The EriKaren Family

I figured I should write this down before I forget, even though I hardly use the blog anymore! I was due on April 6th and actually went into early labor that day which resulted in a fruitless labor and delivery visit. We were so sure it was time and so was my midwife and I did actually dilate a centimeter and a half before it all just came to a screeching halt. The next day, I had my membranes swept and immediately started having harder contractions, but they weren't consistent by any means. They were just super uncomfortable.

 On the morning of the 8th, I woke up at 6 am having pretty consistent contractions and I was getting to the point where I couldn't walk or talk through them. We got up and got the kids ready for school and Erik jumped in the shower after I told him this was definitely baby day. Once my mom and dad got to our apartment at 7:30, contractions were coming every 3-5 minutes and were hurting pretty badly. I was really dreading the car ride to the hospital because sitting down through a contraction was awful. When my parents got here, my mom, Erik and I all headed to the hospital.

 We got to the hospital and the nurses obviously knew I wasn't messing around (probably because I started crying while I was waiting on them to get me checked in) and hustled me into a room and started helping me into a gown. I was probably in triage for 10 minutes before they moved me to Labor and Delivery.

We had planned on a water birth and they got me in the tub pretty quickly, which helped with the pain, but at 5 cm dilated, I was having contractions that felt more like what an 8 or 9 felt like when Finland was born. My midwife quickly found out that she was facing sunny side up and therefore, the contractions were more intense. I had been super concerned that I would end up accidentally having a baby at home after how fast Finn came, but because of her position, things went WAY slower.

I had been in the tub for a long time when I started to feel a lot of pressure. When they checked, I was dilated to a 7 and my midwife suggested they break my water to get her to turn and come. I agreed and then immediately regretted that decision. I went from a 7 to almost completely dilated and in unbearable pain. I started crying and screaming because although I'd had a baby un-medicated before, this was NOTHING like that pain. It was beyond worse and I immediately started telling Erik there was no way I could do this. My midwife suggested a drug to help take the edge off, which I quickly agreed to and quickly found out that it wasn't even touching it.

I involuntarily started pushing at this point because I was dilated to 10 cm, but with her position, she was like a cork and didn't move at all during pushes. It was the most excruciating pain to push and not have her move. I requested (not so quietly or nicely) an epidural at that point and within like two minutes, the anesthesiologist was in the room and worked through three more contractions to get the epi started. I could've kissed him. Seriously, it was almost immediate relief even though I could still feel contractions pretty hard on one side.

 They let me rest for two hours before they came in and the chief resident turned her head and she was born at 2:03 pm. My midwife didn't even get her glove completely on and she had to catch her with a towel. They put her on my chest pretty quickly and finished up getting me cleaned up. She weighed 8 pounds, 8.9 ounces and was 20 inches long. She immediately started nursing and is one of the sweetest babies I've ever met! After she was born, they informed me that if she had been turned the right direction, she probably would've been born in the car on the way to the hospital (we only live 5 minutes away). It was kind of a blessing in disguise to have had her turned the way she was! 

After an hour and a half, my nurse was getting ready to send us over to postpartum when I felt a huge gush. She pulled back the covers and like 10 people came rushing in the room because I had started hemorrhaging. I got super sleepy and was kind of half there when a sonogram machine came in and they realized that a piece of membrane was still in my uterus.

Luckily, I still had an epidural in because they had to manually sweep my uterus to get the leftover piece out. They started pumping me full of pitocin and saline and I was given at least 10 different shots in my legs to attempt to stop the bleeding. One drug I was given caused me to start coughing like crazy and I was super short of breath and quickly had a breathing treatment to open my lungs back up. Another drug created a fever reaction. It was a weird experience. None of the endless amount of drugs and saline seemed to help and they eventually put a balloon in my uterus to put pressure against the part of my uterus that was bleeding.

After an hour and minutes before a D&C and blood transfusion, they finally got the bleeding under control. It was a scary couple of hours and I'm so glad we were where we were.

I had had a feeling at the very beginning of my pregnancy that she needed to be born in a hospital. That feeling stayed strong throughout my pregnancy (and kind of scared me for what was going to happen). The staff informed me that if I had chosen a birth center again, in this particular situation, I more than likely would've bled to death in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

 We were on the fence about continuing our family after this baby, but decided we didn't want to risk this happening again. So, Portlyn has completed our family and she's the perfect bookend. In her short two and a half weeks, she's brought so much love and light to our family. We're all smitten with her and so excited to see her grow!

It's been 10 months since I last blogged, but I wanted to make sure I got Finland's birth story down before I forget pieces of it.

First of all, the day I got to Utah, my new midwife told me that my chart had my due date as August 25th (I had thought it was September 1st since my first ultrasound back in January). Considering I had just flown in from Texas an hour earlier, I was really glad to have not know that I was actually 38 weeks pregnant instead of 37 like I thought.

I went back in to see my midwife on my due date to try and get labor started. They did a membrane sweep and manually stretched my cervix to 5 cm (super cute, I know). It was not comfortable in the least bit, but it definitely started some uncomfortable contractions that unfortunately didn't go anywhere.


