Chase's Birth Story

Thanksgiving day, 2014

My due date was December 2, 2014. On November 24 at 38 weeks, we had our weekly appointment with my doctor. She checked me and I was dilated to a 2 and approximately 60% effaced. This week I was feeling very crampy, up multiple times at night, not sleeping very well. I lost my mucus plug and had very consistent, regular and strong Braxton-Hicks contractions. I kept questioning if they were real contractions- Ha! (Little did I know then what a real contraction felt like ☺)I felt all week as if I was in pre-labor. The doctor said you were very low, head down, and I just kept feeling like you could come any time! Well, Thanksgiving came and went (All the Nielsen’s were bummed because they wanted to meet you on Thanksgiving while they were here visiting!). We did black Friday shopping and I even had to sit down at one point because I was so uncomfortable and tired. This continued on daily while I kept walking (1.5 miles a day), doing you tube pregnancy dance videos at 3 AM, and following all of the old wives tales in order to induce labor! On December 2 (Your due date!) I went to my doctor’s appointment. At this point I was dilated to a 3, 90% effaced, baby very low, head down! I hadn’t felt you move much that day so the doctor hooked me up to the monitors and you were doing just fine. She did an ultrasound and estimated you to do be approximately 6 lbs 12 oz. She had always said throughout my pregnancy that I was measuring small (Always measuring a few weeks behind) and even though I had gained 22 lbs she said she would be shocked if you were born to be more then 7 lbs. I was feeling rather discouraged this day because you weren’t here yet! We scheduled an induction date for Monday December 8 at 8 PM. I was so nervous about having to be induced; I really wanted everything to come naturally. But, I had a strong feeling that you would come on your own and I was right!

Your room is ready!

40 Weeks and 3 Days Pegnant (December 5, 2014)

 On Friday December 5 I woke up after another sleepless pregnancy night, and decided I was going to get up and clean the house and go for a walk. Your room was ready but I cleaned, put away some more of your clothes, triple checked the hospital bag, and then went to Kimball Park and walked 3 miles around 3 PM. I got in my car after the walk and was exhausted! My body just felt completely drained. Truthfully, you felt like you were just going to fall right out of me- Ha ha. But that wasn’t happening. Tanner got home from work around 6 PM and since it was Friday night we were going to go out to dinner (Which I would never turn down!) but when he asked I was just completely exhausted and didn’t feel like going. I said I just want to lie on the couch. We ended up eating dinner at home and I said let’s go for another walk, despite how yucky feeling and tired I was. We walked another 1.5 miles together down the street and by the end I really didn’t think I could walk anymore- it was definitely a waddle. At 8:30 we decided to go to cold stone to get some ice cream. As we were getting out of the car at cold stone I experienced my first contraction. I was holding on to the door and I said to Tanner “Whoa, that felt really weird, I think I just had a contraction!” I immediately pulled out my phone and logged my first contraction onto my “contraction app”- Ha. I decided I could still go in and get ice cream (Of course!) so we went in to cold stone and while ordering, I had another contraction. I could tell it was about a minute long. I was holding on to the ice cream case, but these were pretty mild contractions, just uncomfortable. It just felt like what I had heard many women describe- a rather intense cramp down my stomach and back. Tanner was getting pretty excited at this point as I told him I was having contractions. Him and I enjoyed doing 6 weeks of birth classes and felt we would be pretty prepared for when labor started. We got in the car and drove around and the contractions continued about every 5 minutes apart. We went over a few bumps in the road and that intensified the contractions, which was weird. We got home and called the hospital just to see what to do. The nurse stated to wait to come in until the contractions were 3 minutes apart. I decided to take a bath since that seemed like it would feel good, which it did! I was timing the contractions and they started slowing down, coming about every 6 minutes apart. But I could tell they were getting a little more intense. I got out of the bath and told Tanner I wanted to go for a walk around the neighborhood- at this point it was about 11:30 PM. We got up and started walking outside- this is when the contractions started to intensify. Someone had once told me you will know it’s a contraction when you can’t walk, talk or breathe. As we were walking, I would have to completely stop, kneel over, couldn’t talk and really had to focus on breathing. We continued to time them and they were 5 minutes apart. I felt like I wanted to go to the hospital, but didn’t want to be “that lady” as the nurse had told me to wait until they were every 3 minutes. We walked around for about 20 minutes and then decided to try and get some sleep since we had a feeling it would be a long day the next day. Ha. Chase had other plans ☺ As soon as we laid down in bed, I had another contraction and I said to Tanner we need to go to the hospital because these aren’t slowing down or getting any milder. We grabbed all of our bags and got in the car.

