Giving Birth the Second Time

First, a disclaimer. As I mentioned in this post about the birth story of our first son, this is a birth story and all it’s details. It’s totally fine if you don’t want to know everything about my birth, I was the same way.

Let’s start with the pregnancy.

During my first pregnancy, I was nauseous a lot of the time. This time, I was nauseous the entire time. I actually threw up several times, and many other times would heave. It was gross, and a lot of times I didn’t “feel” like eating (but I would anyway because I had to). I tried a medication to help that was suggested by my doctor. IT WORKED. It helped so much with the morning sickness feeling. It stopped the throwing up and the heaving. The over-the-counter version is doxylamine (name brand is Unisom) and vitamin B6 three times a day. Doxylamine succinate is marketed as a sleep aid, but is an antihistamine and for some reason it helps with symptoms of morning sickness. I took one each night, then the vitamin B6 throughout the day. When the medicine wore off, I would start to heave. I tried a few times to decrease my dose to half a pill, but it wouldn’t last through the day. My doctor said it is a Class B pregnancy medication. (I did some research on it and felt comfortable taking it during pregnancy).

Anyway, other challenges during this pregnancy were working part time (Mondays and Tuesdays), caring for a two-year-old, making it through the summer heat, dealing with more Braxton Hicks contractions, and my body hurting a lot more and a lot sooner than my first pregnancy. Surprisingly, I didn’t really swell much with the summer heat. I think there were two times that I had to put my feet up to help with swelling. My weight gain this pregnancy was actually slower and overall less gained than my first pregnancy.

We made a fun gender reveal video/song.

As I said before, my body hurt, especially my pelvis. I had pain a lot right at the pubic bone, then progressively more and more at the hips. I called into work on Tuesday, September 24th because it literally hurt to walk. At my appointment that week, my doctor thought it’d be best to pull me from work. This ended up giving my boss and co-workers advanced notice that I’d be out, because I had the baby Sunday, September 29th, so wouldn’t have been able to work that Monday anyway!

And now, the due date discrepancy. Based on my cycle, I was expecting the baby around October 20th. Based on the first day of my last period (not factoring in a 35 day cycle), the first ultrasound had given a range of October 9 – 13th. I went with the 13th since it was in the middle, but when the receptionists scheduled appointments, they always went with October 9th. My husband thinks he remembers a day the baby could have been conceived, which would have put the due date at the end of September, but didn’t make as much sense to me because I had a period after that that didn’t seem out of the ordinary. So, a wide range of due dates. Going with the October 9-13th range, baby #2 came about 2 weeks early (and I was so glad – two more weeks and he would have been a giant).

Let’s rewind a little bit, back to my last doctor’s appointment (after I didn’t go into work because it hurt to walk). It was a Wednesday. My doctor checked to see if I was dilated any, and I was – 2cm! This was a good sign to me because when I got to the hospital to have my first child, I was only 1.5cm dilated. I was already ahead of the game! Just prior to seeing my doctor I had a sizing ultrasound. Since my first son Gabe was 8lbs 9oz (pretty big for my pelvis) and born a day before the due date, we wanted to get a look at how big this kid was already. They had estimated 6lbs 13 or 14oz. Pretty good size for still having a little over 2 weeks to go. My doctor gave my cervix a bit of a stretch, which sometimes can encourage labor to start (and sometimes doesn’t). I went home that day and had some contractions, which then fizzled out by the next day. Overall, I had more Braxton Hicks during my second pregnancy, and some were quite painful this time around. On Saturday, I was having pretty painful contractions, though they were 15-20 minutes apart. We altered our plans for the day, skipping a birthday party and taking our 2 year old son to my parents’ house. We packed the car, then went out to lunch and walked around, but unfortunately by the evening nothing had progressed into anything. We went and picked up Gabe, then drove home and put him to bed.

