Ethan Neie's Birth Story

I was dedicated to maintaining Ethan's due date countdown on my white board at work.  Every Friday I would diligently change the number of remaining weeks until he was to arrive.  5 more weeks...4 more weeks...3 more weeks...2 days?

Something had gone wrong, and whether I was ready or not, Ethan needed to come to us much earlier than we had anticipated.

At 34 weeks my placenta had become "old" meaning it was no longer delivering the nutrients Ethan needed to grow and thrive in my womb.  The doctors were clear...It was time for him to come out.  Brandon and I spent countless afternoons in the office of perinatologists monitoring his progress and I was sent to labor and delivery twice at Denton Regional Hospital, once under the threat of my doctor that she would induce me immediately if she saw anything wrong.  They constantly weighed the options of taking him too early versus waiting it out until 38 weeks.  I left their offices crying, more than once, ready to get off the roller coaster that had become this nightmare situation.

At 37 weeks it was made perfectly clear that Ethan's risk of still birth was too high for them to ignore and they wanted to induce in 2 days.

I had just finished changing my calendar to 3 more weeks.

It became immediately clear that I would never experience the drama of having my water break on its own, or the surprise of contractions.  I would never have that "it's time to go to the hospital" conversation with Brandon, and we would never rush to the car to go to the hospital.  My fantasy of what child birth would be like was replaced by an induction date.

But it didn't matter.  Our baby needed to come out, and that's what we were going to do.

Brandon drove me to Denton Regional Hospital on May 17th to check in and get my body ready to have our baby.  They started my pitocin drip at 10:30 on May 18th and we were off to the races!  The whole family drove up to watch the show.  Lord knows my family can't do anything without everyone being there...Ethan's birth would certainly be no exception to this.

My contractions started almost immediately, but were very light and tolerable.  I was able to chat with everyone without much issue.  The nurses came in and out constantly moving the monitors around on my belly to listen to his heart beat.  Unfortunately, due to the pitocin, my contractions started coming back to back.  Without time to rest in between I felt like I was dying.  Dr. Reddy decided once I was dilated to a 4 it was time to break my water to speed up the labor process.  All my life I've heard about a woman's water breaking, but I never realized how much fluid actually came out.  I swear I dropped 5 pounds right then and there and then the real pain started.  Not too long after that I asked for the epidural.  Brandon stayed by my side through all of it holding my hand and helping me breathe.

After the epidural...life was good.  I couldn't feel anything and quickly asked myself why I hadn't requested it sooner.  Before I knew it I was dilated to an 8 and then it was time to start pushing.

Exhaustion doesn't begin to explain what it's like to push a child out of your body.  Brandon held my right leg, mother held my left leg, and I bared down within an inch of my life.

After about 30 minutes of pushing we found out Ethan was stuck on my pelvic bone.  The pushing was so intense they had to give me oxygen between contractions.

After 2 hours of pushing Ethan arrived at 12:23am Monday May 19th.

It was incredible.  As soon as Ethan was out they put him on my chest.  I told him I was his mommy and he stopped crying almost instantly.  He looked up at me like he recognized my voice immediately.  I held him for what seemed like a second before they took him away to clean him up.

Ethan decided for the first hour after being born that he only wanted to open one eye, so his father and I so lovingly called him pirate baby.