dilated when she did. To our surprise, we found meconium (which is the baby’s first number two) mixed in with my amniotic fluid and it is just as gross as you would think it would be. Shortly after breaking my water, they started my Pitocin IV to increase my contractions. Now, I only got to 1cm dilated on my own and only had a few Braxton Hicks contractions around 32 and 34 weeks (which did suck), but I had never felt REAL contractions. Welp, that changed quickly, holy hell this medicine and my contractions were probably the worst pain I have felt in my life. I could bearly move. At one point I decided to get out of bed and bounce on an exercise ball, which kind of helped but when the nurse checked me around 11am and I was only 3cm dilated, enough was enough. I decided to throw in the flag and get an epidural. Honestly, I was very up in the air on pain meds for delivery. I always thought I would go the natural route until I felt what contractions actually felt like. Needless to say, I am very happy I ended up with one since August wasn’t born until 8:01pm.

The meds worked very fast and I couldn’t believe how much more comfortable the rest of our afternoon went!  Even though I was numb from the chest down, it was crazy that I could still feel contractions. They didn’t hurt, they more just felt like pressure around my belly button but at one point in the afternoon, they needed to turn off my Pitocin due to the baby’s heart rate dropping after every one of my contractions. The nurse really had to monitor us closely for a few hours. But finally the baby’s heart rate stabilized and we were able to restart the Pitocin. Around 3:30pm they checked me, and I had made it to 6cm; FINALLY some actual progress!

After the 6cm mark, time started to really fly. Around 4pm the nurses started to get our room set up. Having them wheel in the newborn heater and set out all of the doctor’s and nurses’ gear really made things set in (this is about the time Romy started to get really squirrelly). Also, my contractions began to shift. The whole day they were really concentrated in my midsection around my belly button, but slowly they started to move to my butt. I guess what they say is true when you feel like you have to go #2 it is baby time! Our nurse’s shifts were 12 hours from 7am to 7pm, so around 6:30 I had let my nurse know that I could really really feel the pressure in my bottom, she had said that she was going to check me before rounds had switched over. Welp, that didn’t happen and at 7:15pm our new nurse and nursing student walked in. The first thing she did was check me, and sure enough, I was at 10cm! Go time was upon us!

Our doctor was paged and she stopped into our room (still in her street clothing), shortly after they confirmed I was at 10cm. The thought was that the baby was still 8+ pounds with a very large head, so our OB reconfirmed to us, that yes, we could start pushing but to be prepared for a very long night of labor. It must have been a busy night in labor and delivery because our OB had gotten paged to another room, while our nurses started explaining how to push. Deep breath in, hold your breath, push for 10 seconds, repeat 2 more times. 

At 7:30pm Romy grabbed my left leg, the nursing student grabbed my right, and our nurse coached me as I started to push. Now just a reminder, I had in my head, I was pushing out a MASSIVE child, so I decided to give it my all! By about 7:45pm he started to crown and our doctor needed to be paged back to our room immediately. I was probably on my 8th push when our doctor came running into our room (still in her street clothing). She took one look at me and instructed me to hold all my pushes. At this point, our room had started to fill up with other nurses, techs, pediatricians all on standby for delivery. Our OB flew into the backroom and thew on a pair of nursing scrubs, while our bed was disassembled, and our team got ready for baby. Our OB came back just at the right time for one big last push. The next thing I knew my baby boy was being placed on my chest, and I was looking up at Romy as tears filled his eyes. Our baby boy was officially here at 8:01pm.

So surreal thinking back now, how our journey had so many highs and lows and of course we would end our pregnancy just as eventfully as it began and I wouldn’t change a second of it.

Photography: Kali Marie Photography