Around 8:30/9:00pm Saturday evening, the contractions started back up again and hurt a lot. I couldn’t do anything else but try to get through the contraction. I would get on my hands and knees to rock to try and work through them, which did seem to help sometimes. They were still irregular and about 15 minutes apart. We watched TV and rode out the contractions until all of a sudden, they switched to every 5 minutes. My husband called my dad, who came to stay the night with Gabe. We left for the hospital around midnight. (Side note: I totally understand wanting a home birth because I definitely didn’t want to leave and have contractions in the car all the way to the hospital).

At around 12:30am, I walked into the hospital with Dave (my husband), trying to go quickly between contractions. I tried to limit my anguish during the contractions since there were people around, haha. A nice couple wished me luck on my way in. I rode a wheelchair to triage and man, it felt like so much pain and pressure. I was 6cm dilated when they checked me in triage, then they moved me to a room. Wahoo, 6cm! I at first declined the epidural because it hadn’t worked for me last time and wanted to see how things progressed. They checked me once more and I was still 6 or 6.5cm, so I changed my mind and opted to try the epidural. The anesthesiologist was great and explained what had likely happened last time, and what she would do this time. I’m not kidding, it worked almost immediately. It was like night and day compared to my first experience. I could feel some pressure (like when you have to poo really really bad) during the contractions. I actually could rest and talk and smile. I totally understand now how people in labor could get some sleep with a working epidural. It was SO DIFFERENT. I also did NOT have camelback contractions this time, which was also quite a different experience.

It must have been around 3:30am that a doctor from my OB’s practice came in and checked me. I was at 10cm. She said it was time to push, and I was so surprised that it happened so soon. She called in the other staff to help, and I started pushing with the contractions, then resting in between. The “in-between” time did not happen during my first labor and birth, so it was weird. Everyone just waited around, I could breathe, and it was calm and quiet. Sometimes we talked with them about how different it was and about what happened last time, and sometimes it was just quiet as everyone waited. Total pushing time was maybe about 30 minutes we think, though we don’t know for sure. It wasn’t more than 30 minutes. I had to rely more on the screen this time to know when the contraction was coming because of the epidural. I could, however, feel when the baby started coming out. It felt like burning and ripping, but surprisingly, I did not tear this time. I didn’t need stitches, hooray! The doctor stretched me a lot as I pushed, which I think helped a lot to prevent the tearing, plus the baby’s head was smaller. Once his head came out, the doctor had me do smaller, shorter pushes to get out his body, then the placenta.

At 4:06am on September 29th, 2019, Elijah Samuel Roland was born. He was “gurgly” sounding and attempted to make some noise while on my chest, but ultimately had to be taken by the nurse to help him get a really good cry. He did, no worries. His first day in the “real” world he struggled with temperature regulation and spitting up a lot, but this all got better with time. A little while after I gave birth, I all of a sudden was super nauseous and threw up. The nausea went away by the next day.

I felt great. I was sore, obviously, but my body was doing really well. I think my body doesn’t like being pregnant, so it is happy when it’s over and tries to get things back to it’s pre-pregnancy state as fast as possible. My uterus shrinks back very quickly, all the doctors and nurses comment on it. After a few tries, Eli was nursing well from both sides, which is great (my first had a definite preference of one side over the other). At his first pediatrician’s visit, he was gaining weight back (he had lost 9%) and his temperature wasn’t an issue anymore. By his next appointment he was 3 weeks old and weighed in at 8lbs 4oz (still not yet as big as when Gabe was born, haha). Gabe was a great sleeper from day one, likely his size helped with that. At one month old now, Eli is just starting to sleep some longer stretches. The lack of sleep has been a challenge, as well as adjusting to being a family of four.

I’m so thankful for a healthy little guy and for the quick physical healing this time. I just can’t believe how different the two experiences were. Literally every aspect was different than my first experience. That’s my story, a bit simpler and smoother this time, which I am grateful for.

I love to read your comments!