This felt pretty surreal- heading to the hospital to have our baby. We had been waiting and dreaming of this moment for 40 weeks! We had even done a practice route drive to the hospital the week prior- Tanner really was so excited and so prepared and so helpful. We got to the hospital, which was only about 5 minutes away and checked in. I was hanging over the check in desk and the nurse simply said “Contraction?” and I said YES and she buzzed us to go right upstairs to labor and delivery. We got checked into our room and I changed into the gown. This was all happening around 1 AM. Contractions seemed to be coming every 4 minutes at this point. The nurse hooked me up to the monitors and everything was looking great. The doctor finally came in to check me about 3 AM. I was dilated to a 4 so she said, “It looks like you are definitely staying and having this baby!” I will never forget Tanner and I looking at each other in shock.

(Don't I look lovely? Hooked up and ready to go!)

This was the real deal! I had gone back and forth throughout my pregnancy about how I wanted my labor to go as far as pain medication. I’m a realist and knew that despite whatever plan I had, things could pretty much go any which way. I also knew, as much as I wanted to try and have a natural delivery, if I was absolutely dying I would go for the epidural. (Little did I know I would get to experience the best of both worlds ☺) After she checked me, the doctor asked me what I wanted to do for pain. The contractions were pretty steady and strong at this point, but I was doing ok, so I said I would just have an IV of fentanyl that she offered to “take the edge off”. I got up and went to the bathroom and told Tanner I wanted to walk around for a bit before the fentanyl. As soon as I got up, the contractions really intensified. I quickly realized I wasn’t going to be able to walk and the contractions were much more manageable lying down or sitting up. The nurse came in to administer the fentanyl at about 4 AM. This was a really interesting drug. About 10 minutes after she started the IV, I felt like I was floating a bit. I could still feel the contractions though- it just took the edge off a bit, like the doctor had said. I told Tanner during this time that I wanted to name our baby fetinol. This just shows I was a bit delirious. (Mind you its 4 AM and I hadn’t slept at all or gotten much consistent sleep in over a week) They were able to do 2 doses of fetinol and once that wore off I was starting to get pretty uncomfortable but it was bearable. Meanwhile, there was no bed for Tanner so he had a pillow and a chair and he was dozing in and out. We just kind of laid there for a while and I dealt with the contractions and he held my hand and was awesome. He also was on phone duty, giving family updates of the labor. The doctor came in and checked me again around 6:45 and said I was at a 5! I was happy that things were progressing- that the contractions weren’t just for nothing, ha ha. At 7 AM, the nurse shift changed and we met our new nurse named Alana. I loved this nurse instantly! She was feeling my stomach and felt that Chase was all bundled up on the right hand side of my stomach. She said “Let’s move you to your left side” just to get him to move. I rolled over on to my left side and I don’t know what exactly happened but this roll over started everything. The contractions really started to intensify. I then felt and HEARD a pop and gush and my water had broken. This was a really crazy feeling! The nurse wasn’t in the room so I asked Tanner to go and let the nurse know my water had broken. As soon as my water broke, the contractions started coming on REALLY strong. This is when things started to get real. I was kneeled over on the side of the bed with my legs in the air screaming. Tanner came back in the room and I was in the middle of a contraction and the only way I can describe it is I felt like all of my insides were coming out. (Disgusting but when the nurse came back in the room, it was true, the bed was literally covered in blood & water). This went on for about half an hour and I hate to be dramatic but I kept screaming, “I think I’m dying, Lord help me” and other bizarre things during the contractions. Mind you I was on no pain medication so I was feeling every bit of this. Tanner was in the hallway crying (He is a sensitive guy!) because he had never seen me in this state or in this much pain. I was “that lady” in the hospital that I thought only existed in movies- the one screaming so loud that the entire floor could here. So THIS is what childbirth feels like naturally- Ha. Not good. The breaks in between the contractions were only about a minute long but were heavenly in between the contractions. I would take deep breaths. I yelled to the nurse, I know you just checked me, but please check me again, I think I need to push; I think the baby is coming. I had just been checked at 6:45 and I was at a 5. It was now almost 8 AM. She went and looked down between my legs and yelled, “WE NEED A DOCTOR, SHE IS CROWNING”. You can only imagine my face at this time. I KNEW that things must have progressed really fast during the past hour because I had never felt pain like that before. Tanner ran in to the hallway looking for a doctor. This whole moment in time felt like pure chaos. I was still having the most intense contractions and thought the baby was going to fly out of me at any moment, Tanner was running the halls yelling for a doctor, but my nurse Alana got me through those contractions. She was in my face, holding both my hands, telling me to breathe and saying “You got this mama, 10 more seconds, almost there, etc.” She was ready to deliver that baby right then and there. I guess the doctor didn’t come fast enough because she then checked me herself. She said I wasn’t crowning (It was just blood) but I was at a 9. I went from a 5 to a 9 in an hour, the whole transitional stage of labor. This actually comforted me because I knew in that moment that I wasn’t dying- that I was just dilating incredibly fast and that is why the contractions were so strong and intense. I didn’t think I could ever feel pain like this. I said to her- PLEASE- I