Dorothy was born at 2:21 pm on Friday, March 29, 2024. She was born at 39 weeks and 5 days gestation after a spontaneous 19-hour labor. Her labor and delivery were vastly different than my previous two labors and has been my absolute favorite birth thus far, despite the fact that I nearly had her in our car.
PREPARING FOR UNMEDICATED LABOR
I knew even before getting pregnant with Dorothy, that I definitely wanted to have an unmedicated labor and delivery with her. Having done it once before, I knew that I was entirely capable. In fact, for the first 20 weeks of my pregnancy with her, my prenatal care was overseen by a midwife as I prepared for a home birth. Those plans had to be adjusted when we moved across the country (again) at the beginning of my third trimester, but my preparation and desires for my birth stayed relatively unchanged.
MY EXPECTATIONS
I have both Calvin’s Birth Story and Della’s Birth Story published for anyone who would like to read them as well, but I’ll give you the bullet points here. Calvin was born at 41 weeks and 1 day after a 10-hour labor. I had a membrane sweep that induced my labor with him and I got an epidural about 40 minutes before he was delivered. My recovery after his birth was the hardest. Della was born at 40 weeks and 6 days after an 8-hour labor. I had a pitocin induction due to the risk of cord prolapse but did not have an epidural. Della had a nuchal cord and shoulder dystocia at birth and was admitted to the NICU for a few days.
Due to my history, I fully expected to carry Dorothy past her due date of March 31. In fact, I was mentally preparing to have her closer to mid-April than late-March. Because of this, I was very relaxed in my preparations for her arrival. My hospital bag wasn’t packed until 38 weeks, my to-do list had lots of items left, and my mom wasn’t planning on coming out until April 1st or 2nd. I also declined all cervical checks because I knew that they weren’t helpful to my mental state or in estimating when labor would begin,
THE DAY LEADING UP TO LABOR
I woke up on Thursday, March 28, with really intense pelvic pain. I was 39 weeks and 4 days pregnant. I had an extremely difficult time moving around. The only place that I could get any relief was sitting on my exercise ball. I knew that I wasn’t having contractions because the pain was constant when I was in any position other than sitting on the ball and went away completely the moment I sat down. I did the bare minimum for most of the day, but at the same time, I really wanted to get my kids outside as the weather was on the milder side for the first time in a week and snow was forecasted for the weekend. I managed to hobble (literally bent over and half squatting) around the kitchen to get dinner ready for the oven before Colter got home and when he did, we loaded into the van and drove to the park.
We were the only ones there due to it only being about 55°F and windy, but the kids had a blast. My pelvic pain continued and I spent the entire time sitting down. Once we went home I immediately sat on my exercise ball again and it once again relieved all of my pain. We ate dinner and started a movie for the kids.
THE FIRST 17.5 HOURS
Around 7 o’clock, I noticed some pain returned to my pelvis and hips, despite the fact that I was still on the yoga ball. I rocked my hips a little and the pain went away after a minute or two. Roughly ten minutes later, it came back for a few minutes, then went away again. It was very mild and didn’t require any coping at all, but I was suspicious all the same.
At 7:30, after a few of these pains, I called my mom in Utah. I told her that I didn’t know if I was in early labor (I hadn’t had a truly spontaneous labor before and wasn’t totally sure what it felt like) but that I was having little pains that were coming and going. She asked if she should start driving to me (about a 7.5 hour trip) or if I thought they were going to stop. I told her I’d wait an hour or two and then let her know. I didn’t want to be a nuisance and have her drive all the way out to Wyoming days early for nothing, but I also didn’t want to call her too late and have her miss the birth all together.
We put the kids to bed, tidied the house and kitchen and then started a movie around 8:30. I moved from my ball to my rocking recliner and downloaded a contraction timer. Throughout the 2.5 hour movie, I continued to have 50-70 second long contractions every 10-15 minutes. They were distinct from my Braxton Hicks in that they had the tightening feeling throughout my abdomen and a more painful aching feeling in my hips and pelvis. However, none of the contraction sensations were strong enough to distract me from the movie or keep me from conversation. In fact, often I would start the contraction timer late because I wasn’t paying close enough attention to notice when a contraction began. We texted my parents a little before 10 o’clock and asked them to start driving, just in case this was real labor.
Around 11 o’clock our movie ended and Colter and I decided to go to bed. I laid on my side with my phone beside me to time things and tried to focus on being as relaxed as possible. It worked well because I was able to fall asleep several times for 45-60 minute stretches. I would start timing a contraction and focus on relaxing and would wake up to see my timer still recording the length of that contraction 40 minutes later.
Around 4 AM I was awake and antsy. I was worried that my contractions weren’t getting more intense or closer together and that I wasn’t actually in labor, so I got up to see if some pacing and stretching would help intensify things. I walked around the apartment and did some stretches until my mom, dad, and sister arrived just before 5 AM after driving all night. We got them settled in the guest room and on the couch and then I went back to bed.
I continued to have contractions throughout the morning, but nothing that stopped my regular routine. We got the kids up for breakfast, got them dressed, and they played with Gran and Papa and Aunt Aspen while I cleaned up dishes and chatted with my mom and sister. My contractions stayed about 10-12 minutes apart and very manageable all morning. I didn’t even have to really stop anything I was doing when they came on.
