Molly's Birth Story

Just as we were starting our official "get ready for baby" phase, our plans went out the window when Nugget decided to make an early appearance. I blame Hurricane Irene and her barometric pressure drop (and the nurses and our doula from PA did too!), general stress levels and a yummy but ill-timed homemade eggplant Parmesan dish for breaking my water sometime Friday (8/26) afternoon. Not the infamous gush, just a trickle. It took me till Saturday morning to call the doctor and tell them I suspected my water broke and they told me to come in to OB triage at the hospital. Once I'd been checked in and checked out, I received the word that "you are not leaving the hospital without your baby." that's on the outside, not the inside.

And so we quickly reviewed our tentative plans for how we wanted the birth to go and tried to make the best of the situation. Unfortunately even though my water broke, my body wasn't quite ready to give up the baby. No active labor, no progressing contractions. Luckily Nugget was happy as a clam according to the monitors and so we waited. And tried everything we could think of to get labor started. But by Sunday late afternoon (yep over 24 hours at the hospital, with an IV in the whole time so I could get intermittent doses of penicillin for GBS), our patience had diminished. The OB and nurses were wonderfully supportive of having us do what we wanted to do and I am so appreciative of that. They even tried a fairly unusual action of trying to break my water for the gush, but that didn't work very well and still didn't bring on serious contractions.

There's a baby in there that has to come out!
I think you can tell by my eyes how I feel about that.

So by about 6 o clock in the evening, at only 4 cm dilated and not at all effaced, we decided it might take a bit of pitocin to get things going, even as I still intended to avoid any pain medication. Given shift changes and everything, it wasn't until 9:15 pm that I got my first bit of pitocin at the lowest level possible. Contractions started but were manageable. And they weren't coming fast enough so after about 45 minutes or so, they upped the dose of pitocin to the 2nd lowest level. Boom! My body reacted and I had the most intense hour of labor. I barely managed to hang on to my sanity and the shred that remained was entirely due to Jason's amazing assistance in keeping me on breathing patterns. The contractions were huge, very close together and ridiculously painful. At 10:53, I was checked (no idea how I managed to let that happen), and I was only at 6 cm, more effaced. By 11, I literally begged the nurse to turn off the pitocin and was shaking uncontrollably (can you say transition?). Against regular protocol, the nurse did turn off the pitocin and I think that action saved my delivery. The contractions remained intense but did spread out some, and I quickly started saying I was feeling the need to push. The doc came back in, checked me around 11:15 and sure enough I was ready to go. (yes I transitioned from 6 cm to 10 cm in 20 minutes or so! ouch!) I pushed thru about four contractions and at 11:33 pm, Molly Rebecca DeRousie made her entrance into the world! (no immediate pictures of the birth, we were all a little busy.)

Given that she was 4 weeks early, my water had been broken for a while and there was meconium in the water, she was immediately whisked to a corner of the room by the pediatric team and thoroughly checked out. After getting wiped down, they brought her back to me and I got to snuggle her.

so many hands for one little baby!

a happy, relieved Mommy and little Molly get acquainted

We even tried nursing and she latched on well. But then she started sounding a little funny and the nurse thought she was having a little trouble breathing, as late preterm babies often do, and so she was taken away for more evaluation and to get the usual bath, foot-printing and the like. She was perfectly fine and I used her time away to begin recovery from the delivery. I even got a nap in. When she came back a couple hours later, we reconnected just fine.

such tiny feet you have!

the one time I don't have a big baby, the diapers are huge! But you can tell she's mine cuz she's all pink!

More pictures from our hospital stay to follow...