Rowan’s Birth Story

On March 25, my life changed forever when Rowan was born. 

I’m finally happy to introduce you to Rowan Blair Rossi-Murray, we’ve been home for a month, and honestly, I’m lucky if I shower before noon some days. Hence the delay in getting this written up for you! She was born 5:37 AM on March 25, 2020, weighing in at 6lbs 15 oz. Don’t ask me where we got the name Rowan from, but her middle name Blair is after Curtis’s dad who passed away two years ago. 

Since we are in a pandemic, weird times! we didn’t get to have a Fresh 48 session with my friend Ana as planned. Or a baby shower, that was supposed to be this weekend, and most importantly meeting her family members. We’ve been robbed on some things, but it’s been so nice spending all this time at home with her. Curtis has been working a little bit here and there, but has been home a ton, which has been amazing!

 But let’s get to her birth story…

This is a little hard to write, I can recap it perfectly in my head, but putting it all into words for other people to read is a little daunting. 

On the morning of March 24, I went into BC Women’s to get a standard ultrasound and fetal monitoring as one does being 41 weeks pregnant. Well, the ultrasound tech said there was low fluid so she was going to let the doctor know and I should prepare to not leave the hospital that day. Then I walked over to the fetal monitoring room and was told the same thing, so I texted Curtis since he wasn’t allowed into that room due to the Covid-19 precautions they were taking at the hospital and instructed him to go back home and shower (this was at 7:30 AM and was only supposed to be there for an hour), grab the hospital bags and eat something. 

Right after I was done with that test, they walked me right over to the ER, where I was admitted and waited for my midwife and OB-GYN on call to come to chat with me.

Curtis arrived in time and found out I was not even dilated at all and my option was to be induced (which I discussed the day before with my midwife, planned on maybe the end of the week). Because there was very little fluid they couldn’t break my water as they would first try, she could end up squishing her umbilical cord because there were no fluids. They let me go home for a few hours so I can eat, shower, and try to grab a nap. The context was that I slept only 3 hours the night before, I think I was anxious about the test and I picked a fight with Curtis (over what I can’t remember) so I was exhausted and they knew that.

We came back after a few hours plus a nap and was admitted again. We were taken right up into the new birthing suite wing and met my nurses and OB-GYN that would be with me for the first few hours. I was instructed to eat something again (thankful I packed PB&J sandwiches for Curtis haha) and then they started to pump Oxytocin into my system to jumpstart my labour. 

I felt ZERO pain. I could barely even tell I was contracting, it was so weird. They gave me an IV (which was my first in life, I’ve never been admitted to the hospital beforehand or even taken drugs stronger than Tylenol 3s for my wisdom teeth) and started me on Pitocin, then the contractions sped up a bit and became a bit stronger. I have a pretty high pain tolerance, so I was apparently contracting for hours and felt they were only period cramps haha, so they upped my dosage and woah I wasn’t ready for that. No transition as if I was in labour at home before active labour like most women.
After a couple of hours with contractions, and 12 hours at the hospital after being admitted, I opted for an epidural to get some much-needed sleep. They kept telling me to consider it because I could be in that early labour for a few more hours, which was not even active labour and I was like oh shit. So I got the epidural and let me tell you, going through contractions while being told to not move an inch was tough. Thankful Curtis was there to guide me and remind me to just breathe through them. In my original birth plan (which was very, very loose) I put down I wanted the laughing gas before considering an epidural but because of the pandemic that wasn’t an option anymore.

After I got four hours of much-needed sleep and woke up to the nurses and Ob-Gyns on-call discussing my baby’s heart rate again. I was exhausted because I hardly got any sleep, hungry, kept having to go to the bathroom and the baby’s heart rate kept dropping.

 It dropped so much after I went to the bathroom and the little balloon they inserted to put pressure on my cervix fell out that I was then barred from going to the bathroom to pee. I had to choose between a catheter or a bedpan, so I chose a catheter. Apparently the whole time I was sleeping it kept falling every hour and they were worried. I was then checked again and was only dilated 3cm, which was disappointing since I was induced now for 16 hours! I knew that a C-Section would be brought up and was mentally prepared for it. Sure enough, they explained that it wasn’t an emergency yet, but could be since they couldn’t keep me on Oxytocin for much longer and I wasn’t dilating fast enough as I should be. Plus add in the low fluid it wasn’t a good scenario. So I looked at Curtis (who was looking white in the face now) and said I was ok with that. I just wanted the two of us to come out of this healthy and thought the silver lining was we would meet her sooner!

30 minutes later I was in the OR, my midwife was there offering comforting words and was shocked at how calm I was and I just said I didn’t have a choice, this was the best one. Curtis then entered and kept telling me I was doing amazing and how much he loved me and how excited he was to meet our baby. By the way, we didn’t know what gender she was going to be. 

I swear it felt like 2 minutes and she was pulled out and I heard Curtis exclaim it was a girl and cried. I’m not going to lie, I felt out of it being on anesthesia and felt emotional but also didn’t at the same time. They plopped her on my chest and we did a little skin to skin before she was quickly whisked off to be checked and they finished sowing me up. I had to be moved around and cleaned up so she couldn’t stay on my chest the whole time thankfully Curtis was with her and once we were in post-op she was immediately placed back on my chest. He said she came out sucking her thumb haha wish I could have seen it. 

Meeting her for the first time was overwhelming and shocking that she was just in my belly moments ago. Also, how did she manage to fit in there??

The anesthesiologist topped me up before the surgery, so apparently I had a higher dosage and it took all day for the shakes and numbness to wear off. Curtis and I ended up sharing skin to skin all morning because at some points I was shaking so badly. Looking back, that was probably something we would have done anyway and continue to do so at home. It’s nice for them to also have that bonding moment. There was the problem that I couldn’t hold down food till later that night, and it was only crackers and granola bars because I threw up all my lunch and couldn’t even get out of bed without throwing up. AND they had construction and drilling going on the same floor as the post-birth rooms till 10 PM that night. I literally lost it, and we moved rooms to the other side where it was then muffled. Thank goodness because there was no way I was going to be able to sleep even though Rowan slept through it all like a champ.

I have to say all the nurses and doctors at BC Women’s were amazing and very patient. Everyone had their own tips on breastfeeding and newborn care they shared with us, the OB-GYNs explained everything in terms we could understand and were patient. Even the anesthesiologists checked on us and were very nice too. I just had a great experience and definitely want my next baby to be born there. One exception was the lactation consultant who didn’t really help us and never came back after her lunch break. Pretty disappointed with the one that was on duty.

We ended up staying for three days because I had a C-Section and took advantage of recovering there with the extra help with the nurses. Curtis had to sleep on the floor unfortunately on a fold-out pad, but he was so great. He helped out with feeding, making sure I was hydrated all the time, did all the diaper changes and practiced his swaddling skills. I also have to say he was fantastic as he could be during labour, he said he felt helpless because he could only do what I asked him to and it was all me, but his encouraging words, and making sure I moved around (when I was able to) and just rubbing my back and massaging when I was contracting was so helpful. I couldn’t imagine him not being there with me.

Now it’s been over four weeks, and we’re slowly wrapping our brains around doing it all over again, but we’re so in love with our new family member. I’ll be back sharing more soon! Thanks for reading!