Vienna’s Birth Story

Vienna Rose Raudonis
Born February 11, 2018 at 4:53am
8 pounds & 19.25 inches

Whoa, it’s been a while since I last posted. Obviously from the title of this post, you know that I gave birth to my daughter Vienna. These first few weeks have been a whirlwind. Between trying to nap when Vienna naps and breastfeeding/pumping, I don’t have a lot of free time right now. I’m being kind to myself and just taking things day by day. I’m not going to sugar coat anything. It certainly hasn’t been easy.

Today, I wanted to hop back on the blog and talk all about Vienna’s birth story. Why? Many of you were curious about her birth and DM’d me about it on Instagram. I got back to the majority of you, but I figured there’s probably other people who might be interested to hear about my birthing experience as well. As someone who is very Type A and loves to plan… Vienna’s birth taught me that sometimes there’s nothing you can do but go with the flow. 

So, grab a cup of coffee or tea and let’s get into it. This is going to be a long post.

Week 39

Before we discuss the actual birth, we have to back up a bit and talk about my last week of pregnancy. At the start of week 39, I was 2cm dilated, but wanted to kick start labor. I scheduled a membrane sweep with my OB Gyn. If you’re not familiar, a membrane sweep is when the doctor tries to open the cervix and separates the membranes of the amniotic sac from the cervix. This releases hormones which can help start labor. It sounds painful, I know. The sweep definitely wasn’t comfortable, but it wasn’t nearly as painful as I thought it would be. My doctor was able to get me to 3cm dilated and seemed confident that I’d go into labor within 48 hours.

A few days later on Wednesday, I started having contractions at night which didn’t last very long. I wanted to make sure everything was alright so I scheduled another appointment with my doctor. On Thursday, February 8, my doctor told me that I need to go to the hospital if I’m having frequent contractions. She checked to make sure baby was head down, did a second membrane sweep, and told me to go home and rest.

Contractions started again during the early hours on Friday, February 9. I started timing them and they were anywhere between 7 minutes apart to eventually 3-4 minutes apart. I woke Bryan up and told him that we needed to grab our bags and head to the hospital. I wasn’t sure if the contractions would eventually stop like the ones I had earlier in the week, but I wanted to follow my doctor’s orders and make sure we were in the hospital in case this was the real thing.

We got to the hospital around 1:30am and were admitted to triage. The nurse checked my cervix and I was still 3cm dilated. Baby was head down but she wasn’t too far into the birth canal. The contractions were still 3-4 minutes apart, so the nurse had me walk up and down the halls for 2 hours to try to push baby down and further dilate. Bryan and I must have walked the same hallway at least a few hundred times until 4am. The first hour and a half was absolutely horrible. The contractions were getting more and more intense and I had to stop to breathe through them. I even started hysterically crying during some. During the last half hour of walking, the contractions stopped completely. It was so strange. I went from being in pain to feeling fine. When I told the nurse, she said that these false labor contractions could happen. I was devastated because I thought I would be able to meet our baby, but it wasn’t the case. After a very exhausting night, we were sent back home. I told myself that I wasn’t going back to the hospital unless my water breaks. The rest of Friday was pretty normal. I slept from 5am until about noon and even did some work for my full-time job from home. 

The next day, Saturday, Bryan and I walked around Ikea and went food shopping in hopes that exercise would make my water break. I was having light contractions on and off all day, but I didn’t want to be sent home again from the hospital. I just dealt with them and drank a lot of water. I felt pretty good, went to bed and told Bryan that I didn’t think the baby was coming any time soon.

Vienna’s Birthday

My water broke around 2am on Sunday, February 11 – just hours after telling Bryan I thought baby girl was never coming. I was sleeping and felt the need to use the bathroom, so I turned over and then heard a pop. I felt a trickle of water coming down my leg, and rushed out of bed. When I stood up, more water started coming down and I hobbled to the bathroom. I remember thinking, “I’m pretty sure my water just broke. That was NOT urine!” I woke Bryan up and I called my OB Gyn’s office. I was directed to a random doctor on call {not part of my normal OB practice}, who told me to head to the hospital and that she’d meet me there. Within 30 minutes, we were on the way to the hospital for round two. I kept telling myself that my water definitely broke and I started feeling anxious about what was going to happen once we got to the hospital. Bryan and I were fully prepared to walk the halls for hours again because I wasn’t feeling any contractions. In fact, I felt absolutely normal. No weird pains or anything!

