Meeting Our Harbor Amelia

I am finally taking/having the time to sit and write about Harbor's birth story.. this has been on my "to do" list for the past 7 weeks! Gosh I can't believe it's already been 7 weeks since she was born!

One of the last pictures I took of my big ole belly!

November 4th

5:30pm Sean had just left for work and I was having some pretty strong contractions. At this point it was almost hard for me to take contractions seriously, because I had gone through this before...contractions are 3 minutes apart, we would drive to the hospital, nurse would say I am at the beginning of labor, get sent home & told to come back once contractions are closer together, but my contractions would stop! Grr. It started to get so frustrating! So this time I didn't really take them seriously. I eventually found myself just pacing the house and realized they were hurting pretty bad so I called Sean and he came home from work. 

7:30pm We went to the hospital & sure enough the nurse said I was at the beginning of labor, 4cm dilated (I had been 3.5-4cm dilated for the past month) and to keep trying to make my contractions stronger. I found that squatting next to the hospital bed (like tree frog style) and resting my arms & head on the bed would make a REALLY strong contraction come every time. So I was squatting, bouncing on the ball, walking and just trying to make these contractions continue. I was admitted and in our room I continued to bring on the contractions for the next couple of hours, but when the nurse checked me to see how dilated I was I was still at 4cm. I once again just felt like it wasn't happening & I wasn't making any progress! I asked if I could just go home and sleep in my own bed so I was given a sleeping pill (to try and help me sleep through these contractions) and was sent home. One of the nurses told us to go ahead and leave our hospital bags in the room and that we would be back. I remember laughing and saying to Sean "She really thinks we're going to be back having this baby!" but in my mind I thought for sure the contractions were going to end soon. So we left our bags anyways.

November 5th

12:30am Once we got home we went back to bed and I had a hard time being able to fall back asleep. Eventually the sleeping pill must have kicked in and I slept. I woke about and hour & a half later in extreme pain. These contractions were hard to breathe through. I woke Sean up and he ran a bath for me. I tried to relax in the bath for awhile, but it got to the point that I knew I needed to get to the hospital. This was the first time that I felt certain I needed to go to the hospital! I remember also feeling like Sean wasn't moving fast enough! He was, but I was in so much pain I was like "let's GO!"  

3:30am When we arrived back at the hospital the nurses were excited to see us! We got back into our room & honestly this is when things start to get a little blurry for me! The nurse checked me and I was 9.5cm dilated. I dilated quickly since she was sitting so low. I was breathing in the entonox and trying different positions during the contractions.   

8:00am The doctor came in to break my water & I continued with strong contractions, but still had no urge to push. I was still trying a bunch of different positions during the contractions and I remember at one point while I was standing with my arms wrapped around Sean's neck the urge to push kicked in fast!

8:30am Again trying different positions to find what worked best for me while pushing.. laying, standing, sitting on the toilet, kneeling on the bed, squatting.. My nurse was so great. She was exactly the kind of nurse I needed. She was direct and told me what I needed to do. We finally found a position that worked for me which was laying on my back, the nurse held out a towel in front of me and told me to grab onto the towel and pull against her while pushing. Fewf.. man that was tough. Sean was absolutely amazing support! He was patting my head with a cold wash cloth, giving me juice and water and counting to 10 with every contraction while I pushed. He was so encouraging even at my weakest moments. Near the end of 4 hours of pushing I remember saying to Sean, "I feel so weak. I just don't know how much longer I can do this," and he told me how great I was doing and that we would be meeting our baby girl soon. Our nurse later told us how great of a team the two of us were. She said she doesn't get emotional during births very often anymore, but she couldn't help herself during this one. She also told Sean how awesome he was and that he could totally be a male doula! Haha! 

12:00pm The doctor came in to explain that the baby needed assistance at this point in order for her to come out. She was too big and pretty much stuck at this point. He explained he was going to use a vacuum device to help pull baby out while I pushed. (At this point I don't even think I fully listened to what he was saying because all I could think about was to just please get this baby out quickly & safely!) He did explain though that a flexible, rounded cup would be applied to baby's head, the cup was connected to a small handheld pump that creates a vacuum pressure to hold the cup securely to baby's head. The doctor also explained if the cup releases from baby's head it can only be reattached 2 more times and can only be connected to baby's head for a total of 30 minutes. If baby was unable to come out with the vacuum or within 30 minutes we would need to do an emergency c-section. I had to have a catheter to empty my bladder and an episiotomy to make more room for baby. Pushing with everything I had and thinking of being so close to being able to hold her made me get through it. 

12:34pm It came down to the last seconds and the nurse was literally counting down for the doctor, but thankfully our baby girl made her way into the world just in time! The first thing that was said when she came out by our nurse was, "She's NOT small!" haha! They laid her onto my chest and I was just filled with so much emotion and joy. She's here. This is our baby girl. Thank you God. To hear her sweet cry and see her precious face was all worth it. 

Harbor Amelia Murphy

9 pounds 6 ounces

What really amazed me was that just minutes after she came into the world she latched to feed and she knew exactly what to do. In that exact moment I fell in love with breastfeeding and loved that special moment together. I traced my finger along her little ear while she would feed and my heart felt so happy and proud. (I now trace her little ear with my finger every time she feeds and she likes it) 

I did end up with a 3rd degree tear and lots of stitches which was extremely painful. I will be honest, that was one of my biggest fears was to tear, but with such a big baby there really was no way around it! 

It was difficult because I was pretty much on bedrest after labor. I had to lay on my side in bed and turn side to side to feed, but getting out of bed and doing pretty much everything else was painful. I got emotional a few times because I wanted to be able to change her diaper, walk around with her and go comfort her like mom's are suppose to. I just wanted to heal and not be in pain anymore and be able to put all of my focus on Harbor. I had no idea the healing process would take so long. I am now starting to feel fully healed at 7 weeks. I would do it all over again if I had to though! I love my sweet Harbor Amelia so so much and feel so blessed to be her mommy.

xo Ashley