Before I move on, it feels only natural to write a little bit more about pregnancy with Maeve and her birth.
Overall, pregnancy with Maeve was pretty smooth. I had minor anemia, which responded well to a liquid iron supplement in addition to my prenatal. All day nausea stuck around for the first 12ish weeks and insomnia crept in at times, but otherwise I was quite comfortable. It was also recommended that we have an additional ultrasound around 36 weeks to check our baby’s growth due to my fundal height not tracking. This same thing happened with Ellie and thankfully all was well both times. Must just be how I carry babies.
George gave me the most incredible gift of being game for traveling to Maine in the 3rd trimester so we could share Maeve’s welcoming (and have some additional help 🙂 with my parents, brother and his family. That was my favorite road trip to date. So many incredible memories made. We also were able to catch up with other family and friends.
The weeks leading up to Maeve’s arrival were filled with a lot of fun with family, beach walks, outings around Portland and fun in the RV park. We stayed at Sun Retreats Old Orchard Beach and they had so many activities for kids – I’ll have to write more on that in another post.
Maeve’s estimated due date came and went. I felt confident she would come in her own time but as the threat of an induction date loomed near, I opted for a membrane sweep on the morning of an office visit 2 days prior to that induction I hoped to avoid. That morning I thought I lost part of my mucous plug and was open to almost anything that would get labor started safely. During that office visit, my OB also did a stress test as she wasn’t sure if she had first registered my heartbeat when finding the baby’s with her wand or if it was a deceleration in my baby’s heart. Thankfully, that checked out and seemed to be the former; we were sent on our way.
We went about our day as usual. After an outing to New Hampshire, Ellie and George relaxed a bit and I headed out for my 2nd walk of the day to try to coax our baby out. As with each day for the past several weeks, I heard, “You’re still pregnant?!” countless times as I walked through the RV park. I returned home to Ellie asleep on the couch and George asleep on the floor. I curled up with Ellie for a bit and even fell asleep for a few minutes. I then got up and fixed a plate of leftovers and ate dinner alone, which ordinarily I would never do.
Thankfully, I felt that pull as just after eating, contractions started and these felt very different from the Braxton Hicks I had been feeling for weeks. These were focused at the bottom on my belly rather than whole belly tightening. With George asleep, I figured I better track my contraction so I downloaded an app and got to it. They were tracking fairly consistently around every 5-6 minutes to start.
Ellie stirred awake and we both went to potty – she had the up close experience of seeing the rest of my mucous plug lol. I messaged my friend who was at the same hospital I was delivering at for her induction. All along we joked we’d be there at the same time and sure enough it looked like it was happening! Bear in mind, her birthday is just 6 days before mine.
I called my parents who were on standby to watch Ellie. They immediately said they were on their way and encouraged me to call the doctor. Given how long Elle’s labor was, I tried to talk them down from coming yet, but they insisted they were heading in to scoop her up. They had the insight of how quickly I, as their second baby, came. Turns out the doctor also recommended we come right in. George and Ellie skipped out for some take away dinner and arrived back as my parents pulled up to our RV. Ellie was so brave climbing into my parent’s car for her first sleepover. She and I had never spent a night apart until then. After kisses and well wishes we all were off.
The contractions were definitely getting stronger, but I was able to stay comfortable when I was standing by dropping down into yoga squats. George expertly drove us about 20 minutes up the coast and the few seated contractions weren’t too bad.
I continued my yoga squats every few minutes as needed throughout the walk into the hospital, up to the Labor and Delivery unit and during the intake process in the triage room. George was cracking jokes, keeping the staff and me entertained. This helped me immensely as I felt I was able to focus on doing what I needed to get through each contraction – it took some of the attention off me and kept things light. My yoga squats changed to alternating deep side lunges. I just did whatever movements I felt compelled to do. No part of me wanted to sit or lie down.
