Birth of Benedict James

Benedict James Xavier

April 14th, 2018 | 3:52pm

8lbs. 10oz. | 20 3/4 in.

Aurora, CO

My first ever, non-induced contractions started Thursday evening April 5th after a day at the zoo with friends. It was the day before my due date and I was thrilled to be laboring on my own after needing an induction with Cana at 42 weeks. However, around 1am, all of my contractions an back labor abruptly stopped. The same thing happened on and off for the next few days. Prodromal Labor. Every pregnant woman's nightmare. Because of my on and off contractions, I made an appointment Monday morning (April 9th). Amy, the midwife, checked me and I was barely 1cm dilated; however, she said she would be shocked if I made it to the end of the week without having my baby. We decided to schedule an induction for that Friday, April 13th, starting with a foley balloon placement (a balloon placed in the cervix to help dilate it). Friday morning came and no baby. I woke up and joked to Frankie, "You still think I have time to start labor on my own? What if my water breaks?" Wishful thinking. I fully knew I was being induced at that point and I had made my peace. 

I arrived at my appointment, Amy checked my cervix and I was dilated 1.5cm on the outer edge and 3cm on the inner edge of my cervix. Perfect for a balloon placement. We prepped the materials, discussed the procedure, and we were ready to go. Just as Amy went to begin at 9am, she saw my water break. It wasn't a gush and I didn't notice at all, but I was overjoyed that in LITERALLY the last second before I was going to be induced, my body did what it needed to do! 

They did a non-stress test on the baby and he just barely failed, so they were going to send me to the hospital for more monitoring. However, at the last minute, they decided to let me go home and labor on my own for 12hrs. 

I went to Frankie's moms house where Cana was and hung out hoping contractions would pick up on their own. I had on and off contractions until 6:30pm when my midwife called and asked us to come in early to make sure we got a room for the night because they were filling up. We settled in and went for a walk hoping contractions would speed up. Around 11pm we decided to start the lowest dose of pitocin to move things along. And they did! 

Contractions that I couldn't sleep through started regularly at 2am, 1-3 minutes apart. By 6am I needed to work through each contraction with Frankie, on the ball, sitting, or standing, couldn't talk or walk through them but managed each one with low breaths and moans. I felt really strong and excited to be laboring! 

Around 10am I wanted to get in the shower and it felt good to walk around the room between contractions. These suddenly felt different, very low pain in my pubic bone, like baby was going to fall out with every contraction. I hadn't felt this way with Cana so I asked to be checked by the midwife. My irrational fear was that I'd deliver him all alone in the shower! Haha

At 11am I was checked and at 3cm, 80% effaced, station -1. I was kind of disappointed to only be 3cm after it had been over 24hrs into my water breaking and 9hrs into 1-3 minute apart contractions. But I was doing ok and decided a hot shower would help.

I got in the shower and the hot water helped contractions so much! They seemed to space out a tiny bit and I could really relax between them finally. We were laughing and talking as I stood in the hot water. I could almost forget I was in labor, I felt so great! 

I decided to get out around 11:30, still feeling fine. However, once out and back on the monitors, contractions got really intense and close together and I suddenly felt drained of all my energy. For the next hour I cried constantly and told Frankie I needed to be done. This was a DRASTIC change. I went from 0-60 it seemed in minutes. I moaned "no no no" through each contraction and felt filled with fear of the next one. My nurse suggested trying nitrous oxide gas to help me cope and so she sent for that.

At this point things were so intense I don't remember anything but constant pain and the gas didn't even touch it. After about five minutes of using the gas, I caved and begged for an epidural, thinking if this is what 3cm feels like, there's no way I could continue for another 8-12hrs to get to 10cm! I cried and apologized to Frankie so much. I felt like a failure for "giving up." But I was constantly supported by my midwife, nurse and Frankie in telling me just how awesome I had done and was doing. I was not a failure and I was not giving up!

Around 12:30 the anesthesiologist who had just brought in the gas, was immediately called back in to place my epidural. The room filled with people and it seemed to take forever.

Getting the epidural placed was awful because I couldn't move or cope through contractions how I wanted to. They were still getting closer and ten times more intense. 

During placement, the anesthesiologist asked how far dilated I was and the midwife said "3cm as of  an hour ago, so let's stick with that." So he gave me the "3cm dilated" dose. Finally the epidural was placed and I was told I could lay on my side. At this point my water fully started leaking (it hadn't leaked since it originally broke the morning before) and it was stained with meconium.

