Mama Rylee Ve’e shares the emergency C-section birth story of her daughter on the Honest Birth birth story series! Rylee went into labor the day before her due date with a plan to have an unmedicated birth. After not progressing, she had an epidural, was induced, and ended up with an emergency C-section.
Hey mamas! Welcome to the thirty-first 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 my sister‘s sister-in-law, Rylee! Rylee and her husband Aaron live in Utah and have a two-year-old daughter named Malia. Rylee and Aaron met in Texas while serving missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Rylee enjoys being a stay-at-home mom, but has recently gone back to work as a massage therapist at a physical therapy office. Rylee also sells Polynesian ribbon leis! She and her husband love all things food, sports, family, and friends!
Ready to read her daughter’s story? Let’s do it!
The Birth Story of Malia Ve’e
I was due with my first baby on August 13th, 2017. On August 12th at around 11:30pm I started feeling really nauseated. I was uncomfortable and had serious lower back aches! I hopped in the tub to see if they would go away. They didn’t. I didn’t want to be one of those new moms who went into the hospital and demanded to the nurses that I was having a baby when I was just being a baby. So I called the hospital to talk to one of the nurses. I explained my symptoms and she said it sounded like labor and I should come in just to be safe. When I got to the hospital I was dilated to a 4.5! They admitted me and I got comfortable!
I had planned that my birth would be unmedicated, natural, and all that good stuff. My nurses were on board with that plan and helped me stay on track. One thing a certain nurse kept saying was “We just want a happy, healthy, mom and baby.” And while I agreed, I really wanted my birth to go my way. But I kept smiling and nodding as to agree with her.
My body was dilating SUPER slow, and not effacing. I tried walking around the hospital, bouncing on the peanut ball, and pacing my hospital room while being checked for progress every hour. Finally at 6:00am on August 13th (baby’s due date) the nurse checked me, I was at a 6 finally and she said “Baby is head down, with a head full of hair!” she then told me that she would have the doctor come in and break my water and we could get things going.
Long story short, the on-call doctor didn’t come until 11:30 am. By that time my baby had decided to flip around and was now breech. I had 2 options–get a C-section and have the baby right now, or get an epidural and the doctor would try to flip her around. Well I was not about to give up that easy and just go for a C-section, so I got the epidural. They did tell me that they would need to give me a higher dose just in case they weren’t successful and I needed to be taken to do an emergency C-section. The doctor was successful in flipping her back so she was head down again. While he was flipping her around I started throwing up because I couldn’t handle all of that pressure on my stomach! After she was head down again the doctor broke my water and I got started on pitocin and I was finally back on track!
Well I labored ALL day. I was dilated to a 7, then an 8, and I was getting so excited! Contractions were getting intense and I had already had the epidural, so I decided to get another one to help cope with the pain. I plateaued at an 8. No progress for 2 hours. Doctor said it was because baby was not descending into the birth canal because her head was positioned in an odd way, and her hand was right by her head.. So they gave me an hour and checked again. Then another hour and checked again. One nurse came in around 10:00 pm and said “With every contraction you’re having we are losing the baby’s heartbeat for about 10 seconds.” I asked if that was dangerous and what needed to be done. The nurse hooked up one of those heart monitors and attached it onto the baby’s head so they could have a continuous heart beat. We were back on track again.
Finally it was 11:45pm. The doctor came in to check and when there was no progress he said “laboring this long with no progress is just causing distress to the baby and to your body.” He then suggested a C-section. I cried!! He said I could keep trying, or I could go back for a C-section. I wanted to have a “happy, healthy mom and baby” like the nurse said, so I decided I was going for a C-section. My husband and I were both prepped for the OR. We prayed, and cried together because this was not our plan. I was sad and I felt like my body had failed me. I laid sobbing on the OR table thinking about what a failure I was when all of a sudden at 12:18am on August 14th I heard that sweet baby girl cry for the first time!! The tears then changed from sadness to overwhelming joy!! I couldn’t believe I had a baby!! She was here and we were both healthy.
She weighed 7 lbs 11oz, and was 19.5 inches long with a head full of hair. She was perfect!
This was not the way I wanted to have a baby. I felt so many emotions in those 26 hours of labor, it was hard and long… BUT I wouldn’t have changed a thing. I was not a failure because I had to get an epidural, or because I had a C-section. My body is amazing! I was able to create a baby, and although I needed help with the delivery, I STILL HAD A FREAKING BABY! How amazing are our bodies!?
{Note: Rylee also wanted to include this as part of her story} When we found out we were pregnant with Malia we had only been married for 3 weeks. It was not our timing at all. To me it was WAY too fast and I was sad that I didn’t get that special 1-on-1 time with my husband as newlyweds. Basically our whole marriage has always included a baby. Well fast forward to January 2018 when Malia was almost 6 months old and we started trying for our second one. We both wanted to have our kids close in age, but we were still in the “trying phase”. It has been a year and a half of trying with no positive results. I recently went to go see a fertility doctor and got on some medication but so far no luck for us. It is amazing to be on both sides of the spectrum; first with Malia coming way too soon and very unplanned, and now where we have been struggling and praying and wanting for so long. It just goes to show the timing is not our own. They come when they come and that’s okay. We just need to keep living our lives and not obsess over how perfect we want our family whether that’s how close our kids are, what gender they are, etc. I truly have so much respect for those mamas that struggle with infertility.
Wasn’t that beautiful? Sometimes babies don’t come the way we expect, but they are still such amazing blessings! And Rylee is absolutely right that the most important thing is a happy, healthy mama and baby! Thanks so much to Rylee for sharing her story on the Honest Birth series! Make sure you follow her on Instagram here! And check back next month for another Honest Birth post!
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