Mama Casey Anderson of Collectively Casey shares the hospital birth story of her second daughter on the Honest Birth birth story series! Casey was induced at 39 weeks and after getting an epidural (that didn’t have time to kick in), her daughter was born vaginally!
Hey mamas! Welcome to the fifth post in my Honest Birth series! I’m excited to share another real mama’s birth story, because I think it’s so important to share our childbirth experiences with each other. My goal with this series is to provide a place for women to share their birth stories without holding anything back, as well as compile stories for pregnant mamas to read in preparation for their own childbirth experiences. Every mama is different and every birth is different, and I believe that when we share our stories we help each other.
Today I am featuring Casey Anderson and the birth story of her second daughter. Casey and I have been Instagram friends for a long time, and she is seriously amazing! She and her husband live in San Antonio with their two daughters, Reagan and Elliott. I wish we had actually met in person while we were living in San Antonio, but unfortunately we didn’t (boooo!). Casey has a blog called Collectively Casey, and she also posts regularly on her Instagram account. Casey told me that she has been a long-time fan of my blog, which seriously made my day, and I’m super excited to get to feature her today!
Are you ready to read all about Elliott’s birth? Here we go!
The Birth Story of Elliott Kimber Anderson
My daughter was about 11-months-old when I started getting the desire to get pregnant again. As she was getting older and more independent, she was requiring more out of me as a playmate and I wanted her to have a sibling close in age to grow up with. After about three months of actively trying, I finally got that positive pregnancy test on the Monday before Thanksgiving. I was so excited for the following summer, and thrilled that my kids would be almost exactly two years apart.
My first pregnancy was a breeze, so I was expecting this one to be the easy too but it was completely different. I had horrible morning sickness starting from week six and had to have my parents fly in from out of state to help me. There was one miscarriage scare, a false positive Downs Syndrome test, a positive gestational diabetes test, lots of unexplained allergic reactions, and I was WAY bigger than in my first pregnancy. By month nine I was SO ready to get this baby out and not be pregnant anymore!
At my 36 week ultrasound, baby girl was measuring in the 95th% for height, weight, and shoulder width so my doctor brought up induction. In the state of Texas, you can induce at 39 weeks for non-medical reasons, so I eagerly scheduled an induction for the morning of my 39th week.
The last few weeks before my induction date, I tried everything to get labor going. I used essential oils, walked hills, did squats, made labor cookies, had lots of sex, bounced on a birthing ball, etc. I had my membranes stripped twice and had really strong Braxton Hicks contractions and some bloody show after, but nothing regular. I knew I was in labor with my first baby when I woke up to my water breaking in the middle of the night, so I was nervous that I wouldn’t know if I was in labor this time unless my water broke. Despite trying everything in the books, the day of my induction came and I knew that was going to be when we had our baby.
We got to the hospital on July 25 at 5:00am. After filling out some paperwork and paying an astronomical pre-admittance fee I was wheeled up to a labor room, drawn for bloodwork, and hooked up to Pitocin. I told my nurse that I wanted an epidural STAT, and did not want to endure the notoriously painful Pitocin contractions. She told me that I would likely be on Pitocin for a while so they wouldn’t give me an epidural until things got going.
Side note: I had been monitoring my platelet count (the cells in your blood that help you clot) for a few weeks because I knew my levels dropped towards the end of my first pregnancy. If your platelet count gets too low (generally below 100) then some anesthesiologists won’t give you an epidural. At my 38 week appointment they were at 107, the day before I was induced they were at 92, and in the hospital that morning they were at 94. Luckily, the anesthesiologist that was working felt confident that my count was stable enough to handle the anesthesia, so I was informed I would be able to receive an epidural when the time came.
I was checked when we got settled in the room at 6:00am and I was 4.5 cm dilated, my cervix was posterior, and they could feel baby’s head. I started feeling contractions at about 6:30am, but they were more like period cramps and less like the contractions I remember feeling during my first labor. I experienced these mild contractions for about 2 hours, but I was able to mostly ignore them and kept talking to my husband and our birth photographer who was in the room with us.
At 8:15am my doctor came in to check on me and I was still 4cm dilated. I was disappointed when I heard that, because I’d been having contractions for two hours and I thought I would be more dilated by that point. She reassured me that while I hadn’t dilated more, my cervix had moved into an anterior position and I was fully effaced. We decided to break my water to speed things up. I don’t remember feeling anything other than a huge gush of liquid that I was almost positive was urine (it wasn’t) and a ton of pressure released. After my water broke my nurse only changed the bed pad once, so as amniotic fluid kept coming out I felt like I kept peeing myself and just sitting in it. Not super glamorous!
