A Birth Story - Maren Lindgren

(Please note this is my documentation of the birth. Apologies if it's a little too much info for you.)

Maren Christine Lindgren entered the world on February 16th at 2:40 pm. She weighed 7lbs 15.5oz and was 21 inches long.

Her arrival began on Sunday the 15th around 7:00 pm. Derek and I had spent the day with Cindy and Rick after going to a quick hospital appointment because my blood pressure had been too high the past few days. Leaving the hospital, they said I wasn't dilated at all, so we assumed we still had a long road a head of us. I was in desperate need to be out of the house, so Cindy and I walked around the mall for a few hours and then hit a friends house aftwards, where I ate some very spicy chili. Two hours later, I was in labor.

Derek and I were planning to celebrate our Valentine's Day that evening. The night before I was too sick, I had a terrible cold. So, Derek started making dinner when we got home from SF. Around 7:00 I was sitting there and felt a sudden gush and thought oh my goodness, I think my water broke. And a few minutes later my mucus plug came out. So, I was pretty positive she was on her way. I called the hospital. They told me to eat dinner and then head to the hospital. Derek had made this fantastic meal and neither one of us were really able to eat it. We got down what we could and headed across the bridge into SF. It was pooring down rain.

We arrived at the hospital around 9:00 pm. We were put in our birthing room and ended up with the room with an amazing view of the city, which was great to look at the next morning. Contractions started coming pretty strong while we were in the car and just progressively picked up from there. Nicole arrived around 10:00 and began helping me through them. My plan going into this was to have a natural birth. I had two things working against me with this. First, I had a bad cold and hadn't slept well the past few nights. Second, I am not a night person at all, so doing things in the middle of the night is not easy for me. I spent my time with contractions in the tub, on an exercise ball and in the bed. As the night went on, my contractions increased in intensity and frequency. Frequency became the real problem. I had almost continual contractions with no more than 30 seconds rest in between. After about 6 hours of contractions, I couldn't take it any longer and thought if I could only sleep for a little while, maybe I can get through this. So, I opted for a pain drug that lasts for an hour. Well, I ended up with 4 more of these. Each one I took worked a little less and by the last one, it lasted for about 15 minutes. At around 3:30 am my mom arrived. She drove all the way from Orange County through the middle of the night. It was really great to have her there. Early in the morning, I finally gave in and decided to take the epidural. This allowed me to go to sleep for an hour or so and get ready to push. Derek, Nicole my mom and I all worked to push through each contraction. Things seemed to being going well and the nurse originally thought I should be able to push her out in about an hour and a half. However, unlike my contractions earlier in the evening, when I started to push my contractions started to spread out quite a bit to the point where they were almost 5 minutes apart. So, the progress we made with each push retracted during the time between contractions. After 3 hours of this, a team of doctors came in and told me I had 3 options. 1. Push for another hour and if she's not out, move to an assisted delivery. 2. Go straight to assisted delivery. 3. Go straight to a C-Section. And the head resident stated she thought it would take me another 3 hours to push her out on my own and she wouldn't let me go that long. The nurse who had been with me all morning, Heidi, had stepped out to grab some food right before the doctors came in. I really trusted her and wanted her opinion but she wasn't available. So, Derek and I agreed we would move forward with the assisted birth. As they were about to wheel me into the operating room, I had this overwhelming feeling I was making the wrong decision. And nurse Heidi walked in the door and I could see it in her eyes that she thought I could have done it without the assist. But, the decision had been made and off we went.

The operating room was overwhelming. There were about 20 people in the room, doctors and nurses. They put me on a super narrow table, I have no clue how larger people fit on this thing. Derek came it. I had a total meltdown. There was all this commotion. Nurse Heidi came over and calmed me down. She said we were going to push on the next contraction and so I did and in a matter of 3 pushes, Maren came into the world. It took about 3 minutes. She cried immediately and I knew she was ok. They brought her over to Derek and I. I was able to give her a kiss and then they took her off to the nursery and Derek went with her. Unfortunately, my placenta didn't want to come out, so I stayed in the O.R. The doctors waited 30 minutes for it and then made the decision to manually remove it. Even with the manual removal, it didn't really want to come out. So, an hour and a half after the deliver, I was finally coming out of the operating room having lost a lot of blood and feeling really bad.

But the instant I was able to hold her, I forgot about all of that and just focused on being with her. She was beautiful and super alert.

I will end my story there. Recovery week is something I'd prefer to block out of my memory. I would not have survived it without Derek and my mom.

But now I can say being a mommy is a new, amazing, challenging and wonderful experience.