Christina Falkenstein shared the birth story she wrote to her baby: Dear Isley, Hello, sweet boy! Today you are ten days old and just as delicious and snuggly as you could be! As I am writing this you are nursing away like a champ and making my favorite little squeaky, sighing baby noises. I’m completely certain I could just sit around all day staring at you and listening to the sound of you breathing and be perfectly content. You, my scrumptious little Isley Grey, are so very loved. We are so very blessed to have you here in our lives. Your daddy and I wished and hoped for you for quite some time. We were fairly certain that we would need to go through fertility procedures to grow our family after consulting with a specialist. We decided to wait and began saving money to go through the process. Little did we know that our lives were about to change and that fertility specialist would not be needed! In March, I decided to run the Monument Avenue 10K, and during the race I felt awful. A 10K was not a terribly long run for me and I couldn’t figure out why I felt so miserable. I decided the next day to grab a pregnancy test from the dollar store (why waste the money when I knew it would be negative?!). And that is when we got the surprise of our lives- POSITIVE! Of course, me being jaded from previous miscarriages, I assumed that the pregnancy wouldn’t be viable but I began taking progesterone in hopes of helping everything progress. Thankfully my pregnancy with you was mostly smooth, but life had other plans for how you would make your entrance into the world! It all began on Thursday morning. Your sister woke up complaining that her head hurt and that she didn’t want to go to preschool. She seemed ok though, so I took her to school just long enough that I could run to Target and the grocery store. After running errands, I picked her back up from school, and we headed to an appointment with the midwives at MCV to check in on you. On the way there, Scarlett fell asleep in the car, which was unusual for her since it was only 12pm. Upon arriving at MCV, one of the first orders of business was always a blood pressure check. Mine had been a little elevated the previous two weeks but nothing terribly concerning. This time it read 157 over something else equally high. The nurse seemed a bit concerned and tried again after a few minutes, but it remained high. Meghan Batton, one of the CNMs in the group came in, had me lay on my side and tried again but still my blood pressure remained high. She told me that I would need to go to labor and delivery and be monitored because I could potentially have pre-eclampsia. After many phone calls and texts to various people, I finally re parked the car, which was at the time, only in two hour parking, to the parking deck. That in and of itself was enough to make someone’s blood pressure rise! Scarlett was worried and confused, I was crying and your daddy was frantically trying to come and meet us to help get care for Scarlett set up. Eventually I arrived in labor and delivery and got settled in while Daddy drove Scarlett back home. The midwife that was on call that day, Leslie Fehan, met me in my room to explain what may or may not happen. She explained to me what pre-eclampsia was and why it was vital to my health and yours to rule it out. I also learned that it is not very common for a woman to have it with a second pregnancy if she did not have it with her first. This made me feel reassured that I probably did not have it, and that I was probably just stressing for no good reason. However, I was wrong. In walked Leslie with the news, “Sorry Christina, you do have pre-eclampsia.” Womp….womp….womp……. Shortly after receiving that news, I got a call from your dad informing me that Scarlett had a fever of 102! I felt terrible- my first night away from her and she was sick! That news began an entire train of talks with Leslie about induction and what that meant, the various methods and routes we could take to get things moving, why all of this was important and so on. Though of course I was sad that I would need to be induced, I also felt confident that I would not be told it was necessary if it wasn’t. I was a part of the discussion and was asked what methods I did and didn’t feel comfortable with, which made me feel empowered to still have some type of control over what would happen. I never felt as though someone was telling me, “you have to or else…” The original plan was to take prostaglandins but after seeing that I was having small contractions on my own (around 3 every 10 minutes) Leslie no longer felt comfortable giving me prostaglandins and we decided to use a foley bulb to help dilate my cervix. This would hopefully encourage my body to continue dilating on it’s own and in theory labor would progress without further interventions. At first, it seemed like the foley bulb was a gift