Oliver's Birth Story

 

Gosh, Oliver is almost one month old already and it’s the first moment I’ve had (or I think I will have :P ) to write out his birth story. I love to look back on these type of events and see the details I wrote because things are so vivid at the time but memory fades the small things as time goes on.. or for me anyways. So I hope I remember it as clearly as the day it all happened.

Around 37 weeks my doctor wanted me to come to the hospital where her colleague would be expecting me, to see how things were going. My private doctor wasn’t working that week, otherwise she would have had me visit a time she was working. Anyways, her colleagues were all a bit surprised and shocked and said that well it could literally be any minute now based on my cervical check. They said they would even consider keeping me, if I lived further away, but since we are just a short drive away, it was no problem.  More on that detail to come, later.

So I go home from that appointment and hospital stay (story to come).. thinking ok I’m walking around and literally could go into labor any minute and based on my body conditions it could happen so quickly! I started trying to do some of the things said to kick start labor, like curb walking, the miles circuit, eating dates, etc.   The following week, my private doctor said she would check the schedule at the hospital and if there weren’t too many inductions for the following week ( I would be 39 weeks and 3 days), she would add me to the induction schedule.  Nothing was really happening, I still had no contractions or signs of labor. I just felt the same as I had throughout the end of pregnancy. I felt lots of pressure when I took Mel on a long walk, in the bottom of my pelvis, and my stomach would tighten but I wouldn’t call them contractions.

My doctor got back to me and said that inductions for the following week were full but to still go to hospital that morning to be checked as she would be working there. She didn’t give me a time frame, but I assumed earlier might be better. So I took Mel on a long walk, took a shower and then headed to the hospital. The waiting room was very full, a worker had to ask all the partners to stand in the hallway to make more space for ladies needing chairs. I thought, oh man, this is going to take forever. I arrived to hospital around 945am, and around 1130am I was finally called to be checked. With how busy things were, I had zero expectations of giving birth that day.  First, I had the fetal monitoring where Oliver wasn’t moving so they asked me to try and get him to move around. Then after that my doctor was there ready to see me. She still had a surprised look on her face after my cervical check because I had dilated a little bit more, closer to 6cm and the other conditions of the cervix were all ready for labor, but yet how was it possible I was not in labor already?!  Ohh, another important part of this story is that I tested positive to my body having a bacteria called Group B strep, at week 36 which meant for safety of the baby, it was ideal if I could get two rounds of IV antibiotics given before giving birth with 4 hours between each round of antibiotics.   IF I were not to have the antibiotics there is a risk for sepsis and other diseases that could cause death in the baby.   Ok so given that information, the state of my body and the time needed for antibiotics, my doctor said that if I wanted to, I could be induced and have the baby that day (April 26). While I wasn’t exactly excited about giving birth in Aveiro hospital, at least I knew baby would be safe and be delivered then.    Oh, another thing to help me easily make the decision to induce was that my parents would be leaving for a little trip in Europe on Sunday so it didn’t give much time at all for them to be home to take care of Luke if I went into labor. They changed their entire trip, including international flights, to be here to help us with Luke because doctors predicted the baby would arrive at 37 weeks or even earlier. So them leaving on a short trip on my due date seemed like it would align perfectly, but hey we all know babies and kiddos have minds of their own!

Ok, So based on both of those reasons, I agreed to induce my labor. I was really hoping to let Ollie take his course naturally as there are some risks of unnecessary interventions that come with inductions, but weighing the pros and cons list, I went with it.  I signed the papers to be induced and then a nurse took my blood and set up my IV.   I am a terrible person when it comes to blood draws and already know this about myself, well the nurse needed several tries to get a vein to get the blood tests and I thought I was going to pass out yet was already laying down. I told the nurse I needed sugar water and to help take off any later of clothing that I could. My doctor also happened to come and check on me and fanned me off to help cool me down. Thankfully I survived the worst part of my birth already, haha just joking!

Then I was sent to the pre birth area and was given my first dose of antibiotics. A short time later, I was given lunch and Joel arrived. As I mentioned earlier, I really didn’t think today would be anything special so I told Joel to go to work as usual. :P  A few other ladies paced up and down the hall in misery and they seemed to try and walk through their contractions, and lucky me was just bouncing around on the yoga ball trying to help stimulate my process. A few hours later, I was given the second dose of antibiotics and then I just needed to wait until they had a room available for the labor. In the meantime, Joel ran across the parking lot to McDonalds and brought me back some chicken nuggets as I was sure at that point they wouldn’t allow me to eat.

I think it was around 730pm when I was brought to the labor room. My doctor came in to break my water and start the Pitocin. She had quite a hard time breaking my water, which we assumed was because Oliver’s head was so low, there might not have been enough space to easily break it. It wasn’t like in Luke’s birth where suddenly all the fluid came out, but only as I moved around into different positions that various amounts came out. I started feeling the contractions pretty soon after. I was doing my best to work through them, one by one. I was on the yoga ball, hands and knees, having Joel do hip squeezes, etc.  But all of a sudden, I just felt as there was no way I could survive this and asked for an epidural. It took some time for the anesthesiologist to arrive, but at that point was quite difficult to sit still between contractions.  I managed to do it though. Joel had to wait outside while I had the epidural placed. Before the anesthesiologist had even left, I really had the urge to poop, which in labor and delivery… means it is go time.  As soon as I said the words, all the midwives scrubbed up and were getting all sorts of stuff ready.  I could really feel when I should push with Oliver’s birth. I started pushing on my back and how to push came back to me.   Then I tried laying on my side but the midwives said it wasn’t as effective.   I had the strangest feeling of numbness during contractions and pain.  One area of pain was as though I couldn’t have weight on my butt and was always trying to get my weight off there during a contraction. The numbness started in my right side of the groin and hip, and I can’t describe the pain really well but it just felt like I would lose my leg because this area was so numb. When I told the midwives they just said it’s normal and I had to keep pushing and I was close to meeting Oliver. I had one student midwife who spoke English and the other didn’t seem to speak or wanted me to try and speak Portuguese in the roughest moments of my life? Haha not totally sure, but at that time I felt like I could barely communicate at all. Luckily Joel was my rock and understood whatever I was able to get out to him. I do remember the midwife kept telling me, Nicole, “coco”. Over and over again and it literally drove me insane at the moment. I was obviously trying to do that, so why couldn’t she say something else?!