I still felt everything, but was told within 3 contractions I'd feel better. The third one came and I felt relief in my lower back and abdomen, but all of a sudden I felt EXCRUCIATING pain down low. I started screaming and told my nurse I felt burning and pressure so bad that I thought the baby was coming right then. I had never felt the "ring of fire" before but this seemed like it would fit the name! 

The nurse tried to calm me down and said it was probably just pressure from me needing to pee but it felt weird due to the epidural. She said she would place a catheter soon. But I couldn't stop screaming from the pressure and pain and I knew something was going on. Noticing my pain, she quickly called the midwife. Ann came in and also tried to brush it off a bit, thinking there's no way it could be baby coming; but to double check and to calm my nerves, she decided to do another cervical check. Within a second of inserting her fingers I heard "she's complete. Baby is coming." It was 2pm at this point. I had gone from 3cm to 10cm in 2.5 hours. Apparently I was in transition during the epidural placement and didn't even know it... and because they had given me a lower dose of medication in my epidural, I was feeling all of the pain, except in my abdomen. 

The midwife asked me to push to see what baby would do, and when I did he was still slightly high so we decided to wait until he descended a little more. After about an hour, everyone came back in and we decided to do a practice push to see what would happen. I gave one little push from my side with one leg lifted and we saw his head right there! We were all a little surprised! Everyone quickly got gowned and gloved, they called in the pediatric team in case the baby swallowed meconium fluid, and they placed a mirror so I could see myself push.

I gave one big push and delivered his head. The midwife unwrapped the cord from around his head TWICE, and noticed he came out face down, head tilted to the right. I was worried about the cord but they assured me it wasn't worrisome. She then asked me to give a couple small pushes. I did one, two and then she asked for a final big push, and out came Benedict James, less than ten minutes from my first push. April 14th, 2018. 3:52pm. 

I helped pull my sweet boy to my chest and immediately my heart sank... He was limp, bright blue, not breathing. They cut his cord long so the blood could continue to drain into him a bit, and rushed him to the pediatric team, who thankfully was waiting in the room. Frankie followed to be with him. He immediately started to gurgle as they suctioned him out due to aspirating meconium fluid. Frankie heard the pediatrician say his heart rate was alarming, but next thing you know, they asked Frankie to cut his cord shorter as they prepared him to come back to me. I was seconds away from yelling "Frankie, baptize him!" when I heard my midwife say he was on his way back to me. Within five minutes of his birth, Benedict was brought back to me for skin to skin time. He began nursing immediately and didn't stop for over an hour. Healthy as can be! Those five minutes were heart wrenching and awful, but praise God, our strong boy recovered quickly! 

So despite being overdue by a week, labor taking forever to start after my water broke, and things moving slowly in the beginning, this boy decided to come fast a furious in the end! I didn't quite understand how crazy everything was until my midwife recapped it all with me afterwards and explained how utterly shocked she was by the entire process herself! 

We are so madly in love with our little man and wouldn't dream of changing a single thing about how he entered this world. I am so blessed to have such a supportive husband, who labored with me so well, snuck me food, and reassured me constantly when I was struggling. God is so good!

The Birth of Cana Marie

When I found out I was pregnant, I began reading countless womens birth stories online. I became a bit of a junkie. And I'm not ashamed to admit how much they made me cry... Hormones, right? So now, as I think about writing Cana's birth story, you know I'm a hot mess of emotion. Just thinking about the hours days leading up to her birth, I can't help but find tears in my eyes. It was an amazing and life changing time; and although no one else could ever read this and feel the way I do, I'm still going to type it all out. So here we go!

When we began thinking about the type of birth we wanted to have (emphasis on thinking not planning), Frankie and I decided that we wanted to try and do things as naturally as possible. We read up on how the woman's body was uniquely created to grow and birth a child and trusted that my body was capable of natural child birth. We never swore off medical intervention completely, because we know it is very much needed sometimes. However, we wanted to enter into the process with courage and trust in Gods plan for my body.

When I went in for my 41 week appointment, my midwife (who was amazing and knew our wishes for birth) suggested that we schedule a day to be induced. Going much more overdue didn't sound safe to her and so we scheduled our induction for Friday, September 5th at 8pm. 41 weeks and 3 days.