from the laboring gods. It was put in place, I hung out, and eventually I dilated to 4cm, out came the foley bulb and contractions continued, but soon enough faded away. Leslie came to discuss other options for continuing the induction and after much consideration and thought, we decided to use a combination of Pitocin and breaking my water. Yikes! I could not believe that somehow I went from dreaming of the same completely medication/ intervention free birth that I had with Scarlett to accepting Pitocin and having my water broken! I was informed that I wouldn’t be stuck to sitting on the bed during labor just because of this. The hospital had wireless monitors that would allow me to get up and walk and labor how I wanted, including in the birthing tub. Though this is not what I had planned for this birth, I felt confident that it was what needed to happen. Leslie and I talked and agreed it was important to have me get some rest that evening before we began Pitocin, as I would need the energy in the morning. I tried and tried to fall asleep but I just couldn’t seem to get settled knowing what was about to happen, while also thinking about Scarlett and wondering how she was doing. The next morning, December 12, at 6am, we began a small drip of Pitocin to start labor. After an hour or so, Leslie broke my water to encourage things along. Contractions were starting but only coming every few minutes and were short and I was able to talk through them. I had some breakfast and also had Nanny & Paw Paw stop by with Scarlett since she seemed to be feeling better in the morning. It was good for my mental state to see her and know she was feeling ok. We had some snuggles and she went back home. Things began to pick up in intensity around 11am. Contractions began coming closer together and were intense enough that I had trouble talking through them. At this point, we contacted our birth photographer, Nikki Sawulski from Sweet July, and she made her way over to the hospital. Around 1pm, Leslie decided to check and see how many centimeters dilated I was and said that I was around 6cm. I was stoked! I had heard that Leslie was off of her shift at 5pm and that another midwife would take over. I didn’t really want to have my care change to someone else and felt certain that I would deliver before that point. As contractions continued to grow stronger and closer together, I tried laboring in just about every way possible. We walked the halls, I labored while sitting on the ball leaning over the bed, leaning over your dad, with the ball on the bed, swaying back and forth while holding onto your dad and I also labored in a beautiful birthing tub that was in my room. It was awesome- bubbly water, and mood lighting that changed various colors. Sometime around 3pm, I recall the nurse coming in and ½ joking that the other nurses were taking bets on how far along I was because my contractions were coming so quickly. She said “we all are guessing you are somewhere around 8cm now just based on what we see!” Nikki, our photographer, replied, “if she’s 8cm already she’s super woman and making this look so easy,” or something to that effect. At that point I DID feel like super woman! I mentally decided I was 8cm and only have 2cm left to go! My labor was hard, but mentally knowing I was SO CLOSE made it a bit easier to work through. My contractions were now getting to the point that I was having a VERY hard time- mentally and physically. I was exhausted from not sleeping, and I was hungry from not snacking enough. I also began to feel the need to bear down with each contraction, which encouraged Leslie to check me again. I was certain I was close to pushing. I had to be! The pain was VERY intense and I just knew I was in transition. Six centimeters. That was it- the exact same spot I was nearly 3 hours prior. This was quite difficult news for me to hear. HOW could I be feeling SO much more pain but not progressing at all?! Then I remembered, Pitocin. I kept moaning and complaining that I was just exhausted and hungry and how I was so upset that all of the pain felt like it was just for nothing! In my head I was actually hoping that SOMEONE, ANYONE would say, “why don’t you just get an epidural so you can rest and relax, and maybe it will help this baby to descend?” But not one person did, and I refused to be the one to cave despite everything inside of me wanting to. I also had a mental discussion with my future self, “DO NOT GET PREGNANT AGAIN! This is so painful and you do not want to ever do this again, so just be happy and content with the two children you have!!!!” Leslie asked what position I thought would help, and I said “nothing helps and I’ve already done everything that I can think of!” I felt like I had been inside of those four walls for far longer than I had ever hoped to be and was feeling so done. She suggested sitting on the ball in