Roslyn Oneleigh Elrod's Birth Story

Our daughter Roslyn Oneleigh Elrod was born on April 27th at 3:33am, weighing 7lbs 9oz, 19" long with a perfectly round head and big feet. I planned on writing her birth story down eventually but sitting in the hospital with our perfect girl asleep in my arms Joshua asked if I minded it he took a minute to write it all down. He captured it all better than I could and the tender gesture of him wanting to remember it all as much as I did was really moving. So here it is:

I had a crappy night on April 25th because I had begun to come down with a cold. I tried to sleep upstairs and moved downstairs around 0200 to try to sleep. Ashley came down the stairs at 0430 and said she thought that her water had broken. Leaking throughout the early hours of the morning confirmed  itand we went to the midwife’s office at 0800. 2 cm dialated, due to induce at 1700. because of infection risk. So we walked the various parks and streets of Ballard trying different ways to kick off labor with Liz. Walking with one foot on the curb and one on the street, deep lunges on park benches, smoothie bowls and back to the hospital with little success.

We made the decision to induce because we had 12 remaining hours before the baby’s chances of infection during delivery would climb significantly. Induction occurred about 1900 and yielded results almost immediately. Ashley had more regular contractions of increasing intensity. Liz and I helped work her through the contractions using doula techniques until finally after five or so hours something changed.

Ashley entered what they call the transitional phase of labor where the mother often feels like there is no hope. She was screaming, losing control of her contractions and losing her rhythm to the pain and frequency. Midwives thought she may be getting ready to push, so they checked her and found her only 5cm dilated. We were crestfallen. 5 hard hours of labor and only half way there. Ashley’s outlook diminished even further and she started talking about not being able to labor any more, not wanting to, wanting an epidural, wanting it to stop, just wanting to go to sleep. Her low, long breaths had been displaced by quick, higher pitched breaths, and often lost out to the chaos of screams and lost rhythm. I was devastated to see her this way and would have done anything to alleviate her pain. It was the full time effort of three people (Jessica, me and Liz friend/doula) to help her keep focused on her rhythm.

The midwife on staff was Sally, a 30-some year old veteran baby deliverer and Silvana a nurse who encouraraged her to head to the jacuzzi. It took some convincing to bring Mackenzie ever so slightly back from the brink for a dicey walk to the Jacuzzi. She asked Jessica to leave, and that left Liz and me to get her into the bath to help alleviate her pain. The nurse dialed back her dosage of pitosin which slowed her labor giving her a fighting chance to rest between contractions.

Labor progressed in the tub at a more manageable pace. Ashley’s contractions were intense, and at first she still felt the need to have her pain taken away. Her morale was still very low and she still had the feeling that she simply could not do it – could not continue to labor with contractions of this intensity for the same time period that she already had. Sally  and Silvana came and sat on the floor talking to Ashley for at least 20 minutes about the fact that she could in fact do this and already was – and all she needed to go was get a ritual built back up to help her ease the pain. Ashley she soon found rhythm. I sat behind her and massaged her aching lower back between contractions, and firmly held her arms or shoulders during the contractions to give her a feeling of grounding.  Liz helped pace out her rhythm, and eventually even during the most intense contractions Ashley was able to keep control and a certain level of relaxation.  This helped Ashley to center herself between contractions such that she was more able to relax and get ahead of the next contraction..

We had moved to the tub around midnight on the 27th. Around 0130, Ashley had begun to experience spontaneous pushing. Liz knew immediately what this meant and said she thought Ashley was ready to go back to the room. Ashley was not sure of this because the tub was what helped her to get ahead of her contractions and she feared losing her rhythm especially if the second 5 cm were to take as long as the first 5. Liz assured her that the trance-like rhythm technique Ashley had developed would easily carry over. She was right.

By 0200, we were in the bed and Ashley was on her side. She wanted to lay down at nobody else’s suggestion. At the end of her contractions she was involuntarily pushing at this point and Sally measured her fully dilated. What a change from only 2 hours prior. Ashley was obviously more assured of herself now and she could feel the progress that her pushing was making. Sally told her she was about to have a natural birth and Ashley knew she could do it at this point.

The pain was still significant. At first Ashley would scream through her pushing. Sally encouraged her to use the energy she was dumping into screaming to push even harder. Ashley grunted through her new pushes and ended each with a scream of release.  She really enjoyed this part of labor, feeling like she was able to finally do something and feeling the satisfaction from each push. Each contraction cause 4-5 spontaneous pushes. Her face got red and she clenched hard, so much so that the next day broken blood vessels were visible on her neck and face.

After maybe 45 minutes of spontaneous pushing, the baby’s head was visible. Sally thought that the pushing could be sped by squatting and pushing for 2-3 contractions, though the pain would be greater. She was right, and after a couple pushes the baby’s head was through her pelvic bone. Ashley laid back down and Sally told her that any push could give her a baby at this point and that she should take off her shirt so that skin-to-skin contact could begin immediately. A couple pushes later Ashley was in immense pain and her pushes were combinations of grunts and screams of agony but she knew she could do it and that it was only a matter of time. A few contractions later, the baby’s head was entirely out and the rest of the body followed only one or two contractions later.

Sally put the baby immediately on Ashley’s chest with the umbilical cord still in place. Ashley was absolutely overwhelmed. “My baby!” she exclaimed. “Oh my God!” Her expression was the mix of tears and joy and pain that one only wears when great agony and effort give way to an abundance of payoff one could have never imagined. “She is Roslyn.” “Yeah?” I asked. “I think so…” “I love you!” She kissed her on the forehead. I cut the cord and the placenta quickly followed and it was all over but the sewing and the recovery. Our daughter was born at 3:33 am and she laid on Ashley's chest for an hour and fed and snuggled. 

Because my water had broken so early on they usually mandate a 48 hour stay but the pediatrician said she was doing so well we could take her home Saturday night. Joshua walked home to grab her car seat and next thing we knew we were checking out. The nurses kept offering to walk us to our car not realizing fully what we meant when we said we live really really close by. We made it out the doors into a perfect Seattle rain with our new little family, walked the block to home, and there you have it. We snuggled on the couch all night struggling to breast feed, sleep, and admire our perfect Roslyn.