ANNOUNCING SAMARA JANE OOSTEROM!

Our Birth Story

Well this week started out like most weeks, Sunday we went to church, went home and hung out. My husband served me and loved on me and I probably grumped a bit about how huge I was and enjoyed some snuggles and talked to my tummy...

Monday rolled around and my husband went to work... I on the other hand called the midwife to tell her that I had been leaking clear fluid for 2 days and was that something I should be concerned about. 

I was told to go to the emergency right away (so I did) and we went through the stress test and tried to sample the fluid to see if it was my water breaking. We couldn't get enough of a sample and so I went home to time my "contractions." 

Blood tests and bracelets.

I called again when I leaked more fluid and had a blood clot (those suckers aren't supposed to be present ever in your pregnancy!) I was told to get to the hospital right away. 

I didn't have time to wait for my husband.

I didn't have time to pack the car. 

I didn't have time to do anything except get into the car and drive myself (scared as heck) to the hospital.

My husband beat me there and was anxiously waiting, little did we know we would be there for the next 3 days!

We went through the whole deal and signed in at emergency, made our way up to maternity, got hooked up to the stress test, got checked for dilation and considered our options. Truth be told we didn't have many because my water was thought to have broken and that had been 24 hours previous to now because I hadn't told anyone about this leaking fluid until that Monday morning. The problem with your water breaking and no labour is that the barrier between your baby and the outside world is gone and so there is a huge increase of the possibility of infection for both you and your baby. 

This is what the stress test looks like on.

So my options were to get my labor going as naturally as possible (you get a drug 'pitocen' that helps your body start labouring naturally) or I could choose the drug that gets labor going seriously (oxytocin).

This is how the stress test
reader looks.

Well I did NOT want either options, but more than that I didn't want my baby to get an infection and need an emergency c-section so I opted for option A - a very gentle dose of pitocen to start the labour process. At this point I was not dilated at all and I had to get an IV inserted (I opted for my hand as usual). 

The good news was that our friends were able to help us get one of our vehicles home so we wouldn't have to pay to park two. My husband was able to eat and pack up the stuff we were supposed to bring on the first trip. Then our friends helped him to bring it all up, say a quick hello to me and while they were all busy doing those things I was able to get the IV in, my blood tested and the pitocen inserted without the support of my husband which was very brave of me!

The pitocen was introduced at 11 pm on Monday night and had 12 hours to work it's magic with my body. 

A couple of things to know are that 1. pitocen can need up to three doses to work (kick your body into serious labour). 2. I didn't have that option because the clock was running in my case due to the fact that my water had possibly broken. I chose pitocen over oxytocin because I wanted a natural labour and delivery and I wasn't sure I would be able to handle the pain at the rate it would come with the oxytocin. 

As your body labours it's naturally giving you pain killers so that as your labour intensifies you can keep going. When oxytocin is introduced, it is put into your body through a drip and every 20-30 minutes that dose it upped until your body is in full blown labour. It acts quickly and your body doesn't have enough time to help you out. At least this is how I understood it to be and I didn't want to chance the c-section as I couldn't have an epidural.

Back to 11 pm on Monday. I went into labour, we moved into our room and waited. For hours! To top everything off I wasn't allowed to eat because the anesthetist was worried that I would have to have a c-section and without an epidural as an option I guess I would have been put under local anesthetic. I was also getting poked for my diabetes reading regularly (eye roll) and labour was going slowly. The fact that my body did respond to the pitocen was a good sign but things weren't moving fast enough. I even tried pumping for a few hours as the stimulation is supposed to help get labour going as well. I got NOTHING. Happily our baby girl was calm throughout the whole ordeal. 

Tense Machine

Laughing Gas isn't Funny

They gave me a few hours extra because I was labouring naturally but it seemed to be slowing down and so option 2 came into play. Oxytocin. As of this moment I have taken the pitocen, I am already breathing laughing gas like an addict (this was because labour hurts which causes your body to tense naturally but for labour it needs to be relaxed. If you fight the labour process it drags out. The gas helps to relax your body even though it takes your brain for a dizzy trip and makes you feel terrible.) and I have a tense machine that's really helping from my doula. 

Can I just say that without my doula I would probably had the c-section! She was amazing and I am so grateful for every foot rub and back massage and for how amazing she was with getting Raymond involved. He was able to be my rock and got me through most of my labour pains. 

The tense machine sends a shock to where the pads are placed (on your lower back) and for me it helped me to focus on the shock instead of the contraction. Because the shock was controlled by me it really helped me to breath through each contraction and relax.

So here we are and now it's Tuesday, super late and I'm labouring, starting on the oxytocin and it kicks in pretty much right away. I'm telling you that labour up to that point was easy. It had felt hard at times plus I was tired and hungry which isn't a good combination for me but until that point nothing had prepared me for the "next level" I was sprinting towards. So the oxytocin kicks in and the next twelve hours inched by. Let me tell you why. 

I had only progressed to 1 cm dilation after 24 hours of labour. I hadn't slept or napped in over 24 hours and I hadn't eaten either. I was starting to loose my mind over the pain when the gas mask decided to pop off of my face as I was breathing in... repeatedly. I totally lost it. I threw the thing, I swore, I - WAS - ANGRY - and in intense pain... Not my most shining moment but right then and there I wasn't myself and I didn't care. Funnily enough my labour music was still playing and who knows what worship song was floating through the air in those moments but had I not been the one losing it I probably would have softly laughed and perhaps gotten kicked out of the room. Haha. 