REALLY REALLY WANT an epidural now!!! She said honey you are almost there, you are at a 9, and you can have this baby within half an hour. I absolutely begged her for the epidural (In between contractions- ha!) Needless to say, within 10 minutes the anesthesiologist was there and administered the epidural while I was lying sideways. While pregnant I was always nervous for the epidural part- but, this was a piece of cake. Didn’t hurt at all and I just couldn’t wait to feel some relief. (I later learned this was the only anesthesiologist in the hospital who knew how to administer an epidural while someone was sideways, which was a huge blessing because there is no way I could have sat up at that time and kept still). I’ve also learned that they basically NEVER give epidurals that late in labor but for whatever reason they did! Within minutes I felt my body begin to go numb and I can’t explain the relief that I felt after going through that hour of contractions. I started to fall asleep. The nurse wheeled me over to the delivery room (the laboring room and delivery rooms are separate). Tanner was by my side the entire time and his calm presence was just what I needed. He of course was making jokes and trying to make me laugh, as he always does. This was where my labor became very peaceful. I was completely numb, the delivery room was so quiet, the lights were dim, and it was just Tanner, the nurse and myself. The epidural REALLY slowed things down and I was able to sleep for about an hour. If I hadn’t had the epidural, Chase would have already been born. The nurse then checked me and said I was at a 10 and ready to push- at this point it was about 11 AM. I said to her “No, I’m not ready yet!” Ha! I truly was so exhausted after going through those contractions. I knew I needed a little bit of time to get myself mentally and physically prepared to push. I laid there for about 30 minutes and then told the nurse I was ready to push. She wanted me to do a few practice pushes. I did, and nothing was happening. I couldn’t feel ANYTHING down there so my pushes were not effective. At this point, she said the best thing we could do would be to turn the epidural off so that I could feel what was going on. I said absolutely not- I was scared to death to feel that pain again! She calmly talked to me and said that it would be the best way in order for Chase to get here safely and healthy. Well, I must have trusted this lady because I agreed to turning off the epidural. Luckily, I stayed numb for a bit but could now feel the urge to push. Another thing I had always wondered what this felt like! But, your body definitely tells you it is time to push that baby out. The doctor came in with herself, a resident doctor (I loved our hospital for this reason) and another nurse. It was time to push. I pushed for 45 minutes and those ladies and Tanner were my cheerleaders. They were incredible; they really gave me the strength I needed to get through that pushing despite my exhaustion. They kept telling me they could see his red hair on his head! This amazed me. About 30 minutes through, I had to have an oxygen mask put on. I had to have an episiotomy (another thing I was scared to death for, and I could feel them doing it but the pain was bearable).I was really losing steam, I could feel everything and the pressure and contractions were becoming too much for me to bear without the pain medication. I could tell that something was going on because they were quietly talking to themselves saying to get the other plan ready, etc. My doctor looked at me in the eyes and said “Mama, babies heart rate is dropping. You need to push these next few pushes like you’ve never pushed before.” That gave me the strength I needed-her and the nurses were yelling, “Come on, Mama Bear!” This still makes me laugh out loud- ha. I knew I had to do this for Chase. Within 3 pushes, he was here. The cord was wrapped around his neck 2 times, which explained why his heart rate was dropping. He came out crying quietly. I was sobbing. The doctor held him up and laid him on me. Tanner was crying too. I can’t describe in words what that moment was like- every bit of pain was worth it just seeing him there, crying on my chest.  Tanner cut the umbilical cord and we both stared in amazement at Chase. After 40 weeks and 4 days, he was here on Saturday, December 6, 2014 at 1:05 PM. He had red hair, was so tiny and skinny. His skin was perfect. He was 6 lbs 14 oz and 19 inches long. For the next hour, he laid on my chest and I just breathed him in and stared at him and tried to soak up every bit of him. He was simply the most beautiful baby boy I have ever seen. I stared at Tanner as he held him and felt more love for my husband then I could have ever imagined. We were instantly in love with our Chase.

We enjoyed our time in the hospital. Our nurses were great, we had dear friends and family visit, and it was truly a peaceful and exciting time. We were so happy to have Chase here with us. 

Labor was hard! It was without a doubt the hardest thing I have ever been through. I described it to friends as the following: “I would have rather fallen off a 100 foot story building and broken every bone in my body then experienced that hour of transitional labor” (Can you say drama queen? Whatever, I am owning it!) But I am proud of my labor with Chase because I learned that I can do hard things. When my mom came in the room to meet Chase, the doctor that delivered Chase said to her “Your daughter is a warrior”. I felt so strong and proud in that moment, and I don’t want to ever forget it. As women, we often beat ourselves up or discredit ourselves for our strengths. I don’t want to discredit this experience. Our bodies are amazing. I am so grateful to Heavenly Father for this miracle- having a baby is nothing short of a divine miracle. His spirit was straight from heaven and it was tangible when he was born. I am grateful for strong bodies that can grow and deliver babies. I am so grateful for a beautiful, healthy son and for every inch of his perfect body. What an experience it was to bring him into this world! We love you, sweet Chase!

Our family of 3, taking home our baby boy!