Our Birth Story

William Finnegan O'Connor  

July 9th 2012 :: 2:42pm :: 6lbs 5oz. :: 19.7in 

July 8th – the Due date! Of course Tommy and I had been taking guesses and been looking forward to the big day. It's pretty exciting not knowing when it's actually gonna happen. I had a feeling that Finn wouldn't come on his due date, but we had been joking about it, saying that if he inherited the german part of me, he would certainly come on time since Germans are so punctual :) Well, he wasn't born on his due date but pretty darn close to it. That Sunday I had been feeling a little bit off. I felt a lot more tired than the days before. Tommy and I went for a walk in the morning and half way through I started getting a really persistent back pain, that just wouldn't go away. I was wondering if that could be a sign of early contractions, but since nothing else happened the rest of day, I assumed it wasn't time yet. Since I felt pretty tired though, I went to bed earlier that night. At least I tried, I tossed and turned for a while and finally fell asleep around 11pm, just to be woken up by a sharp pain half an hour later. 

There was no doubt, this was my first real contraction! I laid in bed for a minute wondering if it was really time, when Tommy popped in his head to see why I was still up. Him and his cousin Cheyenne had been staying up playing board games in the living room. Tommy saw my shocked face and knew right away what was going on. Shortly after, I got another contraction and another. I got up to pack up the rest of my stuff for my hospital bag. And about half an hour later the contractions were already coming within 5-6 minute intervals lasting for 30-45 seconds. I called my doctor and she told me to go to the hospital within the next two hours. So I waited a little longer and at about 3am we headed down to Flagstaff Medical Center. By that time the contraction were already coming every few minutes and were really painful. I had the illusion that I was gonna try to do it all without any drugs and an epidural. I was really freaked out by all the stories I had heard about medications like Pitocin and emergency C-sections. I really just wanted to have a natural birth. But by the time we got to the Hospital, I was already in so much pain that I asked for an epidural right away. Well unfortunately I wasn't dilated very much, only 1.5 cm but fully effaced already. They told me they couldn't give me an epidural until I was at least 4cm dilated, because it could cause the contractions to slow down or stop, which could lead to unwanted interventions. So they monitored me for a while and then sent me walking around the hall way for an hour to see if that would help me dilate faster. It was the most awful hour of my life. The contractions were so strong that I could barely walk or talk, I felt really nauseous, I threw up, I felt really hot. It was just awful and the minutes were just crawling by so slow. Tommy was such a trooper through. He was by my side the entire time, although I couldn't except any of his help and told him to just leave me alone. I was just in my own little world, dealing with the pain. I didn't wanna talk, I didn't wanna be touched. I didn't get angry or yell at anybody, I just needed to be in this quiet space by myself. After looking at the clock every 30 seconds, the longest hour of my life was finally over. We went back to Triage and the nurse checked me again, only to tell me I had only dilated another 0.5cm within the last 2h. I couldn't believe it. Going at this pace I knew this was going to be a very long labor. 

The pain just seemed unbearable and I knew this was just the beginning. At that point the doctor suggested to move me into the birthing room and give me some medication for the nausea and also offered me some pain medication. I really wanted to do it without medication, but I just couldn't stand the pain and felt like everything was progressing even slower since I couldn't relax or work with the pain. So I agreed to take some. They told me it was harmless for the baby and would just take the edge off a little bit to make the pain more tolerable. It also would only last an hour or so and then wear off, but hopefully help me relax and help me dilate faster. After getting the pain medication I started feeling a lot better. I still felt the contractions pretty strongly, but the nausea went away and I was able to relax a little bit. I'm glad I went this route, since it took another 4,5 hours from that time until they were able to get the anesthesiologist in to set up the epidural. It was 11:00am by that time and the medication had worn off a long time ago, leaving me with even stronger contractions. I was shaking uncontrollably, but once the epidural started working, all the pain went away and all I could feel was a slight tension at each contractions. By that time I was dilated 5cm and my water broke when they examined me. They told me it would probably take until mid afternoon until I would be dilated fully to 10cm. So I just closed my eyes and dozed off. After a little while I felt completely numb from the waste down and was wondering if they had given me too much medicine. Also it appeared that my contractions were slowing down and the nurse said something about giving me Pitocin to get the contractions back. That's exactly what I didn't want to happen! I started getting worried and asked them to lower the dosage of the epidural medication. After a while I started feeling the contraction a bit stronger again and was able to feel my legs again as well. Fortunately everything went well after that and I didn't need to be given any Pitocin. At 1:00pm the doctor came back to check me again and saw that I was already fully dilated. So they got the nurse crew in half an hour later to start the pushing. It took about 1h15min, but due to the epidural it was all tolerable and didn't even hurt much at all. Everything went well, although Finn's heartbeat went down while pushing, so they put me on an oxygen mask during the breaks in between contractions. I felt pretty relaxed and thought things were going just as they were supposed to. My doctor was a bit impatient, suggested to use a suction cup at some point and also wanted to do an episiotomy to advance a bit faster. I turned her down on both of it, and it really wasn't needed. Finn was born shortly after. When he came out, he had the cord wrapped twice around his head! Fortunately he was fine and nothing happened. They cut the cord and put him on my chest. He looked right into my eyes with a very alert expression in his eyes. Then he stretched out his little arm and touched my face. It was the most amazing and touching moment in my life….to see his beautiful little face for the first time…..to finally meet our son and wrap my arms around him. I can't even put it into words how special that moment was for us. 

After that precious first moment, they took him away from me to examine him. At that point he started breathing really heavy. His little rip cage was lifting up and down really fast and the nurses realized he had problems breathing. Apparently that's a very common problem in Flagstaff, since the air is a lot thinner at 7000ft elevation. They were debating if they should bring him to the NICU (Neonatal intensive care unit) when one of the nurse suggested to put him back on my chest for a little bit. As soon as he was back with me, he started to breath normal again. Apparently he just needed to be with me :) So I was able to keep him with me and he didn't have to go to NICU! I'm just so thankful everything went well and we were even able to document this precious moment. Looking at the pictures and remembering that moment, brings tears to Tommy's and my eyes every time. We're just so happy to have our little mountain family. It really means the world to us and the whole experience brought us even closer.