Baby Rosie’s Birth Story

If you follow along on instagram, you might have noticed that we welcomed our newest little one to our family a couple of weeks ago! Since I shared the birth story for both of my boys on the blog when they were born — Colby’s birth story — Logan’s birth story — I figured I should share Rosie’s birth story over here too. I know many of you just come for the recipes, so if you want to skip over this post you’re more than welcome to.  You can come back on Friday for an amazing pumpkin crepes recipe.

Baby girl’s due date was October 10th, 2019. At our final ultrasound to make sure she was head down they estimated she was already 7.5 lbs and would be 9lbs at 39 weeks, which is when I was planning on getting induced.

The night of the 2nd of October we went to the mall for our traditional pre-baby dinner of mall food court food. I know, super classy, but after 2 babies we couldn’t break the chain now. We got some chinese food for the boys, I got a chick fil a sandwich, and Nate got a delicious chicken doener kebab. We were waiting for the hospital to call us and tell us what time we could come in the next day, hopefully in the morning. Finally around 6:45pm I was impatient and called them. They asked us to come in at 6:30 the next morning.

Thursday morning finally came after a restless night of sleep from me. When I have something in the morning it’s hard for me to sleep, especially when it’s something as exciting as having a baby!! So we got all checked in at the front desk and into our room at 6:40am. We were in room 114. With the boys we were on the opposite side of the hospital. The rooms on this side of the hospital are even bigger than the one’s we were in before. At Orem Community Hospital they keep you in the same room for delivery, and recovery, so the rooms are nice and big.

I went to the bathroom before getting changed into the hospital gown, and noticed I had lost some of my mucous plug. At my doctor appointment the Monday before I was dilated to an almost 2 and about 70% effaced, but a “super soft cervix”. I was a 3 before going in with Logan, so I was nervous this would make labor take a little longer.

Finally around 7:30am I had answered all the nurses health questions about myself and my family history, and they started the pitocin. I was still dilated to almost a 2 at this point. I wanted to get my epidural going right away so I wouldn’t have to feel any of the contractions if possible. So the anesthesiologist came and started my epidural. I felt the pressure a lot on my right side as it was inserted, but figured it wasn’t a big deal. I got set up on a catheter and around 8:50am my doctor came in and broke my water. I was dilated to a 3+ at this point. I was only numb in my right leg and could still feel my left leg completely at this point. I thankfully didn’t feel the catheter being inserted or the doctor breaking my water though. I felt a few huge gushes of water drip down to my butt as the doctor broke my water.

I continued to feel on my left side, and had some light cramping contractions. They didn’t hurt too badly at this point, so we continued on.

Around 10:45 I was still not numb on my left side. I could feel heavy contractions that were very painful. The anesthesiologist came back to try and adjust the epidural, and they rotated me onto my left side to try and let gravity help the epidural get into that leg. I was dilated to a 4 and 90% effaced, so we assumed we were in for a long day of labor since it took almost 2 hours to dilate one additional centimeter.

At 11:23 I wrote “even with the adjustments I still feel all the contractions in my left side. I hate this. If I knew it was going fast maybe I could last, but I cannot handle a few more hours of this.” I told the nurse my pain level was a 7, but I think it might have gotten even higher than that. The anesthesiologist came in again and this time my left leg was starting to feel heavy. We were hopeful that it would continue spreading with the position I was laying in, instead of having to get a whole new epidural. I thought that if the labor was going to be long, it was worth getting a second epidural for the possibility that it might work more evenly. When you know how long something is going to last it’s okay to endure something really hard, but at this point I still assumed I was going to be in labor for several more hours.

I decided to eat a popsicle to see if that helped distract me from the pain. Instead I threw up the whole thing only a few minutes later.

At 11:50 my nurse was about to leave the room, but I asked if she could check my dilation first. I told her I wanted to see if there was any progress so I could at least try and mentally prepare for how much longer I was going to be in this pain. She finally checked me and I was dilated to a 9 and 3/4. I had to ask her again how far I was dilated because I didn’t believe it and didn’t believe that in only one hour I went from a 4 to almost a 10. She said it was time to call my doctor and time to start pushing.

I texted our photographer really quickly that it was almost go time and she headed on her way to us. She was planning on coming when I was dilated to a 6 or 7 but since we kind of skipped that point she came as quickly as she could at this point. I pushed for about 20 minutes, and thankfully at this point I finally couldn’t feel the contractions in my left side anymore. Both my legs were numb and needed help from Nate and our nurse to hold them up and to help me push against them as I pushed during each contraction. They had me push about 3 sets of 10 during each contraction. I couldn’t feel that any progress was being made, but I pushed for about an hour with Colby so I didn’t know how long this time would take. The doctor said she had hair!! He said she had a big head too – haha.

I pushed for about 20 minutes, and the doctor seemed to get a little nervous and said that baby’s heart rate had dropped a bit. He decided to get the vacuum to help her come out. So on one more set of pushes through one contraction she came out. I didn’t notice but Nate said that even after her head came out the nurses looked a little nervous for a second, and I guess baby girl’s shoulders got a bit stuck, but with a little twist to move her around she came right out.

She was born at 12:13pm on October 3rd, 2019.

The moment she came out our photographer got there and started snapping away.

Our doctor said that’s definitely a 9 pound baby and we were all anxious to see how much she actually weighed. She was 9lbs and 5oz and 21 inches long.

My biggest baby. They wiped her down quickly and let me do skin to skin with her. I couldn’t believe she was actually here. And I was so relieved that she was still a she – haha!

We got about 4 different gender reveal ultrasounds and a blood test done during the pregnancy because I was so nervous to get excited about it being a girl if there was a possibility of finding out she was a he later on. They all confirmed girl, but I still had a small fear that they would all be wrong and I would have another boy. Don’t get me wrong, I would’ve been happy with another boy, it’s again just the idea that it’s nice to plan on things. And we’d already decorated her room and gotten so many bows and girl clothes I would be sad about.

We named her Rosie Kristine Berrett. Kristine is my middle name too, which was named after one of my dad’s sisters who passed away when he was younger.

Rosie is so beautiful and the perfect addition to our family already. We all just love her so much!