Zianne’s Birth Story {Part I}

Although I fully believe babies always arrive right on time, Zianne was nine days late by medical standards. I was not surprised, as babies tend to arrive past their due dates in both my family and Micah’s. I patiently waited out my 41st week of pregnancy and convinced my doctor that it was safe to let this little one arrive up to two weeks late. We scheduled an induction for Thursday, September 26th, when I would officially be 42 weeks pregnant, as well as prostaglandin gels for the upcoming Monday and Tuesday, and then I prayed my heart out that Baby Russum would arrive naturally over the weekend.

On Friday, September 20th, I arranged to visit my dear friend Shalyn who had just given birth to twins the weekend before. Because I came down with a horrendous head cold on the day she delivered her sweet babes {another reason I am thankful Zianne was late; I cannot imagine labor with congestion, sneezing and coughing}, I was unable to visit them in the hospital all week. Shalyn and I went through pregnancy side by side, sharing all our ups and downs and gory prenatal details, so I was dying to hold these twin boys at last. By Friday, my cold symptoms were gone and every online medical source said I was no longer contagious, so I texted Shalyn, “Can we bring you dinner tonight? I need the boys to convince Baby Russum that life is better outside the womb…”

Micah and I picked up a feast of wings and drove up to the Baker’s house for a night of eating, laughing and twin holding, but before we left for dinner I swung by the neighborhood Sprouts to pick up my last attempt at natural induction… raspberry leaf tea. I had already tried everything else that is rumored to start labor, including acupuncture, and this tea was my final weapon. Please know I hate tea, unless it’s doused in lemonade and named after a golfer. Tea tastes like dirty water with leaves in it. However, a number of friends said this raspberry leaf tea, known to promote “uterine health,” had helped them go into labor, so I was willing to choke down some dirt water for the cause. I threw a packet in the strawberry lemonade I was drinking on the way home from Sprouts, and whipped up a mug of hot tea before we left to visit our friends for the evening.

Now let me back track a little… Earlier that day my dad had decided to make an offer on a house he will use as a rental property, and I spent all afternoon drawing up his paper work (I randomly have my real estate license and do about 1-2 deals a year for friends and family). My dad met us at our place to sign his contract when we arrived home from the Baker’s that night. I was scanning his documents at 10:45pm, and when I stood up from the desk where we keep our printer, I felt a little gush of warm fluid. As calm as could be, I thought to myself “my water just broke…” I went into our bathroom to assess the situation, changed my pants and underwear, walked hazily past my dad who was trying to talk to me about real estate, and found Micah in the kitchen where I informed him of the news. I wasn’t actually in labor yet, so I said there was no need to rush. We told my dad what was happening and he excitedly finished scanning the documents for me, as Micah started getting out snacks and making PB and J sandwiches to take to the hospital.

Always the multi-tasker, I was determined to get my dad’s offer submitted before I went into labor mode. Now at my doctor’s appointment the day before, an ultrasound confirmed I had sufficient amniotic fluid to carry the baby for another week, and I got to experience firsthand how accurate that ultrasound was. Although many women experience just a small trickle when their water breaks, that was not the case for me. As I stood at the kitchen counter, hunched over my laptop hastily emailing the real estate contract, amniotic fluid started gushing all over the tile floor. As soon as I hit “send” on the email, I sweetly asked Micah if he could clean up my puddle while I went to take a shower.

After saying goodbye to my dad, taking a long shower, blow drying my hair, making some phone calls, sending some texts, and adding final items to our bags, we headed to the hospital around 12:30am. Since I still couldn’t feel my contractions, we made a quick stop by the convenience store for a Popsicle and candy on our way there. I guess you could say we were taking our “sweet” time…