About three weeks ago, Ezra Ford made his way into the world! I find birth stories fascinating so I’m going to share his here today. Plus, I love writing these as a way to remember such a special day. Here we go!
I actually decided to get induced and had my appointment scheduled for 3 days prior to my actual due date. Induction can be a tough decision so I’m going to write a full post on how I came to that decision and if it was the right one. For now, we’ll just say that my doctor and I decided an induction was a good option for me for a bunch of reasons, so we had it set for March 23, 2021 at 7am. Ezra’s actual due date was March 26.
Before I jump in, if it seems odd that I have very exact times noted for the whole process, that was a deliberate plan on my part. With Millie’s birth (which you can read about here) I have no recollection of what happened and when, so this time around I told Matt to take notes in his phone of everything happening.
The Early Stages of Induction
At 6:30am my parents came over to our house to stay with Millie and Ollie and a little before 7am MM and I headed to Shady Grove Hospital (located a quick 7 minutes away). Upon arrival we filled out some forms and got settled into our hospital room. One of the good things about an induction is you immediately are put into the room where you’ll deliver as opposed to waiting in triage or being sent home if you aren’t far enough along.
It took a few hours to get the initial steps done, which included having an IV placed in my forearm. This was honestly one of the most painful parts of the whole day, the needle was very thick and very uncomfortable. I’m not a fan of needles but typically can handle them; for this one I started sweating and thought I might pass out. Fortunately I did not.
Next I had to have a COVID-19 test, which was the first true swab-up-the-nose COVID test I’ve had. This was also quite uncomfortable but over quickly. Oddly, the hospital did not require this for MM, only me. Spouses really get off easy during childbirth. The results came back negative, which didn’t really impact my stay. I still had to wear a mask while anyone else was in the room and I wasn’t allowed to leave the room. The only difference was that the nurses and doctor were in basic masks/shields and not full PPE.
All of this took us until about 10am. My doctor came to check on us and instructed the nurses to start me on Pitocin, the drug that basically makes your body have contractions–that’s my very professional medical description 🙂 My doctor’s husband is also an OBYGN at the same hospital and they both were working that day. My doctor said they had a lot of women in labor that day and they were betting a bottle of wine on who would deliver first and her money was on me. I have a feeling she might say that to several women in labor but I decided to believe her and hoped she was right.
Sometimes with induction you’ll have to have a foley balloon inserted and/or oral meds to help your cervix soften and prepare for labor, but fortunately mine was already soft and ready so I was able to skip over this step (one of the reasons I was a good candidate for induction). I also was 2.5 centimeters dilated before entering the hospital which is a good staring spot.
Pitocin was started at 10:15am at a very low dose (I want to say they referred to it as a 2) and then about every 30 minutes the dose was increased, meaning my contractions started super light and then slowly got more intense as the dosage was increased. I started to feel contractions at 11:10am. They were mild to begin with.
Moving Things Along
During this time I was hooked up to a monitor that tracked the fetal heartbeat and my vitals to ensure the baby was tolerating the Pitocin, which he was. The next step was to break my water which would help move things along. My doctor came in to do this at noon. This wasn’t necessarily painful but was uncomfortable. To break the water, the doctor takes what looks like a giant knitting needle and puts it up you and pokes around several times to make enough holes that the water sack fully breaks. Some water leaked out and then later when I stood up it was like a flood all over my feet and the floor. Lovely!
At some point I progressed to around 5 centimeters and the contractions started to get quite painful. I knew I’d get an epidural but wanted to wait until it felt painful enough to justify it (which in hindsight is silly. I did this with Millie too but there is no shame in getting an epidural BEFORE it’s too painful). I asked my doctor what she thought and she reminded me that getting an epidural at any point is not “cheating” and just to go for it. I’ve heard epidurals can slow down labor but since I was on Pitocin this wasn’t really a concern. My doctor advised that the epidural would allow my body to relax and be in a better position, which actually could speed up labor.
For all those reasons I decided at 2:55pm it was time to put in my request. Earlier I was told that once you request an epidural you can expect to wait about 15 minutes for the anesthesiologist to come and then within 20 minutes it’s done. There must have been a line because it actually took the doctor a full hour to come take care of my epidural.
