Marlow's Birth Story - Positive Induction Birth Story

Aug 01, 2021

Marlow Maxine was born on May 7th, 2021 at 4:20 in the afternoon. But if you were following me on social media you already know that her birth was somewhat of a whirlwind. If her birth story has anything to say about what her personality is going to be like, Justin and I sure have our hands full. The funniest thing to me about Marlow’s birth story is not that it caught us by surprise, but that I had intended to do a “mini vlog” everyday on TikTok leading up to her birth and only ended up doing 5 posts because of my induction.

Marlow’s birth story really starts on a typical Wednesday afternoon. I met up with Justin to hand off Jasper so I could go to my 38 week appointment with the doctor. At this point I was feeling all of your typical third trimester aches and pains but other than that, I was feeling really good and excited to see the calendar finally ticking closer to Marlow’s due date of May 17th.

One of the first things they do at every appointment is check your blood pressure. Unlike my pregnancy with Jasper, my blood pressure had looked absolutely perfect at every single appointment so you can imagine my surprise when the nurse taking it looked at me and said, “It’s a little high, we’ll have to check it again.” At this point I didn’t really think anything of it because I had been through this with Jasper and figured it would go down by the time they took it again. Fortunately or unfortunately, it didn’t go down like it usually does. I immediately began texting my mom and Justin with updates. I wasn’t worried, my blood pressure had been high almost every appointment with Jasper, like I mentioned, and we had no issues. After talking it over with the doctor, who wasn’t concerned about preeclampsia, we decided that I would go home and then come back on Thursday for another blood pressure check.

It was at this point that the doctor told me to come with my bags packed because if my blood pressure was high the following day, I would be getting induced. In fact, the only reason she didn’t ask me to come back for a check later that same day was because the labor and delivery unit was already busy and if I was to get induced she knew I would be waiting for a long time anyways just being monitored. So I went home a little heavy with anxiety but otherwise feeling good. I spent the rest of that day trying to relax and getting the last of our things together for the hospital, just in case. We were also able to get my mother-in-law on alert to potentially need to be on her way to Fairbanks the next afternoon to watch over Jasper.

Thursday I woke up feeling completely normal although admittedly anxious about my upcoming blood pressure check. The plan was for me to put Jasper down for his nap and head to the hospital for my blood pressure check once Justin arrived at the house. When I put Jasper down for his nap, I just laid with him and was overwhelmed by emotion. I knew in my heart that I wouldn’t be going back to the house that afternoon after my appointment and it crushed me that this was how I was going to have to spend his last few moments as our only baby. The pregnancy hormones really got to me and I had to pretty much rush out of his room before I started sobbing. I spent the next couple of minutes in my room just letting myself feel those overwhelming emotions because I knew I needed to get them out of my system before going to the hospital.

I’m sure you all know where this is going. My blood pressure came back even higher this time and I’m pretty much lucky that the doctor even let me go back to my car to get my bag. But I did and I made my way to the labor and delivery unit to begin the induction process. Justin got to work making sure his mom could get up to us to take care of Jasper, thankfully we found out just in time for her to catch the afternoon flight from Anchorage to Fairbanks.

I had no idea what to expect going forward with an induction. I didn’t have to be induced with Jasper so this was entirely new territory and I knew I would be alone until Justin could get to the hospital once Jasper was taken care of. Luckily they didn’t want to do anything major until he got there. So I got comfortable in our hospital room and waited for them to tell me what came next. They spent a couple of hours just monitoring me which was nice because I was able to eat dinner that evening. I basically just relaxed and watched Oxygen until Justin got there around 8pm. The plan after that point was to do the Foley bulb since I was already dilated two centimeters and start pitocin in the morning. Honestly, the Foley bulb cramps were worse than my actual contractions. Trying to sleep with those things happening and with the excitement around getting to meet Marlow soon was next to impossible but I tried my best.

My Foley bulb came out on its own around 2 or 3 that morning and then we started pitocin. I was so nervous about how my body would react to the pitocin because I had heard a lot of induction horror stories. Thankfully I didn’t have any issue handling the contractions and even moved around the room quiet a bit most of the morning. Once I was about 4 cm dilated, I knew the contractions were getting stronger and I knew that was around the time my water broke with Jasper which made the contractions even stronger. I didn’t want to wait too much longer for the epidural and I was having a hard time getting comfortable, even standing so I went ahead and requested it. Placing the epidural this time was an adventure and I’ll spare you too much of the details but basically Marlow was in such a weird position and my contractions were so strong at that point that I couldn’t really curl forward making it difficult to place the epidural. I think they had to stick me 8 or 9 times before the guy got it placed (this was exactly the opposite of my experience with Jasper’s delivery) however once they finally got it placed it worked beautifully so I couldn’t really complain.

Once I got the epidural I was immediately able to relax which, as it turns out, was exactly what my body needed. I remember falling asleep and waking up and feeling a lot of pressure which was kind of weird to be feeling that soon after getting my epidural. One of the nurses came to check on me and I let her know that I was starting to feel some pressure. Marlow’s heart rate was also fluctuating. They had me move around and that didn’t really help her heart rate so the nurse came back a second time and decided that we should check since the pressure was feeling pretty intense. I didn’t necessarily feel the urge to push but the pressure was definitely noticeable. Sure enough, when she checked I was definitely ready to push.

Marlow’s delivery was completely different than Jasper’s. Despite having to be induced, it was completely calm and there were only three other people in the room besides me and Justin. I remember Jasper’s delivery feeling easy but this one was a complete breeze. I told Justin afterwards that if I knew every delivery would be that easy and I didn’t have to endure 9 months of pregnancy (pregnancy is really hard for me mentally) that I would have all of the babies.

Anyways, Marlow was absolutely perfect and came out side-eyeing pretty much everyone in the room. The nurses got a kick out of her facial expressions and in just the three months since her birth she’s already so opinionated and expressive.

The scary part of Marlow’s birth story came afterwards when we realized that my placenta actually had way more blood vessels than it was supposed to. I think it ended up having something like five or six and the midwife said that it was a miracle that my body knew it was time to get her and the placenta out before anything bad happened. Processing that information has been a little challenging which is why it’s taken so long for me to write this and to write anything in general.

Overall, I’m so blessed to have had two easy labor and deliveries with two healthy and happy babies. I don’t know if this is our last baby or not but if it is, I’m so happy to have had the experiences I did giving birth to both Jasper and Marlow.

Marlow's Birth Story - Positive Induction Birth Story

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