Welcome Lilah Rose, a birth story

It’s been almost a month since we welcomed our newest little one, Lilah Rose, into the family.

As time speeds along at record pace, I wanted to take some time to record her birth story before the details fade away. I loved reading birth stories when I was pregnant, so wanted to share. (You can find James’s birth story here!)

Lilah’s birth started out eerily similar to James’s. We went in to my doctor for an appointment at 40 weeks, 5 days. Just like with James, she did a sonogram to check on baby and informed me that my amniotic fluid levels were too low and I needed to go upstairs to the hospital to be induced that morning.

This is the exact same thing that happened with James, down to the day. The only difference was that this time we had a curious little two year old in tow!

I called my Mom, who so kindly offered to take care of James when I went into labor. She had to drive from Houston (about a three hour drive), so I wanted to call her right away. I also had a wonderful local friend offer to take care of James if my mom couldn’t make it, but I figured it would be a while since I was being induced (it took almost 24 hours when I was induced with James).

We grabbed our bags from the car, including a bag of snacks and a bag of books / crayons / stickers for James.

While I wasn’t super excited about being induced again, I was at least already 3 cm dilated this time, which meant I could skip Cervidil (which I reacted to really badly last time) and go straight to Pitocin.

The nurses spent some time going over forms with me (they have to tell you all of the horrible things that could go wrong and have you consent to treatments / sign a form saying they told you).

They then put in my IV for the pitocin. It took three different nurses and FOUR tries to get my IV in. My veins kept collapsing. This is nothing against the nurses, I just have really tricky veins, it’s always a bit of a struggle to get blood drawn. My bruises from the collapsed veins are just now really fading though. Eventually the IV was in and we were good to go!

They started the Pitocin at 10 AM and I slowly began to feel very mild contractions, but nothing that was bothering me. This was a stark contrast to the last time, when the Cervidil started intense back to back contractions right away.

While things were still manageable, I was definitely glad when my Mom arrived around noon to bring James back to our house. He did really well entertaining himself with snacks and books, but he also really wanted me to get out of bed and was naturally super curious about all of the machines and buttons around the room.

He put a smiley face sticker on my hand before he left and I looked at it whenever I needed a morale boost during labor. I also found various stickers placed around the room throughout the day, which always made me smile.

Things picked up soon after James left and the contractions became much more intense. My (wonderful) nurse asked me if I wanted an epidural, but I wanted to wait until my doctor came to check me to see how far along I was.

My doctor arrived around 1:30 PM and let me know I was 5 cm and completely effaced. She seemed to think this was great progress, but I was a little discouraged that things felt so intense and I had so far to go.

I requested the epidural, feeling a little disappointed in myself. This is so silly, especially since I didn’t plan to have an unmedicated birth or do any real preparation for one. I think I just felt like I made it so much further without one when James was born, but little did I know, I should have asked for the epidural sooner!

The anesthesiologist made it to my room pretty quickly and I think started the epidural around 2:15 pm. I warned him that I had some mild scoliosis (something I actually forgot until the anesthesiologist mentioned it during James’s birth). With James, this meant that the epidural worked right away on my left side, but I had to lay on my right side to let the epidural drip down to the right side of my body.

In the short time from when my doctor had left and getting the epidural, things got so much more painful. I was a little bit desperate for the relief I knew the epidural would bring at this point.

However, the relief didn’t really come. I felt no real change after he put in the epidural. He upped the dosage and eventually I realized that the pain of the contractions was only on my right side – it was pretty all-consuming so it was hard for me to pinpoint that. I lay on my right side and willed the drugs to drip down, but my nurse soon recognized that I was in transition. I had very quickly gone from 5 cm to 10 cm and there just wasn’t really time for the epidural to fully work.

Because the pushing stage had only taken 30 minutes with James, my nurse called my doctor down right away and they got the room ready for delivery.

I was honestly pretty panicked about the epidural situation in the moment, but I couldn’t actually feel any pain during the pushing stage and I could feel her moving down through the birth canal, so that part was actually pretty cool.

It was a good thing my nurse had called the doctor right away, because it took one contraction and two pushes and then little Lilah was born at 2:58 PM, weighing 8 lb 5 oz and measuring 21.5 inches long. She cried right away, looked very pink and healthy, and was placed on my immediately for skin to skin.

I got to hold her for almost an hour and a half before they took her to be weighed / measured, etc., which was magical. I couldn’t believe she had been born so quickly, that she was finally here.

The rest of the hospital stay was a bit of a sleepless blur. Between having a newborn and the constant stream of people coming into the room all night, sleep was hard to come by, but I was so, so happy (and not yet super sleep deprived) that it didn’t matter.

Aside from plenty of time spent snuggling our new little girl, the highlight of the first few days was watching James meet his little sister. He was so sweet with her and all smiles and it was so special to watch their sibling relationship begin.

I’ll share more on the first few weeks soon, but wanted to post this before I forget anything.

Thanks so much for reading!

Thanks to my husband for the photos! I’ve made zero progress on my 2019 goal of learning to use the DSLR….

P.S. Check out my recent article on preparing a sibling for a new baby here!