Elle Marie Petersen
Birth Story
By: Cole and Molly Petersen
Thursday April 2, 2009 started like any other Thursday. I woke up at 5:15 to get to school by 6:30 am for our school’s leadership team meeting. However, this Thursday would prove to be very different by the time it was over.
At the leadership meeting the members of the group had prepared a breakfast in honor of me and another colleague whose wife will deliver during spring break. The breakfast was delicious. Quiche, fruit, granola, coffee (even decaf), juice, and the tastiest monkey bread ever. I ate a bit too much monkey bread. So much so that I got a stomach ache. The kind of stomach ache that is low in the abdomen and is my body saying to me, “Molly, what were you thinking, you know I don’t need that much sugar!”.
By lunch time I was more uncomfortable, my stomach still hurt, and I thought to myself, “perhaps my pants are too tight.” At lunch my friends where asking me about my pregnancy, how I was feeling, and about any anxiety I was having about labor and delivery. My response to them was, “I’ve really felt great my whole pregnancy, I’m not nervous about labor and delivery, Cole and I have been taking classes and I feel very prepared to do this! Although, for some reason today I feel really pregnant.”
By 1pm I decided that it was my pants that were making my stomach hurt. I called Cole and asked him to bring me a pair of more comfortable pants. Like the good husband he is, he brought me the pants. At this point I realized that I had not had a bowel movement all day, and being the regular girl that I am, I thought constipation could also be the cause of my stomach ache.
When I got home from school I tried to take a nap to sleep off the stomach ache. I couldn’t fall asleep so I got up and made dinner with a friend who is staying with us. Dinner was delicious, chicken cordon bleu, asparagus, and a spinach salad hit the spot.
At 9pm I decided that I needed to go to bed. It had been a long day and I was tired. The dull pain in my lower abdomen set off by the monkey bread, or constipation, whichever it was, was still with me. But if I could just go to sleep, I thought, I would wake up the next morning feeling 100% better.
Cole came to bed at around 12am and I was tossing and turning. I could not get comfortable and was getting frustrated because I couldn’t fall asleep. Cole quickly fell asleep, of course! By around 1am I was still uncomfortable and decided to look in my pregnancy books about constipation and cramps. The constant dull pain now felt like menstrual cramps every once in a while the pain would feel a little harsher than dull. As I was reading in my pregnancy books, I came across the description of pre-term labor. I thought to myself, “I do have some of these symptoms, but I have not had any contractions, so, no big deal.”
At 2am I decided to call labor and delivery just to tell them how I was feeling. When I explained the cramps, and the likelihood of constipation, the nurse on the phone said, drink some water and if you still feel this way in an hour, call back. I went into the bedroom and said to Cole, “Get up honey, we are going to Rite Aid to get some prunes.”
By 3:15am I had eaten 2 servings of prunes and drank a bunch of water. The cramps had not subsided so I called labor and delivery again. The nurse I spoke with this time said, “Why don’t you come in, we’ll check you out, and at the very least give you a suppository.”
We hopped in the car and headed to Kaiser’s Zion hospital. Luckily we had taken the hospital tour on Tuesday so we knew right where to go. We arrived at 3:45am and were quickly moved to an exam room where I was hooked up to an external fetal monitor. The nurse said, “The top line is the baby’s heart beat, and the bottom line is recording your cramps. The doctor will be here in a minute to check you.” Before the doctor came in the nurse also hooked me up to a blood pressure machine as well.
The doctor entered, checked me and said, “You are dilated to one centimeter and the baby’s station is 0, and by the way the ‘cramps’ you have been having are really contractions. You might be staying here and having a baby today!” Immediately my blood pressure went through the roof. I started to think about all of the “buts”: But we don’t have our car seat yet. But the baby’s room is not ready yet. But I have a baby shower tomorrow at 2pm. But we have no sheet for the crib. But we have no armoire to put the baby’s clothes in. But this is going to throw off my maternity leave. But we don’t have our Birth Plan with us. But we haven’t packed our “hospital bag”. But we haven’t made any arrangements for the dog to be taken care of. And on it went. I told the doctor that I was really hoping to labor at home, and in my mind being dilated to one centimeter did not mean that I was going to have a baby today.
The nurse came back into the room and said, “Honey if you want to go home you need to get your blood pressure under control.” I tried to calm down every time the blood pressure sleeve would turn on. After a few more minutes (probably more like 30minutes) the nurse came back in and said that because my blood pressure was so high they were going to have to draw blood, and send it to the lab to be tested for preeclampsia.
By now it was 5:40 and the doctor came back give me the results of the blood test. When she entered I said to her, “You know, I either just peed on myself or I think my water just broke.” She checked me again, confirmed that yes my water had broken, and informed us that I was dilated to 2cm, and I would not be allowed to go home. She instructed me to put on the gown and the nurse would be back to lead us to the labor and delivery room.
The minute I stepped foot off the exam bed I was suddenly standing in a puddle of water, and it just kept coming. Cole’s eyes were as big as saucers and I could do nothing but laugh. There was no controlling it. I had made a mess. The nurse came back in, I apologized for the mess and we were on our way to our labor and delivery room.
