Cassidy’s Birth Story

It’s 2020. So of course you, our fourth baby, would have a crazy birth story. But do you know what else? It was also fun, and I’m not sure I’ve ever called labor and delivery fun before!

The Beginning

So I’ll just answer the first question right away. Were you unplanned or unwanted? Definitely not!! Unexpected? YES!!

Ever since we decided to bring children into the world, your daddy and I have wanted four kids. Then your big sister Andi’s pregnancy was so hard on me, physically and mentally, that I vowed I could or would never do it again. 

Last fall I spoke to two Foster Parent Licensing Agencies and we decided to become Foster Parents. I filled out a mountain of paperwork and we were waiting on a class to be held locally that we could attend and get the process rolling.

In January, just Daddy and I got to go to Mexico on one of the most beautiful vacations I’ve ever been. In February, I went to San Antonio to visit my best friend—your Auntie Brooke’s house—and she knows me better than anyone. She commented that I was late for my cycle, and she took me to the store to get a pregnancy test. I told her I didn’t FEEL pregnant—with the other kids I knew before I even took a test. 

Low and behold, it was positive, and I screamed and cried a little and ran across her house to tell her and I think she was way more excited than I was—I was just in shock at that point!

I ordered (well, your Auntie Brooke ordered from her Amazon account so that your dad wouldn’t see it) a cute little onesie that says, “Made in Mexico.” It was the longest few days of waiting EVER before it arrived and I got to give your dad the news!

So we decided to put Fostering on hold for a few more years.

The Middle

The next few months were an absolute whirlwind and at a standstill at the same time—a severe illness felt like I lost two months of my life. And yet, you persisted, much to my surprise and relief. 

There was/is also a little thing going on called a “world pandemic.” There is a new disease—COVID-19, a new respiratory virus—that has spread worldwide within the last few months, which means that schools and many businesses have been closed in an effort to minimize the spread. 

So things have been far from normal—no school from March through May, and your brother and sisters and I literally did not leave our farm from mid-March until June, and even in June it was very limited. We did not see my side of the family from January until July. It has been a very sad, hard, isolating time, to say the least. 

I was also just very sick with you—I had “morning sickness” until around 23 weeks. Debilitating back pain at times and then the worst headaches I’ve ever had in my life (worsening over the last 12 weeks). 

The Beginning of the Main Event

The week before your due date (October 15th) was very eventful.

I was supposed to have my weekly appointment on Tuesday, but on Monday morning, I was having some pretty painful contractions. I finally sat down to time them for twenty minutes, and they were two to three minutes apart. They were uncomfortable, but not terrible. But, when you live an hour and fifteen minutes from the hospital, and it’s baby number four, you don’t really want to mess around in case things go from calm to crazy really quickly. I trust your dad to deliver you in the car, but it’s not really how I wanted your birth story to play out. So I called the doctor’s office and they told me to come in and get checked.

Also, remember those headaches I was telling you about? I had one, and it too was pretty uncomfortable. So while the doctor’s visit showed that I was still only about a finger-tip dilated, my midwife decided to send me over to the Labor and Delivery department to get some IV meds to see if we could knock out the headache, with our fingers crossed that getting me out of that pain would let me go into labor.

The monitor showed I was having contractions, but not big ones, and not consistent. I got a sedative by IV, and a shot of morphine. It was the first time in a long time that I didn’t have a headache, and I took and great nap.

However, no labor. So we went back home to some very disappointed kids.

Fast forward to Thursday, middle of the night.

I hadn’t been to sleep yet, partially because of my headache and partially because of contractions. Then, I started shaking and I couldn’t stop. I woke up your daddy, and I called the doctor’s office. Again, they told me to come in, since we lived so far away. Since it was the middle of the night, we went to the hospital, and I still hadn’t dilated any further. 

The contractions were hard and so we decided to walk for awhile, and I sat on the birthing ball for awhile. Still no change, and by then it was morning and our midwife was there. Again, we thought since I was less than a week from my due date, if we got me out of the headache pain, maybe real labor would start. 

So we did the IV sedative and shot of morphine again. After letting me rest, she said it looked like I was having lots of contractions, but that it seemed like my uterus was just irritable. She ran some labs to make sure I didn’t have a UTI or something causing the prodromal labor. Again, I was checked, and still only dilated a finger-tip. To say I was disappointed after all that time and contractions was an understatement. 

Friday

By that afternoon we again went home to disappointed kids. They were just as excited to meet you as we were.

The silver lining was that I think my midwives took pity on me after all the headache pain I’d been having and prodromal labor and lack of sleep. They said I could be put on the induction schedule. Since I STILL wasn’t dilated more than a fingertip, I was scheduled to come to the hospital Tuesday evening—the 13th—at 4:00pm, to do the dilation of my cervix with the balloon of a catheter. Then pitocin would be started the next morning. I would be 39 weeks 6 days.

If you know me and know how much I resisted induction in the past, even when I was over 41 weeks, this should tell you how overall not well I was feeling.

Tuesday Morning: Planned Induction for that Evening

Recap: I was 39 weeks 5 days pregnant. I had been to the hospital twice in the last week having prodromal labor and terrible headaches. The headaches had been getting progressively worse over the last twelve weeks. In the last three weeks they had been horrible, and I promised to see my primary care provider after I had the baby if they didn’t go away.

As I mentioned, I was put on the induction schedule for that evening of the 13th. I was to check in at 4pm to start getting my cervix ready.