the shower while tony ran the hot water over my back and I leaned forward against a railing. All things considered it felt good sitting in a dark shower with no lights while the hot water massaged my back. Suddenly I heard a soft voice telling me that they were leaving, since it was 5 and that another midwife, Kathryn Beaton was on. Mentally I was now REALLY done. I was in seriously intense pain with contractions that seemed to be completely useless and the midwife who I just knew would deliver you was now leaving. I wanted to give up and say “never mind, I’m done, I can’t do this, cut him out of me or whatever you have to do, but I’m done!” OF COURSE I didn’t actually say that, but oh how I thought about it! After trying various other birthing positions, including laying on my side with pillows precariously tucked around my body and my leg propped on a bean shaped ball (you apparently needed to be encouraged to turn), Kathryn checked me again and said I was a “loose 7” but could easily be stretched to an 8. While this was encouraging that SOMETHING had finally changed, it didn’t seem like enough to mentally keep me in the game. My memory at this point gets even more fuzzy about what happened and when. (Hello, transition, nice that you finally have made your appearance. I love you and I hate you!) I got in the birthing tub one last time. I thought I would love it and that it would help me gracefully work through the end of my labor. I was humbly reminded that there is absolutely nothing graceful about transition. After making my way out, after my brief stint in the tub, I slowly walked back towards the bed. My energy was so depleted and trying to stand, walk, sway or hold my body up in any position sounded impossible. So there I laid on the bed when suddenly things changed. I saw the nurses tidying up and warming up the bassinet off in the distance. I saw them unwrapping a blue package that contained every sort of birthing tool one might potentially need. The overhead lights got brighter. Contractions were overwhelming but I mentally switched gears. All of the signs around me screamed “you are SO close, your baby is almost here!” and I suddenly felt like, “Oh hell yes, I can do this, lets go!” After checking again, I learned that I was a 9/10 and just had a small lip of my cervix in the way. I needed to push, and was told to push whenever I had a contraction, but to stop when the contraction stopped. Daddy held my left leg up and one of the kindest nurses held my right. Pushing wasn’t a relief physically, but mentally it felt SO good. Every time I would feel a contraction start, Kathryn, Daddy and our kind nurse (whom I cannot remember her name!) came running over to assist. As soon as the contraction stopped, they would go off continuing to prepare other things for your arrival. Suddenly the pain increased to a level that I cannot even put into words. However, your dad looked me in the eyes and said, “BABE, I can see him, I see his hair, you are doing awesome, he’s right here!!!!!” And that was all I needed to hear to be able to push past the pain. You began to crown and suddenly the contraction stopped mid crowning. Kathryn said very adamantly, “Do not push! This is helping to stretch you, wait until your next contraction”. Well, just laying back waiting for a contraction while your baby is beginning to crown is nearly impossible. Nearly, but not totally, and I did it! I waited and as soon as that next contraction came, I pushed with every ounce of energy that I could muster up inside of my body. I felt your head coming out and Kathryn said, “You can reach down and help guide your baby out!” I said, “NO! You just get him out!” (I told you nothing was graceful about this point in birth!) After your head was out, I continued pushing and felt your body slip out, and heard Kathryn say, “reach down and take your baby!” And that was that! I climbed Mt. Everest and I made it to the top! And in a moment so grand as this, one would think that the words that would escape my lips would be something very profound. But I think all I could muster up was, “Oh my gosh, I did it! You’re here! Hi sweet boy, you’re so wiggly and slippery!” I held you immediately and you lay on my chest squirming and crying and then began nursing quite quickly! I lay there holding your tiny, perfect little body while you contently nursed away, gazing up at me with your large, dark grey eyes. I felt a love and pride well up inside that overwhelmed me to the point that I could hardly breathe. You, my sweet boy finally made your entrance into the world. You, the little boy that for so long was only a dream, entered our lives. Welcome earth side my little love, we are so very happy that you are here. I love you, my sweet Isley Grey and always will! Love, Mommy Photo credit Nikki Sawulski.
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 01:51:22 +0000