At about 11:30, Colter and Aspen decided to go to the gym for an hour. My mom took a shower and my dad took a nap while the kids watched Paw Patrol and I laid down for a while. I didn’t sleep, but I noticed that when I laid down on my bed, the contractions spread out to 15 minutes apart or so. I stayed on my bed for a little more than an hour, only having 4 or 5 contractions the entire time, then got up just before 1 o’clock when Colter and Aspen were headed back from the gym for lunch.
THE LAST HOUR AT HOME
Once I got up from my bed my contractions got closer together. They were now about 6-7 minutes apart and still about a minute long. Colter made everyone lunch and as we were sitting around the table, my mom commented that it was a shame Calvin wasn’t born on January 30, because then all the kids would have birthdays on the 30th. I told her that would mean another 11+ hours of labor with this baby and that was just mean to wish upon me, but to all of us (including me) I still seemed to be in early labor with hours to go.
During lunch, my contractions did get more intense, to the point where I had to stop talking when one would come on in order to breathe and relax. I wasn’t feeling the urge to vocalize through them yet, but they were finally a bit closer together and needing a few coping mechanisms. That was the first time I thought I might have a baby in the next 8-12 hours.
Just before 2 o’clock, we wrapped up lunch and got the kids ready for their nap. In my head I had a rough plan for the next couple of hours. I would go use the bathroom, we would lay the kids down for nap, I would ask my mom or sister to braid my hair, and then we would head to the hospital. I wasn’t feeling an urgent need to go, but going while both kids were sleeping just felt like the most convenient time. I went to the bathroom while Colter finished nap prep and while sitting on the toilet I had 3 or 4 contractions back to back that were much more intense than any I’d had thus far. I remember thinking during the last one “geez I need to stand up as soon as this passes or I’m never going to be able to get up”. Once I stood, the contractions stopped coming back-to-back, so I washed my hands and went to the kids’ room to help put them down.
I placed Della in her crib, kissed them both goodnight, and on my way out of their room I had another contraction. This one was the most intense so far. I grabbed the doorframe and dropped into a squat, quietly moaning. The kids were a little worried, so I reassured them that I was fine as soon as the contraction passed, but I knew we had to go to the hospital immediately. During that doorway contraction, I had felt the urge to push.
THE FINAL 20 MINUTES
We closed the door to the kids’ bedroom and I immediately started repeating the phrase “We have to go right now” over and over. Colter grabbed our bags as I slipped my shoes on and we left. I had two more contractions on the walk from our second-floor apartment to the car, both requiring me to stop and focus on not pushing. I had also started needing to moan and vocalize through these contractions. I got into the car and looked at my watch. It was 2:08 PM.
On the 8-minute drive to the hospital, I had 3 more contractions. I held onto the ceiling handle with both hands, lifting myself off the seat as I groaned and did everything I could to not have my baby in the passenger seat of Colter’s Mazda 3. We pulled up to the main entrance of the hospital at 2:15 PM and Colter ran inside. He returned a minute later with a man and a wheelchair. We abandoned our car in the “No Parking” lane and were wheeled straight up to L&D.
Once there they started to wheel me to a Triage Room, but as I contracted again I managed to get out “I need to push!” They asked if this was my first baby and once Colter said the word ‘third’ they immediately flipped around and took me to a delivery room instead.
I managed to move from the wheelchair to the bed and yank my bottoms off in between contractions. My doctor wasn’t there yet and the nurse wanted to perform an exam to see if I was fully dilated and effaced, but once I was safely on the bed, I pushed with the next contraction, lying on my side with my top leg held up.
With that first push, my amniotic sac bulged and broke at 2:20 PM. Two more pushes delivered her head, and one final push delivered the rest of her at 2:21 PM on March 29, 2024.
For those of you doing the math, she was born 6 minutes after we had pulled up to the main entrance of the hospital.
As my doctor wasn’t there yet, Dorothy was caught by Georgia, the nearest nurse, and placed immediately on my chest. She was purple-blue at first, but breathing and crying so I requested they not cut her cord or move her to the warmer yet. Within a couple of minutes her color improved and she didn’t require any respiratory support. Colter cut the cord after a few minutes and I held our new daughter skin-to-skin while we waited for my OB to arrive.
Once she got there, I delivered the placenta and that was that. I didn’t require any stitches or additional assistance. We texted my parents and sister that the baby was here only 20 minutes after we had left the house.
The first moment Dottie was placed on my chest and I saw her face for the first time, I was surprised. She didn’t look like Della as I had expected. She didn’t look like Calvin either. Then, when she opened her eyes for the first time, I realized who she looked like: my cousin, Savanna. And Savanna has Down syndrome. The more I looked at my daughter, the surer I became: my brand new baby definitely had Down syndrome.
That story is a whole other post to be written. For now I hope you liked reading about how our beautiful Dorothy came into the world and changed ours forever.
Dorothy Lyn Merrell was born at 2:21 PM on March 29, 2024 at 39 weeks and 5 days. She weighed 7 lbs 5 oz and was 18 inches long. Her labor was spontaneous, unmedicated, and nearly ended with a delivery in our car.
BARREL OF MERRELL'S 
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