Henry Kay Senn - His birth story

It happened. Our little baby was born.

1:15 am on February 24th I got up to go to the washroom and found my water was broken, I can still remember the exact feeling of disbelief. I was not having any contractions though so this was bad news. #1 because I had tested positive for group B strep so even though I had the antibiotics all ready it was still important that my water not be broken for too long. #2 because the baby was still very high so there was a chance of the cord moving underneath him and getting squished, cutting off his oxygen supply. So I got into a hilarious position with my bum in the air and Kevin called the midwives.

They came but we immediately decided to go to forget about the homebirth and go to the hospital. The baby had moved into such a funny position just that day that they weren't even sure that the head was down when previously it had always been obvious. An ultrasound at the hospital told us that head was still down so I waited to get induced. At about 4:30 am I started having contractions on my own and within an hour they were about 45 seconds long and less than 5 minutes apart. I had to wait until 10:45 to get induced because the hospital was so busy. This seemed like a good thing because after 6 hours of having contractions on my own I hoped that I might be able to do it on my own but a cervical check showed that I was only about 2 cm dilated (I had already been 1 cm when my water broke). So we proceeded with the induction.

Once the pitocin drip was started, it wasn't safe for me to get out of bed or move much at all for risk of the cord getting squished under the baby. My contractions slowly got stronger. I held out until 1:30 before I wanted an epidural. I was told it was better to wait a bit to get the epidural because the longer you have it the more frozen and immobile you get and I also wanted to see what labour felt like. Baby's heartrate started fluctuating and the pitocin was turned down and then up every once in a while. At the next check I was still only around 2 cm dilated. At this point I felt positive the induction wouldn't work but the doctor wanted to wait another hour or so and see what happened. At the next check I was almost 3 cm dilated (from 1 to almost 3 after 15 hours of labour including 8 hours induced!) and I was getting a bit of a fever so it was time for a C section. That decision was made at about 7 pm and I was almost immediately in the operating room. And baby Henry was born at 7:48 pm on February 24.

Henry wasn't breathing well when he came out and he had a bit of a fever so he was in NICU for about 8 hours. Daddy gave him lots of visits while I was recovering. We were in the hospital for 3 nights and now we've been home for almost 2 weeks. It's been pretty great so far.