Cosette's Story

WARNING: This is the long version...I wanted to capture our full experience while I could still remember the details. I never want to forget this day.

Our beautiful daughter, Cosette Amber Gieseke, came earlier than we were expecting! We had planned a repeat c-section for next Wednesday 1/18 which is one week before her due date of 1/25. Since I didn't go into labor on my own with Jackson, it didn't seem possible that I would with this second baby, so we were resigned to a planned surgery and all of our plans revolved around that date.

Wednesday morning (1/11) started out frantically and little did I know that it would set the pace for the rest of the day. For the first time, I had hired a house cleaner to do a full sweep of the place and I was really excited to have our home super clean for the arrival of the baby next week and all of the visitors that would come with it. I got a call at 9am saying that the cleaners would be there in 1/2 hour, which is 2 hours earlier that my appointment, so I was running around the house, trying to get dressed, get Jack up, and do last minute tidying so they could really do a deep clean in all of those annoying corners. It ending up being a big case of hurry up and wait as they were very late. The cleaners ended up doing a really poor job so I spent the rest of the afternoon when they left doing heavy house cleaning to just get it done. I felt so motivated, a feeling I haven't known in months, and that should have been an indication that this wasn't a normal day. I was having minor contractions all day, but didn't pay any attention and kept cleaning.

Later in the afternoon Jack and I visited my doctor and had an nice talk about the c-section next week and got all of the paperwork lined up. During dinner at home I had more small contractions, but didn't even mention them to Dan because they always turned into nothing and I didn't want to get worked up about it. We got Jackson to bed and collapsed on the couch to watch TV together. Dan's goal was to get to bed before 9pm because he was exhausted. I told him that the baby was now allowed to be born since the house was clean and I had finally typed up instructions for Jackson's care for our hospital stay.

Around 8:30pm I noticed the clock and that the contractions were consistently coming every 10 minutes. Weird, I thought. Sometime during "Modern Family" we noticed that they were close to every 5 minutes and getting uncomfortable enough to make me want to some kind of breathing to cope. Dan was getting a little concerned, but I kept telling him that we should get ready for bed and they weren't that bad. His worry only increased when I dropped to my knees on the bathmat while brushing my teeth to handle a contraction. We finally started an official timer and found they were coming every 3-5 minutes and were 30 seconds long. Hmmm, what is going on? we thought.

That's when we started doing brilliant things, like Google searches for "when do I go to the hospital?" (shameful for a Bradley childbirth class grad, right?), and texting friends to say "Umm, what are you doing right now and would you maybe want to watch Jackson all night?"

I called my Dad at 10pm to say that I was having a lot of contractions and didn't want to freak him out if we called back in the middle of the night to give an update on the baby. He asked "what did the doctor say?" and that's when it occurred to me to call the doctor. I called and they said to come to the hospital because the baby needed to be monitored. In a matter of minutes we went from the thought that we should get to bed to the thought that we hadn't packed a single thing or us or Jackson or the baby, weren't 100% on where we could drop him off, and weren't even sure we had time to drop him and still make it to the hospital before the contractions completely took over. They were every 3 minutes!

I finally got to experience one of those rites of passage for moms: the car-ride from hell (for those Bradley Grads like us, that's when I went from a "Chatty Cathy" to a "Serious Susan"). Jackson was wide-eyed, talking and very happy to be up at 10:30pm driving into the night. Dan was making excited phone calls to family and trying to work out plans with the Zubers to meet us and take Jackson overnight. I was having awful contractions every 2-3 minutes, between which I was yelling at Dan to hang up the phone because the people he was calling were "idiots" and were asking too many questions (not sure where that came from, but sorry everyone).

We parked, hobbled to the wrong door of the hospital, then hobbled around the building to the night entrance and finally got inside where I got a room, a gown, and a stack of things to sign (because of the c-section plans, we hadn't done pre-admitance forms). The nurses checked me and I was at 3cm, 90% effaced - officially in real labor. We had to decide whether to go straight to surgery and do the c-section right away, or try for a VBAC (vaginal birth after Cesarian). Fortunately I had no reservations about this decision and felt like the Lord had made the decision abundantly clear to me.

There were strict criteria that had to be in place in our minds to even talk about a VBAC:
1. labor starting naturally before the scheduled c-section date - check
2. labor progressing quickly and efficiently - check
3. reason to believe that this baby was at least a pound smaller than Jackson - check, an ultrasound showed she was about 6-1/2 lbs
4. no reason to be concerned about the baby or my health - check

I didn't even ask Dan before signing the forms. We were doing the VBAC and it was going to work this time!!! It hardly seemed possible that these criteria were all fulfilled. I started to get excited about meeting the baby. It was 11pm when we started the process for the epidural and I stopping being able to talk or listen during contractions that were coming fast and frequently.

Once it was placed, the epidural had very little effect on my pain for a long time. The anesthesiologist was concerned that it was placed incorrectly and kept fiddling with the dosage and asking questions that were hard to answer. The 10 minute window during which it was suppose to work widened and widened and the only thing getting me through each contraction was watching the clock and thinking that I would only need to feel these for a few more minutes. Finally they checked my progress and I had dilated from 3 to 7cm in an hour! The epidural was "working" but couldn't keep up with the speed of my progress and so I was still feeling everything. The doctors breathed more easily and I kept trying to focus on surviving each wave of contractions. These were more intense than what I had felt with Jackson's birth because I was progressing so fast.

