Ben's Birth Story

After a few requests, I thought it might be nice to share the story of how Ben entered our world.
As many of you know, by Wednesday I had gone 6 days past my due date of February 12th, so it was time to call the hospital to schedule an induction. I called at 8.30am and they were too full at the time to get us in, so I was told to wait for a phone call. Talk about torture! Waiting around all day was so hard, so I finally called them back at 1.30pm and they told us to check-in at 2.30pm to have our baby!


We checked in and settled into our Labor and Delivery Room. I was hooked up to the IV, baby heartrate monitor, contraction monitor, and was checked by the midwife - 0 cm dilated. However, I was having very small contractions on my own at this time which was nice to know. The first step was to place a Misoprostol pill on my cervix to start dilation. They could do that every 4 hours up to 24 hours so we knew we were in for a long labor. The first pill was placed at 5pm, the second at 9pm. At that point, I was having light contractions, still no dilation but the cervix was thinning.


At 11pm, Ben's heartbeat dropped a bit when I shifted positions - several nurses came running in, they put an oxygen mask on me and had me move around. Thank goodness my sister experienced the exact same thing with Chase so I knew what was happening. It was still unsettling. They removed the Misoprostol pill at this point because although the cervix was 100% thinned out, dilation was still at 0.



At midnight, the doctor tried another process to speed up labor - inserting a balloon in the cervix that would help dilation and fall out when I got to 3 cm. That was a success and by 4.30am my water broke. By 5.30am I was dilated to 4cm and at 6.30am I decided it was time for the epidural. I was feeling very good after that! :)



At 8.15am they started the pitocin to kick start my contractions. Almost right away, Ben did not like the stress of the contractions with the pitocin - his heartrate would drop with every one. They tried adding fluid to my cervix to relieve stress on Ben, but it wasn't working so by 10.30am the doctor advised us that it was time to get baby Ben out with a c-section.

I was prepped for the c-section at 11.00am and little Ben was born at 11.39am on Thursday, February 19. We were so relieved to finally see our beautiful baby boy.

Jim was amazing throughout the entire process, being so supportive and loving through each and every step of the delivery. He was my rock.

He got to cut the cord and watch over Ben as they weighed him and then took him off to the nursery to bath him.

I feel so lucky to have 2 amazing men in my life.