I prayed for days that I'd go into labor on my own, but Friday night came and so we made our way to the hospital (after a quick dinner at chipotle, per daddy's request).

Once we checked in, we met our nurse and the midwife on duty and discussed our options for induction. Because we hadn't ever thought about being induced, neither Frankie or I knew much about the process. Come to find out, there were three options available to us. I could have pitocin, which would cause me to contract and dilate pretty intensely and I'd need constant fetal monitoring. I could have a balloon inserted into my cervix to slowly help it dilate. Or I could take a little pill called cytotec that would more naturally ripen my cervix, and slowly start contractions. We immediately said no to the pitocin, knowing it has some pretty unfavorable side effects and sorry, but the balloon in my cervix sounded just about horrid. Definitely NO. So we went with the Cytotec.

After receiving my first dose, we were told it could take hours to begin producing signs of labor. We decided to try and sleep and trust things would get kick started by morning. Correct we were.

After a kind-of-sleepless night (nurses, beeping sounds, uncomfortable bed, etc), I woke up with some pretty solid contractions. YAY! When the midwife came in to check on me, she said I was still only 1cm... Booooo! However, I was feeling contractions and so I gathered all of my patience and enjoyed my hospital French toast (highly recommended).

After visits from Frankie's mom, sister, dad, step mom, and my parents (who were all totally not impatient or excited in any way... Lol), my contractions were getting worse. Stronger. Longer. Closer. Les Mis. I was a "champ" though and focused on walking, bouncing on a birthing ball (which my legs were totally too long for), bathing in the spa like tub (legs also too long), and of course, eating more free hospital food (club sandwich, highly recommended).

By Saturday afternoon, I was ready for guest to vanish. There's something about moaning in horrible waves of pain that makes you want a little privacy. Shocker. Thankfully, we have amazing family and they totally knew when to give us our space. Just in time. Because a few hours (minutes? Hour? I have no idea) later things got really intense when I was introduced to the lovely demon known as pitocin.

I decided to sit in the tub again, because seriously.... Water + contractions = very slight relief. But it was better than bed. However, things began to get a lot stronger and I was massively overheating in the lava water, so I got out and laid back in bed. Never to leave again...

It feels like seconds after I laid in the bed, the nurse and midwife rushed in. Things may have been a lot calmer than I describe, but it seemed to me like all hell broke loose. In between some severe contractions that were only about 30 seconds apart, I remember having an oxygen mask shoved on my face and worrying only about the state of my earrings that were falling out because of the shoving. Priorities, folks... I tried ripping the darn mask off, but my attempts were futile. The midwife informed us that they were having trouble tracking my contractions and baby's heart rate was struggling every time I contracted. Suddenly, my earrings were the last thing on my mind. I began to cry and stress out that my sweet baby was in terrible trouble.

When the midwife first checked me earlier that morning, we discovered that Cana was posterior (face up) and that my cervix was fully posterior as well (totally behind the baby's head, instead of straight down). Because of this, I had horrible back labor and wasn't dilating even with the cytotec. After the oxygen mask fuss, our midwife needed to check me again. Because of the position of my cervix, being checked was one of the most painful things I've ever experienced. I cried and begged her to stop the entire time. I do not joke when I say cervical checks were the most painful part of my entire labor and delivery! When she was done, she said I was only 2.5 cm dilated (after almost 15 hours of labor, everyone was pissed). Because of the intensity of my contractions, but no progress in dilation, we had to wait a few hours to see if I was able to receive more pitocin or cytotec (too strong of contractions could be very negative for baby, as we already had seen). So we waited. And I felt like death. Dreading the thought of more pitocin...

I don't remember much of the next few hours because the contractions seemed non stop and nothing else was happening. I do remember, however, thinking so intensely about a c-section. I almost begged God to allow something to happen that would require me to have an emergency c-section (the only reason our hospital would preform one). I felt defeated. I kept everything to myself, because it felt if I mentioned an epidural or pain medication, I would be a failure. After all, wasn't my body made for this? I felt like a wuss... Thanks, devil.

Eventually, the nurse came back in and said my contractions had spaced out enough, and baby's heart rate was doing a little better, so they wanted to start me on another dose of pitocin, this time, twice as much. Oh. Hell. No.