So the day started off by sending the big kids off to school on the bus and then taking soon-to-be-big-sister on a breakfast date. I knew it would be her last day as “the baby.” So we went to the local coffee shop and had breakfast and coffee for me, a smoothie for her. 

We then did her favorite thing—went to the park. It was a beautiful October day. 

We came home and I made sure things were ready for her and the other kids to go to Papa and Grandma’s house. We had decided that your dad would come home from work by 2:00 so that we could drop her off and head to the hospital. We live about an hour and fifteen minutes away from the hospital. 

I made us some lunch and noticed my contractions were a little more painful. Okay, a lot more painful. I called your dad at 1:00 and told him he should probably head home. He said he could tell from my voice that it was time to go. He called his mom (your grandma) on the way home, and she arrived before he did. She found me rocking Andi, and crying through the contractions. 

She said she also could tell that it was real labor this time. (She had come over the previous two times in the past week when it was just prodromal labor.)

Soon, your dad was home and after my tearful goodbye to Andi, we headed to the hospital. My contractions were almost a minute long, and happening every two-to-three minutes.

They were SO painful. I had the other three kids with no pain meds or epidural. I knew what natural childbirth is like, but these contractions were already almost more than I could handle. I knew it was still only early labor, so on the way to the hospital, I messaged my sister, your Aunt Kari, whom I knew was at work, and prayed she would see it and answer me. I asked her what an epidural was like and if I should get one this time. She said, “It’s magic. Just do it.” 

I had never wanted one in the past for multiple reasons, among which was the fear that it wouldn’t work, or only work on half my body, or that I wouldn’t be able to move my legs for hours after delivery. 

GO TIME!

We were about ten minutes from town and my phone rang. It was a nurse from the Labor and Delivery Department saying that they were really busy and my induction would need to be moved to the next day. I said, in between contractions, “uhhhhhhhh, well, we are about ten minutes from town and I’m pretty sure I’m in labor. Can you at least check me before you send me home?” 

She said, “oh my goodness yes!!” 

Needless to say, when we walked in, my nurse Michelle from one of my hospital stays the previous week took one look at me and said, “Oh my gosh Michaela, it’s legit this time!!” As I was doubled over having another contraction I said, “it better be, or I’m going to lose my ****!!” 

So it was about 3:30pm when we got checked in to a labor room. I was 3-4cm dilated. I asked Michelle to tell me about an epidural and she said, “It’s magic.” That sealed the deal for me. She also told me I had earned an epidural with all the pain and prodromal labor I’d already been through:-) I told her to please call the anesthesiologist. 

Also, at some point my contractions had slowed down a little, so we decided to try some pitocin. It worked to help the contractions pick back up again.

Then the nurse anesthetist arrived to start the epidural. This was around 5:00 pm. And it WAS magic, until I realized that it was only working on half my body. We tried repositioning me. Then we called the anesthesiologist back and she tried pulling the catheter back just a little. Still didn’t work. After debating and waiting awhile longer, we decided to have it entirely redone to see if it would work the second time.

I was 5cm dilated. I don’t remember if I was checked before or after my epidural—I think before. 

While the epidural was being placed again, at about 6:30pm, my water broke. That was a new experience to me, since with the other three I always had it broke by the doctor when I got to five or six centimeters to help speed up labor. I honestly had no idea how dilated I was at this point. That’s something I loved about having a midwife deliver me this time—I had very few cervical checks. 

I did a terrible job of keeping track of the time—it seemed to fly by. I had great nurses who made the time so much fun. That’s something I never thought I’d say about labor. At shift change we had gotten another great nurse named Cassidy. I told her right away that if the baby was a girl, Cassidy was the name we had picked out.

Another first for me—I vomited during labor. It was pretty horrible, not going to lie. My midwife Mary said I must be in transition, and she was right. I was still feeling contractions on the left side of my uterus, and suddenly felt like I could push. She checked me and told me I was complete and could push. She asked if I was ready and I said “no!!” Haha! I was used to it taking so much longer to get to ten centimeters. But suddenly the bed was being arranged and the lights came on and she was gowned and ready. 

Even though I was still having terrible pain on the left side with each contraction, other important places were completely numb. I pushed for about five minutes. FIVE minutes. Just a few pushes. With my first baby I pushed for HOURS. With my second and third I pushed for about 30 minutes. Five minutes was incredible!! 

We did not know your gender, so when Mary held you up and I saw, I just screamed. Your daddy yelled, “it’s a girl!!” You looked like you were reaching for me and the moment I had you in my arms on my chest was just EVERYTHING. We have this part on video and I have watched it at least 100 times so far. Relief and love and happy tears came all at once. 

Cassidy Sue, you made your arrival at 8:20pm, which is 2020 in military time. So 10/13/2020 at 2020. At 39 weeks, 5 days, you were my “earliest” baby! You weighed 7lbs 13 oz, my second-biggest baby by just a couple of ounces. You were much tinier than I expected. And so perfect. You spent hardly any time in the birth canal, so you had a perfect round head and the same barely-there blond hair as the other three kids.

You nursed right away and it was so much fun to FaceTime your Nana and tell her all about you, especially since you share a middle name.

I guess just like your big sister Andi, you just had to be “threatened” with induction before you decided to come on your own time.

It did take forever for my legs to “work” again, but the epidural was completely worth it. We had a wonderful birth experience and we have YOU now. Our family is complete. We love you so much! Thank you for being the absolute best part of 2020!