At 8:30am, the anesthesiologist came in to talk to me about an epidural. My contractions definitely intensified after my water broke, and I was still managing the pain well but knew things were going to get worse pretty fast. To get through each contraction, I squeezed my husband’s hand and asked everyone to stop talking until each one passed. These contractions felt like super tight and super concentrated period cramps. They weren’t necessarily painful, but they were definitely intense. The anesthesiologist left to get everything she needed to give me the epidural, and I kept managing the contractions. It felt like they were coming pretty quickly, my guess is they were every 2-3 minutes apart.
At 9:00am, the anesthesiologist and her assistant came back into the room to give me the epidural. They only allow one person in the room during this procedure, so my birth photographer left and my husband stayed. They made him go sit in the far corner on a chair so he wouldn’t pass out, but it was comforting knowing he was in the room. I sat up in the bed, scooted back so I was at the edge of the bed with my legs spread out in front of me. The anesthesiology assistant stood in front of me and had me bear hug him to get into the right position. I was having strong contractions during the procedure, so the assistant told me to grab onto his scrub top to keep from moving out of position. He was a pretty big guy, so doing that actually helped me get through the contractions despite being bent over and unable to move. It didn’t hurt to get the epidural inserted, the doctor gives you a local anesthetic first which can feel like a little pinch but I was so focused on contractions that I didn’t even feel that.
By the time the epidural was placed and flowing, it was 9:30am. I was checked again and at 7cm! I felt proud of myself for getting that far on my own, and while the epidural took the edge off of the pain I could still feel every contraction. My nurse told me the epidural was making it’s way through my body and that it could be a few minutes before taking it’s full effect. She put a peanut ball between my legs to help labor continue progressing, sometimes getting an epidural stalls labor and we didn’t want that to happen!
Fifteen minutes later, at 9:45am I called my nurse back into the room. I was panicking because I could still feel my contractions and I had this huge urge to push. My nurse told me that she would check me if I wanted, but that I likely hadn’t progressed much in the last 15 minutes. I had another contraction as we were talking and I told her I could literally feel the baby coming. The nurse lifted up my blanket, took one look and said “okay we are having a baby!” She paged my OB and started prepping the room for delivery.
Things were pretty hectic since no one thought I would be delivering for another several hours, and I was freaking out about still being able to feel everything. I was terrified at the prospect of giving birth without the full effect of an epidural. The anesthesiologist came back in and tried administering more epidural, but said the first one hadn’t had time to run it’s course so I was on my own.
My doctor rushed into the room while putting on her gown and mask, sat down, and gave me the best pep talk. She asked what I was feeling, what I was scared of, calmly told me that I could do this, and coached me on how to push with the contractions. I gave three, ten second long pushes with my next contraction and it felt so good to push. Baby was coming fast so my doctor asked me to slow down so I wouldn’t tear. It’s a very odd feeling trying to slow down pushing, it’s like every muscle in your body is trying to get the baby out and attempting to fight that is really difficult. Also the ring of fire is exactly what it sounds like and you just want to get that over with ASAP!
I rested for 10 seconds, gave another push and baby girl was out! Elliott Kimber was born at 10:07am weighing 7 lbs 15 oz and 20.5 inches long. She was healthy and crying so they laid her directly on my chest for skin to skin bonding. We waited until the cord stopped pulsing before my husband cut it, and we had an hour of alone time to be together as a family before the nurses took her to be weighed and bathed. During that hour we were able to try breastfeeding, and she latched on immediately which was amazing.
Big sister Reagan came by to meet Elliott later that day and that moment is one I will treasure forever. She couldn’t stop smiling, and was so excited about the new baby. I was surprised how good I felt just a couple hours later, I was up walking and using the bathroom on my own which was much different from my first recovery.
If I could go back and do it over, the only thing I might have changed was waiting to be induced. I was so miserable and so ready to meet this baby that I lost sight of the excitement of not knowing when I’d go into labor. I’m not saying I didn’t love this birth experience, I just think I might wait longer before inducing the next time around.
If I could give a new mama who was about to have a baby any advice, it would be to prepare for more than just your ideal birth. If you want an epidural, read up on pain management techniques just in case you can’t get one. If you want a natural labor, look up epidural and c-section procedures in case you end up going that route. Be as over prepared as possible so when a curve ball is thrown you already know how to handle it!
No matter how our babies come into this world, it is a a wonderful and spiritual experience that leaves you with such a high and such overwhelming feelings of love and joy. Our bodies are absolutely amazing, and it’s incredible to test them and push them to the limit to bring a little life into this world.
{Photos by Honest Abel Photography}
Thanks so much to Casey for sharing her story on the Honest Birth series! I had several similar things happen with my kids’ births, so it was really fun for me to read all about Elliott’s birth! Make sure you check out her blog and her Instagram account and let her know you loved reading her story, and don’t forget to check back again next month because I’ll have two more Honest Birth posts going up!
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