At 6am we arrived in the labor and delivery room and were greeted by two nurses who were nearing the end of their shifts. All I wanted to do was walk. I had been on the bed in the exam room for about 2 hours and I was sick of being on the bed. Before I could walk I was required to have the external fetal monitor on for a few minutes and to have the heparin lock (I.V. needle) put on. I was very unhappy at this time. Before they could poke or prod me, my body decided that the fantastic dinner we had earlier that night was no longer needed. I threw up. When I came back in the room the nurses told us that because I was so early (35 weeks 5 days) and had not had the group B Strep test, I had to have an IV of an antibiotic to protect the baby. The heparin lock turned out to be the most annoying/painful part of the whole labor and delivery process. It took two tries to get it into a vein, the antibiotic drip burned and felt like lethal injection.
Finally, we were free to roam around. Cole and I walked the halls for the next 45minutes. Every time I would feel a contraction I would either hold on to Cole, or the wall, and Cole would rub my back, and remind me to relax and breath. I was so glad to be walking. Now I knew what a contraction felt like for sure. It wasn’t at all what I thought it would feel like.
We came back to our room, labor and delivery 4, and met our new nurse. She was aware of our desire to have a natural birth as“Bradley Method” was written on the white board under my name. She showed us a few different labor positions. There was a birthing ball and a rocking chair that I used for about…30 seconds. She only made me use the fetal monitor for a couple minutes, and then she left the room.
Cole and I were all alone. I laid on the bed, on my side and Cole coached me to relax through each contraction. During each contraction I would count to 10 breaths and on the way out I would hum a tune or vocalize in some way. Cole rubbed my back and said kind and encouraging words, which made me feel like I could do this!
At about 8:45 my contractions were stronger and in breathing through them as I would breath out I got the urge to go to the bathroom (#2). I told Cole that I thought I needed to go to the bathroom so he helped me up, we walked across the room to the bathroom and I tried to go. Nothing was coming, and I got a bit scared because of the pressure.
At this time Ann Marie Pena MD was walking by our room and overheard me telling Cole that I needed to go to the bathroom. She came in and checked me. “You are complete.” She said, “The baby’s head is right here, if you need to push feel free.” NOW I know what the “urge to push” feels like. So I began letting my body do what it wanted to do. Cole says at this time the nurse made an all call that said, “We have a 35 and 5 (35 weeks 5 days) in LD 4 (Labor and delivery room 4) and we need…” She began to rattle off a list of people who needed to be in the room. Cole says that people started rushing in from both doors, wheeled carts were flying, things were being thrown, shoved, and pushed around in a frenzy. All this extra commotion was due to the fact that Elle was one month, to the day early.
I started pushing at 9am and by 9:17am, seven contractions later; Elle Marie Petersen made her grand appearance! There was a bunch of extra people in the room because Elle was so early. The neonatal doctor was there, but as soon as Elle came out and cried he looked over and said, “You don’t need me, she is going to be just fine!” Because of how early Elle was, had there been a complication, the cord needed t but cut right away. So, the doctor cut the cord. The cord was cut earlier than we would have liked, and Cole was hoping to cut it, but we also wanted to be safe.
Elle was immediately placed on my abdomen and we laid together for the first hour, bonding and nursing. It was love at first sight. She ad some bruising from the delivery, but she was gorgeous even still. She looked just like her dad! All the first tests were done after the initial hour was over.
Typically at Kaiser after the baby is born the parents and baby stay in the labor and delivery room for one to one and a half hours and then are promptly moved to the shared post-partum room. There were so many births that day we actually stayed in the labor and delivery room until three in the afternoon. So nice!
Because Elle was pre-term we had to stay in the hospital until Sunday the 5th. Every test that was given to Elle was done at my bedside (except for the hearing test) and she passed each test with flying colors. Her jaundice level was the only slight concern that was consistently monitored. Everyone who saw Elle in the hospital said, “She doesn’t even look like a preemie!” She doesn’t act like one either!
As we left the hospital Sunday at 2:15 (I had been ready to go since Friday night) the nurse came to the room with the wheelchair and I said, “Can I just walk out?” She said it was okay, but as we walked by the nurses station an older nurse said, “You cannot walk out holding your baby!” I then inquired, “So, if I give the baby to my husband, then can I walk out?” She looked at the nurse sitting next to her with a shocked look on her face, and then said that it was okay. Cole video-taped our exit from the hospital and we where on our way home with our bundle of joy!
Giving birth naturally was the best thing I have done yet! The feeling of being in control, feeling every sensation, and knowing that the work I was doing was bringing a life into the world in the healthiest way possible was empowering. I would do it all again! While in the Bradley classes Jan, our instructor, kept saying, labor is not painful, it’s just work, I heard her, but in my mind I had to tell myself that it WAS going to be painful, but that I could deal with the pain. In reality, Jan was right…my pain was never at a 10!
I have learned from this experience that God is in control. No matter how much we plan for something He has it all in his hands and has the BEST plan in mind. Initially I was stressed out because the house, baby room, and schedules had not been cleaned, finished, and worked out. In all reality, Elle just needs me and Cole and a loving home…okay…and a car seat to get home (which Cole went out and got on Saturday).