1 hr 15 min after the epidural had been placed things finally calmed down in every way. I was much more comfortable and able to relax, but my progress slowed down. Around 1am Dan and I both decided to get some rest as we waited to get to 10cm. This is the point were everything really hit me. I was having my baby that day! I was going for the VBAC after all and against all I had planned for! I got really excited thinking about our girl. I couldn't get much rest and I was watching the clock for a whole other set of reasons: I couldn't wait the another minute to meet her! Dan, meanwhile, crunched up on the horrible chair-bed and passed out for several hours. Good thing, because he would need his strength as much as I would. He also spent much of his time texting friends/family about our progress, which is unfortunate because Dan is terrible at this texting and kept asking me (during contractions sometimes) how to insert a number or symbol in his text. I wasn't very receptive to these questions.

I got checked around 3am and was 8cm, so the doctor broke my water to keep the progress going. Another check around 4:30am showed that I was "complete" or 10cm. That was exciting because I was worried that the epidural had caused me to slow down so much that there would be a lot more waiting before getting to 10cm.

The nurse asked if I felt the need to push. I didn't really, but I was so excited to get her out that we decided to get set up for delivery and start pushing really soon. I was all excitement, hope, and confidence. I wanted to call the family and tell them that she would be here any time now, but it was so early in the morning that it seemed a little rash. It was 5:15am when we started pushing. I had completely forgotten the art and craft of this stage of labor.

Pushing a baby out with an epidural is very tricky. The blessing of not being able to feel much backfires when you are expending a lot of energy and effort into pushing in the wrong way. I tried to remember what we had practiced at the Bradley classes when I was pregnant with Jack. That helped a little bit, but I just couldn't get my efforts going in the right direction. As time passed and we pushed with each contraction, I started to get frantic. My nurse was sweet and quiet as she helped us count to 10 on each push, but that's all she was saying. I needed her to "fix" what I was doing wrong. An hour went by and I started asking Dan for more encouragement as I was getting tired and the baby was moving, but certainly wasn't about to pop out.

I would ask the nurse if I was doing it right and she said, "You're doing ok, but we still have some work to do." That was very frustrating. I was doing a lot of work and not much was going on. This is just like last time, I started to think. I couldn't escape the thought: I failed at this point last time and it will be the same way this time. I can't do this. I started to break down emotionally as this sunk in. I felt trapped in this space between labor and delivery and I would never get out. I got choked up and couldn't explain why. I needed a cheerleader to tell me to keep going. Dan started to get more verbal and enthusiastic about my efforts, which is what I really wanted. I was praying and crying a lot. I needed strength that was not my own and was not of this body, otherwise I would fail again. There was a point when I realized how mental this was and how I would never do this if I believed that I could not. I prayed that God would help me turn the corner from despair to determination in this process.

Around that time (7am and almost 2 hours into pushing) there was a shift change and we said goodbye to sweet little Kristen and hello to feisty Kathy. It was unbelievable how this take-charge nurse brought a new wave of hope to my situation. I had started to have increasing back pain despite the epidural and it made it really hard to hunch my body in the way they wanted me to to push correctly. Kathy stepped in and turned me on my side, off of my back, and made it so I had the power to keep trying. She had a new nurse shadowing her, so we had extra hands and she explained everything out loud to the new girl, which I loved hearing.

Dan was rubbing my seizing back during rest breaks and helping me push during contractions, so he was very busy. Family was calling and we didn't have time to answer at that point. Everyone got a lot more instructive and verbal about how to push correctly and I made a lot more progress in getting the baby out. I had a glimmer of hope that this could be accomplished and I wouldn't end up on the surgical table yet again after laboring.

The doctor came in and checked her position. It seemed like she was facing towards the back, which is the correct position, and maybe tilted a little to one side. She tried to turn her to make everything come out more smoothly. Jackson was faced upward (posterior position, which is incorrect and much harder to push out) and I was happy that she was facing the right way. Dr. Wang was very loud, blunt, and I was inspired to push as well as I could when she was there, even though it was excruciating on my back to curl into the right position.

At 8am the doctor suggested that I just couldn't get over the last hump and needed a little assistance. We were prefect canidates for using the vacuum extractor to assist the delivery. She said she expected a 70-80% chance of success with this method, but there was a small risk to the baby. That small risk seemed worthwhile in comparison to another c-section, so we decided to go for it. The doc got called away and we had to wait about 25 minutes for her to come back for the procedure. We decided to stop pushing on contractions until she returned to use the vacuum. The catch with the vacuum was that I only had 3 contractions to push her out. That meant up to 9 pushes left. They would have to be the last and best efforts of this delivery. This was our last chance.

As I lay there enduring the back labor and waiting for the last 9 pushes, I felt so relieved that end was in sight. Everyone told me that I could do it and she would be out, but I still doubted that I couldn't give enough and she would be truly stuck a tiny distance from entering the world. Then what?

The doctor came back, set up the vacuum, and starting yelling at me to push hard and keep pushing. She was screaming at me and I loved it. It was just what I needed to give every last ounce of strength to the effort. In one push she came rushing forward. In another push her head was out and her body followed quickly behind. Everyone was yelling and excited. I was so happy that God had answered by prayers for strength. The nurses put her straight on my cheast and wiped her down. She was so warm and sticky and screaming her head off. I kept telling Dan, here she is, this is her. She was so beautiful, she was ours and she was out!

6lb, 13oz, 21 in long, born at 8:40am

She was delivered face up in posterior position, just like Jackson! Even with all of the checks and trying to turn her, she popped out upside down again, which probably contributed to making her so hard to get out. That explains the back labor, the doctor said.

Dan cut the cord and we held her for so long. It was unbelievable to have her in my arms instead of in the nursery right away as would happen during a c-section. They never took her out of the room. We held her, watched her, and were amazed. I continue to be so thankful for the prayers of everyone and the way God got me through the dark moments of this process and gave us a healthy daughter. I really know the strength and direction I got were not my own. We love our beautiful girl and can't stop smiling and holding her. Thank you for you love and support and for reading this long account.

Love, Jessie and Dan