Fantastic VBAC!!! Welcome sweet Emzey!

Laura and I met by chance after I switched shifts with another employee up at Terra Tots one Saturday morning. She came in to see what we carried that might help prepare her body for labor. She told me she was anxious because she was planning a VBAC and didn't want to face an induction. I asked who her care provider was and when she told me it was Dr. Hannah, I assured her that she was in fantastic hands. It was easy to see that she was relieved when she heard this and even came back into the store a little later to thank me again. Our interaction stuck with me though, and when she emailed me a few weeks later I remembered her clearly. Everything fell into place nicely and we met just a few days before her due date for a really long prenatal visit, wondering if it might be our only one. I really enjoyed our visit and meeting her husband, Howard, and their other beautiful daughter. Laura had been losing her mucus plug, having sporadic contractions, and feeling just generally under the weather off and on during the week following her due date. The contractions would get stronger from time to time but never got regular. She saw Dr. Hannah at 41 weeks and the decision was made to plan an induction the next day on the 25th. Laura had contractions throughout the rest of the day of her appointment and into the evening. They were about 10-15 minutes apart on that Thursday, the 25th and she was starting to see some bloody show so we knew some kind of progress was being made. The contractions continued to get stronger throughout the day and the decision was made to just keep the induction appointment at 8pm. We met at the hospital around 7:45pm and started to get checked in. Laura was having contractions this entire time, around 4-5 minutes apart. The staff was a bit confused that she was there for an induction but in labor and we finally got settled into a room upstairs about 25 minutes later. Laura changed into a gown and got hooked up to the monitors. She did not want to be sitting down for any of this as that made the contractions more painful. The nurse, Susan, did an exam at 8:50pm and Laura was 3cm dilated and her cervix was about 80% thinned out. Once she was on the monitor it was easy to see that the baby liked certain positions more than others and her heart rate would dip down some from time to time. The nurse said that she was pretty sure there was a nuchal cord (the cord around the baby's neck) but that it seemed to be relieved with position so it wasn't a concern. Laura was leaning over the bed a lot but eventually her legs were getting really tired. She tried to find a comfortable position on the bed with the heating pad on her lower back. Susan came in and said she'd spoken with Dr. Hannah who agreed to leave things be for two hours before they discussed starting the pitocin. Laura spent a lot of the next two hours pacing the area around the bed and leaning on the bed (or sometimes Howard) during contractions. Around 11:30pm the intensity starting picking up and the contractions were lasting sometimes up to 2 minutes long. She was really having to use her breath a lot to stay on top of the contractions and beginning to think about getting an epidural. When the nurse came in around 12:25am to do another vaginal exam and found little cervical change, she said that she was going to need to begin the pitocin now. Though she was doing a fantastic job, hearing this was a big disappointment and really solidified her decision to go ahead and get the epidural. She got up to use the restroom about half an hour later and saw a lot more bloody show which was very encouraging. Once she got into bed again, Susan decided to check her again while we waited on the anesthesiologist to arrive and were all thrilled to find that she was 4cm dilated and completely thinned out. It was farther along that she'd ever been before! At 1:20am Dr. Barlow came in to place her epidural and while she was sitting straight up, the baby's heart rate was dropping down around 100bpm so as soon as he was done, the nurse was quick to get her to turn on her side. By 1:45am, he was finished and Howard came back in as Laura was starting to feel the epidural take the edge off of her contractions. He got settled in on the sorry excuse for a bed in the room (once we figured out how it worked) and managed to get a few hours sleep while Laura and I chatted. She was flipped to her other side around 2am in the hopes that it would help her feel the epidural more fully since she still had a lot of pain with her contractions. It was also to help Emzey's heart rate to stabilize, taking pressure off of the cord. Laura was still experiencing a lot of back labor and had almost full control of her legs. Within an hour, her pain level was right back up to where is was before the epidural and she was needing full support again from me and a slightly groggy Howard. Susan called Dr. Barlow back and he replaced her epidural, hoping this one would bring her more lasting relief while reminding her it