So this incredible pain my body is working through is taking hours and my mind is really trying to stay calm but it is totally convinced that my body is going to be ripped in half and that I may just in fact not make it. Mostly due to the fact that I'm only 2 cm dilated at this point and I know that I can NOT do this for 2 or 3 more days. Not at this level of pain anyway. I've also had morphine drip into my veins at some point and while it was supposed to make the contractions feel shorter I would personally say that it was a total waste of a drug and didn't touch the pain. 

So we've come to the place where something has to be done. I need to re-group, calm down, become rational again and I need some hope. So I say "I want the c-section" and my midwife looks at me and she says "okay" and just like that I'm breathing again, I'm relaxing into the contractions again and nothing has changed, except my options. In those few seconds my brain had one thought. "What if I'm only an hour away from delivery. What if I've done all of this work, just to have the c-section and if I could have held on for just one more hour she would have come, I could have delivered her, all for giving up one hour too early."

I now know that God put that thought there because it wasn't rational according to the facts. The facts were that I was almost 3 days in, completely exhausted, in huge amounts of pain, totally spent and only 2 cm dilated. 

However God knows everything and so he put that thought in my brain and I said quickly "let's try a bath first." So we did. And somehow an hour later I was back to yelling and begging for morphine (which wouldn't have helped anyway), I was being ripped in half by my own body AND I was pushing? So they got me out of the tub pronto and I was so worried that my baby would fall on the floor as I walked from the tub to the bed. However it wasn't the baby, it was my water, that hadn't broken, but was why I was here on Wednesday morning at 5 something AM going through all of this in the first place. The midwife broke my water and things progressed quickly from there. Oh and in that hour I had gone from only 2 cm to full dilation - total miracle!

The amazing thing is that death wasn't near, life was. I thought I was dying but in reality I was okay and I was about to bring a live, healthy, happy baby girl into the world.

She's so clean!

Making faces at each other
already.

I didn't use the gas or the tense machine at the end, pushing her out was the easy part. The contractions got quiet and the pushing didn't hurt. It wasn't until her head was out that I yelled "GET HER OUT OF ME" and then there she was, on my chest, crying and so clean. Haha, that was my first thought, "she's so clean" and then I started to tell her she was okay and that mommy was here and she stopped crying and calmed right down and that's all I remember. The rest is a complete haze. I know they stitched me up and that Raymond was busy cutting the umbilical cord. I just remember holding her and being so incredibly happy and knowing that I could do this all over again if it was to get her.

So that's my story. I wasn't a saint. I had prayed for things and God had given them to me and I had prayed for others and he hadn't. I had asked for a tub in my room and it was there, waiting for me to hop in and fully dilate. I had asked for a natural birth and I had gotten it, no c-section. I had asked for no drugs but I had laughing gas, pitocen, oxytocin and morphine. I had asked for no epidural and although it wasn't an option I hadn't needed it anyway. I had asked to rise above the pain, for it to be a holy moment and instead I had "lost my shit," thrown things and sworn (not at anyone thank you God!) At the same time it was a holy moment for me. There were no drugs in me at the end. There was no yelling or swearing at the end, just bearing down and pushing my baby into the world. There was a room just for us that we didn't have to pay for and we didn't have to move out of or share. All of these things I asked God for. All of these things he gave me. And best of all was pushing her out, knowing I could do it and then she was on me and I had the prayer answered that I had agonized over. I fell in love with her, completely attached - no work to be done.

You see when I was 2 weeks old as a baby myself my mom went back to work and through the process of different babysitters I never learned to attach to anything or anyone properly. That's something that usually naturally occurs in your brain as an infant when your stay at home mom or dad looks after you day in and day out. I didn't get this. It's something that has truly haunted my marriage. My husband would walk out the door for work and my whole world would feel broken, my heart would literally break each time. I couldn't handle it, it hurt too much. It was like he abandoned me each time he left. Then the pendulum would swing and I wouldn't want him around me, his presence bothered me because I had shut him out of my heart and life to protect myself. This was easy as we worked totally opposite shifts and only saw each other 1-3 times a week. But when he was there it was a complete irritant. Not good for a marriage. 

We have been married for five, almost six years now working these things out, preparing for this day, this moment. We went through counselling (changed my life) and tried so hard to be ready for this moment, this event of welcoming our little baby, our daughter into our arms, hearts and family. 

But you can't really force yourself to attach to something. It's a hard thing to do, an almost impossible thing to learn. God is so gracious, loving and faithful and He took care of it for me. I asked him for a happy baby, a joyful baby, a content and healthy baby. Samara Jane Oosterom is all of those things and so much more. She is an absolute joy and I love every minute I have with her. I stare at her trying to soak it all in. Not wanting to blink in case I miss a smile or coo. I am in love, attached and healthy. It's a wonderful and beautiful things. It's also helped me to attach to Raymond better. 

I know I am attached to her because I miss her. I miss her when she's napping but I'm ok to leave her to do it. I miss her if I get to sneak out of the house for half an hour while Raymond watches her. This is wonderful and new for me. I miss her and I love it!

This is what your heart outside
of your chest looks like

She weighed 8.08 lbs

June 29, 2016 Laura and Raymond Oosterom welcomed Samara Jane Oosterom into their family at 6:23 AM on a Wednesday. She weighed 8lbs, 0.08 oz, was 54 cm long and her name means Protected by God and Gracious gift from God.

Keep seeking the healing and sunshine!

Love you friend,

Laura

You can also follow me on INSTAGRAM @elizabeth_oosterom