We were told Labor and Delivery was very busy and after they checked my dilation which I believe was 8 cm, they said I may be delivering in the triage room. Just minutes later an actual delivery room opened up and I walked, squatted, lunged my way to it, wondering if I was passing by my friend’s room.
After getting acquainted with our delivery RN, I made my way to the potty. On the potty I heard a loud pop though didn’t feel anything out of the ordinary. Shocked, I yelled, “What the F%$# was that?!” George suggested it was likely my water breaking and sure enough he was right. Relieved not to find our baby in the toilet 🙂 I finished up my business and ambled back out into the room. I felt intense needs to push and George helped me alert the RN. He also reminded me I had said I wanted to try pushing on all fours. Before I knew it, I was kneeling on the hospital bed and the delivery team was all there. With my second push attempt on the second contraction, out came our sweet baby girl, Maeve Nancy Jeslis. As chronicled in my previous post, I was the one to yell out her gender. I had a clear view from my perspective.
This birth was so different from Ellie’s. With Ellie’s it seemed the contractions were more intense yet I didn’t feel much sensation-wise as she made her way through the birth canal. With Maeve, the contractions felt more manageable and I felt very in tune with where she was during actual birth/delivery. My mom always described birth feeling like a hot bowling ball and that proved to be an accurate description of how birth felt with Maeve. My instincts definitely seemed to kick in more the 2nd time around. I even uncontrollably screamed as I pushed. I hope I didn’t scare too many other mothers 🙂
I went into labor around 7:30 pm on 7/21/2022 and she was in our arms at 11:23 pm. I find the time of her birth pretty special as Ellie’s birthday is 11/23.
Maeve cried right on cue and I couldn’t believe she was here so fast after what seemed like such a long wait. When she was ready, she was ready! Due to how quickly she made it through the birth canal, her respiration rate was a bit elevated. Our delivery team assured us it would likely regulate to normal within a few hours which we are super grateful it did. They even called the pediatrician who said the same and felt no need for further evaluation until the morning.
Unfortunately, the receiving RN in our recovery room, did not feel comfortable with Maeve’s respirations and also was worried that her body temperature was a little low. George was a great advocate for us and pointed out that Maeve’s skin to skin time with me had been interrupted repeatedly for suctioning, then measurements and then the room change. We opted to leave the delivery room as soon as possible knowing how busy they were. Our new nurse wanted to take Maeve to the nursery for her colleagues to take a look at. George offered that her colleagues could come to our room and/or she could call the pediatrician again. We did not feel comfortable letting our sweet Maeve out of our sight. The nurse made a comment that I shouldn’t be nursing her with her respiratory rate and said she would call the pediatrician and come back.
Ultimately that nurse never came back. I stayed up all night holding our sweet Maeve on my chest, unsure if it was okay to nurse her again just yet though in my gut I knew she was okay. We listened to the Christmas in July channel on TV in honor of George’s late Mom, Nancy, whom Maeve’s middle name is after.
As the sun rose, our new RN for the day shift checked in on us. By then, Maeve’s respiration rate was near normal. Later, when the pediatrician visited, all was within normal limits. We had a beautiful day ahead with Ellie meeting her baby sister, as well as visits from my parents, brother, sister in law and niece.
I wanted so badly to hunt down my friend, but between COVID measures and general hospital policies, I didn’t want to rock the boat or interfere with her experience. Ultimately, her baby boy was born the day after Maeve. Both of our girls have “birthday buddies.” My dear friend in Florida had her little girl 2 days before Ellie was born and then of course this dear friend in Maine had her baby 1 day after Maeve was born. I feel so lucky to have been able to share some of pregnancy with dear friends.
Due the need for checking bilirubin 24 hours after birth, we opted to stay for 2 nights rather than being discharged around midnight :). The rest of our stay was smooth and relaxing. We had a great view of a baseball field and park from our window. It was a surreal experience spending so little time in labor and so much time just soaking in the experience.