wouldn't really do much for the back labor. About 10 minutes later, the relief was really visible and Laura was feeling a lot better. Her contractions continued to be around 2 minutes apart and she was 6.5cm dilated. Susan checked in one more time before shift change when she introduced the day nurse, Becky (whom we were much less impressed with.) Dr. Hannah came in with the nurse around 7:30am and asked to break Laura's water. There was some light meconium in the water and they chose to insert an internal contraction monitor at this time too so that they could get a more precise idea of just how strong her contractions were. They tried to put on an internal heart rate monitor but Emzey shook it off within a few minutes. Laura was 7cm but Emzey's heart rate began to dip down lower and stay down longer than it had earlier. Dr. Hannah explained that if it got more concerning that he would probably do an amnioinfusion, putting water back inside Laura's uterus to take that pressure off of the cord, never once jumping to or even mentioning a c-section. By 10:30am, Laura had progressed beautifully to 8cm and we'd fallen into quite the pattern with each contraction. As the contraction would begin, Howard would start rubbing one side of Laura's belly while she sand and I, with hands cupped to her belly, talked to Emzey. We told her about all the people who were waiting to meet her and all the fun things that awaited her. We promised her all kinds of amazing things if she would continue to bring her heart rate back up. I may have even promised her a pony at one point. Howard had his phone out and would jokingly put it under the gown with the flashlight on, doing some Morse code and trying to coax her towards the light. We all just tried to share our love for her through Laura's belly, explaining just how much we needed her to behave so that she could be born vaginally. At noon, another exam revealed that Emzey had moved down some but Laura remained at 8cm, which meant an increase in the pitocin. Not long after this, she was starting to feel more pressure than she had previously and had made it to 9cm. Everyone was beginning to get excited, though the nurse kept being somewhat of a bummer trying to talk about the possibility of a c-section but Laura was steadfast in her optimism and pointedly told her to leave at one point. The nurse came back in with Dr. Hannah around 1:50pm and said that there was only a small little big of her cervix left. They left to go perform a surgery on another patient and said that she'd be ready to start pushing by the time they were done. While they were gone another nurse that I had worked with previously came in and said that she was going to help Laura to have a vaginal birth. She said she was going to “chicken wing” her one way and then the other before having her get on her hands and knees. This involved Laura being on her side with a leg pretty high up in the air in a stirrup and then getting flipped over half an hour later. At 2:30pm she was pushing while laying on her back on the bed but not making very much progress. Everyone had suspected that Emzey was posterior, meaning she was facing up instead of towards Laura's back, and so another round of position changes was suggested to try and get her to flip around. At 4pm, after many contractions on her hands and knees, we helped her switch back around to the “chicken wing” position on her left side and the pain switched from being more in her back to being more in the front down low which we all hoped meant that Emzey had decided to flip. Dr. Hannah came back in at this point and Laura began pushing again. He used a vacuum to help bring Emzey down under Laura's pubic bone and after a half hour of pushing, she was almost here! Emzey Mae made her way into our world at 4:36pm on Friday, July 25th and many tears of pure joy were shed. I was so proud of Laura!! All her hard work and determination had paid off and she had proven that her body was not broken. Emzey was born with a really tight nuchal cord and so they took her immediately over to the warm. She needed a lot of stimulation and Laura continued to sing to her while we all told her how much we wanted to hear about her journey. Within a few minutes she let out a sweet little cry that exponentially grew in the following seconds. She was absolutely beautiful, weighing 7lb 12oz and looking a lot like her big sister! After about 5 minutes she was able to be placed on Laura's chest and for about a minute, every thing was so peaceful as they showered this sweet baby in so much love. She was taken to the nursery for observation and sadly it was many hours before she got to hold her again. By the time I visited the next day they'd started working on their breastfeeding relationship and Laura was getting around really well. I feel so fortunate that our paths crossed, that I was able to witness her amazing strength and perseverance, and so humbled that she allowed me to be a part of their incredible journey. This is one family that will always have a place in my heart.