So after about 30 minutes or so of pushing, Oliver was out at 9:34pm! He weighed 3.55 kg, was 50cm long, and head size 36cm.  He got a 10 on his apgar score right away.   I’m still not quite sure what happened immediately after he was born because his cord was clamped and cut immediately, and he was taken to the nurses station for a minute before being brought back to me. This is not normal for births in Portugal so I’m not sure if the cord was wrapped around his neck or something? I hope I can find out. It is the only moment of the birth that I am a bit sad, didn’t go as planned.   Anyways a moment later, he was brought back after being wipes clean, and laid on my chest. Everything was perfect. He was absolutely adorable and after being delivered back to mommy and getting cozy, he was so peaceful and calm.  Looking back, it seemed like the epidural didn’t have any time to take effect but according to Joel he noticed a difference in my pain in the last few minutes.   I delivered the placenta with a little bit of difficulty and ugh a few more pushes.  I was extremely lucky that I didn’t have much tearing or require stitches. I did have the slightest tear, but the tear would bleed more to stitch than let it heal on it’s own.

We were left in the room alone for another two hours and Oliver was breastfeeding, and then spent some time (after getting dressed for the first time) in Papa’s arms.  Oliver was a natural at breastfeeding and easily latched on. I had only stopped breastfeeding Luke shortly before becoming pregnant, so it hadn’t been very long since I was breastfeeding myself.    After those two hours they came in, somewhat abruptly and told Joel he had to go home, and I would be transferred to the post-partum ward.   They cleaned me up, I put on my pajamas and Joel had to scramble to put away all of our stuff.   They wheeled me into the shared room, where I had the middle bed. They offered me food but I just wanted a little snack. I was obviously exhausted, but the adrenaline rush was still going, and it took me such a long time to fall asleep. Oliver didn’t mind sleeping in the crib that first night. 

Sharing a tiny room with two other people and sharing two bathrooms with what seemed like 15 other new moms was too much.  I was lucky in Luke’s birth to have my own room.  it was shared but there happened to be no one else needing the room at that time. I’m assuming we must be experiencing a bit of post covid baby boom now currently. It was always our plan, if we had a second baby to have them between 3-4 years apart. But I’m sure many people delayed their babies due to covid and with things finally slowing down, I guess the boom is here.   The facilities of Aveiro hospital in the obstetrician area are really poor, even in comparison to Povoa do Varzim, which is another small public hospital where Luke was born. All of the non medical staff seemed to always be doing everything in a rush because every single bed in the ward was full, or at least the night I arrived. There was always noise and it felt impossible to get any sleep because if it wasn’t Oliver waking me up, it was my roommates’ babies waking me up, or roommates making video calls at 12am. Joel was able to visit me from 9am-7pm each day. Thank goodness and I was really relying on catching up on sleep during his visits, but it wasn’t possible. Just like in the night, there was always noise. Medical staff coming in the room, being sent to be checked by the pediatrician, etc. Then in the afternoon, older siblings were allowed to visit.  I found it quite awkward to be breastfeeding in the middle bed, yet my roommate’s 8-year-old son was sitting in the chairs in clear sight of me. I couldn’t even wrap the “privacy” curtains completely around my bed.   I was unable to be released from the hospital after 48 hours which is the standard stay for vaginal delivery but because Oliver was born in the evening, they don’t do the release checks from the Ob and Pediatrician at that time. So I had to stay 3 nights instead of the usual two.   That extra night just felt like torture because I was feeling physically fine and even the second morning the Ob said if it wasn’t for Oliver, I would be released already.

On the third morning, the pediatrician thought Oliver looked a little bit yellow with jaundice. She had some sort of a light testing machine that she put on his skin and those numbers were fine but she was not confident based on looks. So she requested to have them run some blood tests.  Ugh, as we know I am already really bad with blood being drawn on myself, but then to try and see them find a little vein on him was so hard. I couldn’t watch, luckily Joel was there at the time, I sat down away where I couldn’t watch. They pricked his hands a few times but he didn’t cry and was sleeping most of the time thankfully. Anyways the blood results came back fine and we were able to go home around lunch time and surprise Luke after he woke up from his nap.  Though the post partum part of my hospital experience was a bit rough, I cannot complain much because it was completely free. People in the US might melt upon hearing that I didn’t need to pay a dime.

Leaving the hospital was the best feeling, finally breathing fresh air, not being stuck in an oven full of noise and constant movement. When Luke woke up from his nap, I went to pick him up and had a huge shock how “big” he was in comparison to our little Oliver that I had been holding the last three days.   Oliver had a present to give Luke and he loved it. He had a big smile on his face and seemed to be excited to be a big brother.

Unfortunately Oliver didn't get to meet Mel when he first arrived home as Mel was in the hospital again. More on that later, but she was home a few days later and we got to give Mel a lovely welcome home! 

That is the tale of the start of life as a family of 4! What a big adventure the start was but we are so happy everything went well, and everyone is healthy.

Love and Hugs from the 5 of us!