Bless his little heart: The birth of Asher

By Published On: July 8th, 2013Tags: ,

Monday, October 1, we called the hospital and they told us to come in at 7:15 p.m. for our scheduled medical inducement. You were originally due on September 24, but there was no sign of you coming! We were anxious and ready for you to come. We checked into a beautiful room with a huge window overlooking the trees. Grandma and Grandpa P. came an hour later to visit with us, which was nice. Mom was given medicine to open her cervix. This medicine is a small pill that they would give every four hours. We then spent the night in the hospital. Every couple hours the nurse would come in and check on Mom. It wasn’t that restful. They gave the dose at 9 p.m., 1 a.m., then 4 a.m. Mom’s cervix was slowly opening and contractions were starting, so they didn’t give more.

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In the morning, our doctor, Jessica Gravzick, arrived. They realized that the water had broken in the night when being checked by the nurse, so Jessica broke the remaining part of the water. Then Mom was given Pitocin—a drug that helps bring on contractions even harder. Mom wanted to use all the amities, so she jumped into the huge bathtub they had. The Pitocin was working! Soon Mom began to have frequent painful contractions—it was scary and stressful.  Dad would rub or hold Mom’s back, and she would do her best to try to breathe through it. Mom was in tears a few times. She tried her best to last without an epidural, but it just got too painful. So we called the anesthesiologist. We needed him right away!

The anesthesiologist proceeded to put a needle into mom’s back and administer the medicine. Finally the pain started to subside, and Mom was able to relax. At that point her cervix was at 4 cm and 70 effaced. Then your grandma showed up, followed by your grandparents on your dad’s side, then Uncle Ben and Courtney. It was fun to have them around, especially because mom was not in pain, thanks to the epidural. Later, Tiffany, Madison and your other grandpa showed up too.

During this time we also connected with our nurse named Alla, who we found out was born in Ukraine. We told her that we had connections to Ukraine and ended up telling her about Steiger/ No longer Music. She is a Christian and was very interested. After that, Alla took extra special care off us, which was great!

4By 5 p.m., Mom had progressed to 6-7 cm, but then things began to slow down, and Mom started to feel more pain from the contractions. Progress was really slow, and the pain grew to the point where we began to get nervous that Mom would have to have a C-section, which we didn’t want. Mom began to get emotional, but stayed strong. Still the pain continued to grow to the point where she had to get the epidural replaced—a stressful but ultimately wise decision. By midnight Mom had progressed to almost 9 cm dilated, but still no baby. Now, of course, your birthday was not going to be October 2 but October 3.

So then at about 3 a.m. on October 3, the second epidural was slowly wearing off again. They weren’t going to give Mom another one. So at this point the doctor suggested a C-section. Mom wasn’t moving passed 9 cm. They had tried a few other things early on, but nothing was helping—for example, they took mom off Pitocin and put her back on it to try to trick her body. Mom was so sad when they suggested the C-section, and she asked for one more hour. Mom knew that she just needed time to accept the idea. At 4 a.m. they started the C-section. You were healthy, of course, and such a big boy! 9 pounds and 13 ounces. I think there was a reason why you were waiting—you knew you wouldn’t fit … bless your little heart!

Send us your birth story! Whether you had a home birth, hospital birth, 37-hour labor or emergency C-section, we’d love to read the tale of your little one’s grand entrance. Write up your birth story (click here for tips on getting started) and email it, along with a few photos, to birthstory@pnmag.com. We’ll share it on our Birth Day blog and may even print it in an upcoming issue!