Once we arrived at the hospital, I was placed in a wheel chair and moved up to the triage wing of labor and delivery. I remember almost blacking out in the elevator. I was overwhelmed with nerves and everything went white for a moment. It was so strange. I didn’t even realize it happened until Bryan asked me if I was feeling alright. When we got up to triage, the nurse ran a test to make sure my water had actually broken. Sure enough it had. This was the real thing. There was no going home at this point. We were having a baby!

This is when my memory gets a bit fuzzy. After confirming that my water had broken, the doctor felt my belly to make sure baby was head down. Since I was at the hospital 48 hours before, I was confident that baby was good to go. I mean, why wouldn’t she be?! The doctor poked and prodded my belly, gave a weird look, and didn’t say anything for what felt like forever. I told her, “I already know that baby is head down. I was just here on Friday morning and the midwife did an ultrasound.” She told me that she had to double check something and turned on the ultrasound machine. Within a minute, she told me that baby was breech and that I’d need a c-section. My heart dropped and I started bawling my eyes out.

Throughout my pregnancy, baby was always head down. I had numerous exams and not one showed baby breech. Because of this, I researched everything I could about a vaginal birth. I read articles about pain management, talked to friends about tearing and vomiting during delivery, chatted with random people in Facebook groups, etc. I was prepared for anything… except a c-section. So when the doctor told me that baby flipped hours before my water broke, I had a mini meltdown. 

In a couple minutes, the nurses gave Bryan his scrubs for the operating room. He asked, “When are we going into surgery?” to which they said, “Within the hour.” OMG, I was freaking out. I knew that we’d be having the baby that day, but I didn’t realize that it would be so quickly. The anesthesiologist explained everything about the procedure, and at 4:20 I walked into the operating room {I remember the exact time because the nurse said it as we entered.} Bryan wasn’t allowed in the OR until I was already given the spinal tap and prepped for surgery. He waited in a separate room by himself and told me afterward that it was the longest 20 minutes of his life. 

I was so nervous for the spinal tap, but honestly it didn’t hurt at all. Just a small pinch! Afterward, the doctors and nurses laid me down on the operating table and we waited for the anesthesia to kick in. Bryan was allowed to come into the room at this point as we waited for baby to be delivered. I didn’t know what was happening because they put a drape across my chest. A few minutes went by and I asked the anesthesiologist if they had started the surgery yet. Apparently they had been working for a little while, and I didn’t feel a thing – not even the pushing and pulling that I was warned about. The only discomfort I had was shakes from all the anesthesia. I remember feeling so cold, even with warm blankets across my shoulders and a heater nearby. At 4:53, I heard Vienna cry and all my nerves went away. They held her up so I could get a quick look at her. I was shocked with the amount of hair she had! 

It took a long time for the doctor to stitch me back up. It felt like forever. I wasn’t able to hold Vienna right away, which was the absolute worst part about having a c-section. You know all those cute photos of emotional moms holding their baby immediately after delivery? I didn’t get that. While the doctor was finishing the surgery, Bryan took Vienna to get weighed and cleaned up. I heard her crying the whole time and all I wanted to do was hold my baby and see her up close. Eventually they brought her over to me and I was able to give her a kiss and hold her hand. 

After surgery, I was wheeled into a recovery room where I was able to hold and breastfeed Vienna, and have some quality bonding time. Bryan did skin to skin as well. We made calls to our family and friends and soaked in the first couple hours with our baby. 

Although my delivery story wasn’t what I expected it to be, I’m incredibly grateful to have a healthy baby girl. Bryan and I feel so blessed.

“On the night you were born, the moon smiled with such wonder that the stars peeked in to see you. 
And the night wind whispered, ‘Life will never be the same,’
because there had never been anyone like you ever in the world.”
– On The Night You Were Born by Nancy Tillman