I cried and began shaking uncontrollably. I was as exhausted as they come and felt so defeated. I whispered to Frankie, "What if I get the pain medicine?" (The nurse offered an IV narcotic to try that wasn't as extensive as an epidural). He reminded me that I was brave and strong and that it didn't matter how our little girl entered the world, as long as she was healthy and I was healthy. Together we prayed and finally I was able to understand that getting pain medication wasn't the end of the world! So in came the IV meds and they helped enough to just barely take the edge off of my contractions. I was able to relax in between each contraction and actually calmed my mind and heart a bit. Praise God!

After some time (I had no concept of time at this point), the drugs wore off and the pitocin was about to begin again. I was in intense pain again and still so terrified of the pitocin that, again I whispered to my sweet husband... "What if I get the epidural? Am I a failure?" Again, he encouraged me, we prayed and we talked with our midwife about the last 24 hours. After hearing Frankie and our midwife re-tell the events of my labor (induction, posterior baby, posterior cervix, slow dilation, prodromal labor, struggling baby, feverish mama, lack of sleep, contractions almost on top of each other for more than 15 hours, etc) I realized I wasn't a failure (especially since there's no such thing as a failure when it comes to birthing a baby! Every way is still ridiculously hard, let's be real). I'd been through hell and there was no way anyone could say I didn't experience "natural labor." Sure I wouldn't have a natural birth, but I was satisfied knowing I experienced a very large portion of my labor naturally. My pride was satisfied... Bring on the epidural (and another round of narcotics while we wait, if you don't mind)!

Once the epi-dude came in and I knew relief was moments away, my entire body began to relax. Again, because we hadn't planned on getting an epidural, we knew not of what it entailed. The epi-dude (seriously, it's an official term guys) explained the process to us as he began hooking me up to the good stuff. I was very surprised that nothing about getting the epidural hurt and I was very, very pleased to learn that I would still have control over my legs! Being able to change position in bed and lift my legs enough to push made me feel like I still had some control over the delivery process.

Now, as upset as I initially was about getting an epidural, it was seriously God's gift to me! Not because I didn't feel [as much] pain, but because I got to experience the birth of my daughter in a very aware and calm state of mind. It was such a gift!

Once the epidural kicked in, I actually SLEPT! Miracle of miracles, folks! And while I slept, I was gifted with something even more amazing: dilation! I went from about 2cm pre-epidural to 9.5cm in just about three, sleepy hours! No wonder I woke up feeling like the epidural had stopped working! We called the midwife in to check on me and when she announced I was almost ready to push, Frankie got on the phone to alert our family. It was about 4am and shift change would be at 7! We told Claudia, our midwife that she was not allowed to leave until we had this baby. She highly agreed.

For the next hour, we got things ready (well, everyone else did, I just laid there) and around 5, Claudia came in with a new nurse (thank God because the one we had was not the kindest of ladies... Lol) and we began to push!!!

I'm going to bare it all here and share a bit of delivery room humor with you. When I began pushing, Claudia explained that I should push as if I was having a bowl movement. So I pushed. Hard! Claudia then said, "wow that was amazing! Are you sure this is your first baby?" To which my delirious self replied, "Well I do poop a lot..." Ha. Ha. Ha. No shame.

Any way... As I kept pushing, eventually her head appeared! Frankie actually took a peak and instead of looking disgusted like we both thought, he beamed with joy and when Claudia offered to get a mirror for me to see, Frankie highly encouraged it! I was super hesitant, but after plenty of urging, I caved. Boy am I glad I did. Do you know how encouraging it was to see the progress my pushing was making? How amazing it was to see my little girls full head of hair? How insane my heart felt knowing she was just a few inches from being out of my womb and into my arms? Incredible.

As I was pushing I remember feeling so excited, yet not at all in a rush. Although it was incredibly hard, I cherished every push. I didn't mind that I had to push for over an hour, because that hour felt utterly perfect. I can't say for sure, but I truly feel that if I did not have the epidural, that magical hour of pushing would have instead been a blur (and possible torture). Seriously, God knew what I needed.

Finally, I looked in the mirror one last time, and pushed. She was here! In an instant I had a slimy girl on my chest, a crying husband at my side and a love so intense filling every cell of my body.

Cana Marie Xavier, born September 7th 2014 at 6:11am.  

Praise be to God.