Let me tell you, that hour was incredibly painful. The contractions became very strong and I was miserable. It feels extra miserable when you expect to have relief in a few minutes and the time keeps ticking by. Contractions were coming about every two minutes and I was crying in pain. The contractions were causing me crazy pain in my low back which was giving me flashbacks to pushing Millie out and I was getting nervous we’d have a similar situation to that (which was nearly 3 hours of pushing while in a lot of pain despite an epidural).
At 3:55pm the anesthesiologist came in and by 4:01 pm the epidural was done. Even though it’s a giant needle in your back, it weirdly is not painful. It feels a bit weird but compared with a contraction it’s nothing. Once you get the epidural it takes about 15-20 minutes to work, but each contraction after it’s inserted is milder and milder until you don’t feel them at all. My doctor checked my cervix again after the epidural was in and I made it to 7 centimeters! They assumed I was progressing since my contractions were so painful so I was happy to hear we were getting closer to 10 cm.
At this point I was able to rest. We had some mellow music playing and I could close my eyes for a while. I laid on my side with a peanut-shaped exercise ball between my knees which was recommended to help the baby descend. I was told to let the doctor know when I felt pressure, similar to the feeling of needing to poop.
My epidural felt great and I didn’t feel any intense pressure, but I did feel a little something around 6pm. I let the nurses know and they got my doctor to do another exam and surprisingly I was already at 10 centimeters! My doctor said we would do one practice push to see where the baby was at and then decide if I should rest a bit more or if it was time to actually push the baby out.
Time to Push
If you’ve never pushed before, basically you wait for a contraction to come and then during that contraction you take a big deep breath in, hold your breath and push as hard as you can for 10 seconds. You repeat that 3 times during the contraction. I did one round of these practice pushes and my doctor was like “oh, this baby is READY, I need to get set up” (I think she was surprised it was time!). This was also shocking to me because of my last birth experience, which was super drawn out. I had previously spoken with my doctor about how long I had to push with Millie and at this point she again mentioned this should be pretty quick, not 3 hours.
My doctor and all the nurses got prepped and while they did that I decided we needed more upbeat music to get me energized. I switched from a mellow mix to Beyoncé.
At 6:23pm it was time to push with the next contractions. I pushed through one set of the contractions and the baby was partially out already (MM and I both could touch his head…which was weird). I got ready for another set of pushes and only got through half of the contraction push when my doctor told me to stop. She had the baby’s head and was shimmying his shoulders and said they seemed broad…but thankfully he came out pretty smoothly. She told me “look down!” and there was the baby coming out! At 6:26pm Ezra Ford was born.
I was in disbelief at how quickly it all happened (3 minutes!) and also that it didn’t hurt one bit. I had an epidural but I also had one with Millie and the pushing was so painful. It’s pretty crazy how different an epidural can be and also just in general how different the birth can be, despite being relatively similar situations (Pitocin, epidural, etc.). I was also extremely relived when my doctor told me it was a first degree superficial tear and that my recovery would be way easier than my first (we’d spoken about this in earlier appointments because I was really nervous about the tearing situation).
After the Birth and Heading Home
After Ezra was out I had some bleeding that was above the normal range. The doctors and nurses didn’t seem super concerned about so I keep forgetting this even happened. The doctors measure how much blood you lose after birth and mine was getting into a more serious range (close to 1,000 milliliters when 500 milliliters is the normal amount). Even though a hemorrhage sounds terrifying, no one was acting alarmed or panicked which I think helped keep me calm. I was given a medication which wasn’t doing enough and then was given a shot in my thigh (which thanks to the epidural I didn’t feel). This combination worked. The nurses just made sure I wasn’t dizzy and my blood pressure was OK, which thankfully it was.
Once Ezra was born we had our skin-to-skin time, he got weighed and measured (7 pounds, 14 ounces and 20.5 inches long) and then eventually we were brought up to the recovery room where we’d stay for the next two nights.
Everything went very smoothly from start to finish with our time at the hospital. I loved my doctor and she made the experience low-stress (if you’re in the Rockville/Gaithersburg area and are looking for an OBGYN I’m happy to share her info!). All of the nurses were great as well. I had Millie while we were living in Portland so the experience was very different (mainly I had a midwife I’d never met deliver and I’d say there was a bigger focus on breastfeeding and lactation support there), but overall I had a very positive experience.
We’ve now been home as a family of 4 for a few weeks and Ezra is a great baby! My healing and recovery has been night and day from what it was with baby #1 and I’m going to share more about that in a future post as well.
Thanks for following along in the journey to Ezra Ford!