After the membrane sweep, they told me to expect some bleeding for the next 24 hours, but I noticed that blood had turned into liquid and I had a funny feeling that I should call about it. It wasn't a gush like they tell you to expect and I wanted to make sure it wasn't amniotic fluid. I've always been afraid of my water breaking because of the risk of infection.

Anyway, I called my midwife who told me to meet her at the birth center to verify what was going on. They did the test strip and found out it was amniotic fluid and immediately started telling me ways to get labor going. I had to start active labor within 24 hours or I wouldn't be able to deliver at the birth center like I wanted to. They suggested castor oil, which I swore I never would because I had heard horror stories of explosive diarrhea in labor. I told my midwife this and she actually died laughing at me and told me that had NEVER happened to them and they saw the best results from it. I told them I would give it a shot and went home.

When I got home, I took the castor oil in a chocolate shake and laid down. They had told me to get some sleep before labor started so I would have the stamina. I'm not going to lie, I had a cry-fest when I laid down. I had been so ready to do this until it finally happened and then I was freaking out because I all of a sudden lost all confidence in myself. Luckily, when everything started, that went out the window. After an hour and a half of laying down, I felt the very first contraction at 2:15pm. I got up and started bouncing on the yoga ball but it quickly escalated to seriously bad back labor. Of course, the maintenance people showed up to start working on our air conditioning right outside my bedroom door 10 minute after this started.

My midwife called me a few minutes after I woke up and asked how I was doing. She asked me if I was able to talk through contractions and I told her I was in the middle of one while I was talking to her. At that point, I was still doing okay, just really uncomfortable. She told me to come into the birth center when I couldn't walk or talk through contractions. 

I was trying so hard to be quiet and texted my sister-in-law, Paula about whether or not back labor should feel this intense and promptly threw up all over the floor. It was great. Erik had run to get me something to throw up in and was welcomed back with that. He jokes that I had to get one last round of puke in before it was all over. He was working so hard to clean it up and just didn't know what to do. Luckily, my mom was here and knew how to get it out of the carpet. It was super gross.

While my mom was cleaning the floor, I felt Finland shift in a huge way, It felt like he swiveled and all of a sudden, all of the pain in my back shifted to the front and my pelvis felt like it was going to break in half with every contraction. I texted Paula again and she asked how far apart my contractions were and at that point they were two minutes apart. She told me to call my midwife immediately, which Erik did because there was no way I could talk with how close together they were and how painful they were. They told us to come in quickly. We left immediately after that at 3:30pm.

The birth center is only 4.6 miles from our house but we left right in the middle of a high traffic time in Salt Lake and it took us almost 30 minutes to get there. It was the longest car ride of my life. I never expected to be so vocal but I was yelling through every contraction. I'm sure people in the cars around us were wondering what the heck was going on. It hurt so bad to be sitting! I was so distracted, I didn't even notice that Erik was going 50mph in a 30.

When we pulled up to the birth center, Erik helped me inside and the second I got in, I had a huge contraction. I had to walk up a flight of stairs to get to the birth room, which was probably only 20 steps, but I had to pause twice on the way up for contractions. During the car ride over, they had gone from 2 minutes apart to 1 minute. They were almost constant and I was in so much pain.

They gave me a birthing ball and checked my cervix. I was only 4 cm dilated at the time and I was so discouraged, I almost cried. I think I actually tried to cry, but I just didn't have it in me to fight the contractions and cry at the same time. The only way I could get through a contraction was by yelling all the way through. I remember thinking "I sound like Elizabeth Banks in 'What to Expect When You're Expecting'" when she's in labor. I wanted to laugh but couldn't either. From the point on, I was so in my head. It was a constant dialogue and I tuned out the rest of the world.

They checked me again 45 minutes later and I was already dilated to a 7. Poor Erik was trying so hard to help me but I didn't want to be touched or talked to. He tried to ask me something one time and was probably a foot aware from my face and I swatted him away and told me to stop asking me questions. At one point I yelled "This was a terrible idea! I can't do this!" and tried crying again, but failed. They both assured me I was so close and that I just needed a little bit longer.

At that point, my midwife knew I was about to deliver just by me saying those words. She told me if I was going to have the water birth I wanted, I needed to get in the bath immediately. She checked me again which was only 30 minutes after the last time and I was fully dilated. I got into the bath and it immediately helped the pain. They told me I started dozing between contractions and I just remember being really out of it at that point. The short time I was in labor had gone so fast and so hard, I was exhausted.

Right after I got in, I immediately felt like I needed to push. My body started without me and it totally freaked me out. I was so scared that my pelvis was going to snap in two. It was so intense and he was coming so fast. I started freaking out and yelling at them to get him out. It was insane how weird it felt. My body did all the work without me. I only actively pushed one time out, but everything else happened on its own. My official "pushing time" was only 6 minutes. He was born at 5:34pm on August 26th. The second he was out, the pain completely stopped and I was in shocked that it was over and he was there.


He came out and they put him on my chest immediately. He didn't cry, he just looked around and at me. They had to give him a few breaths and got him crying. He laid on my chest while they delivered the placenta and just let me hang out with him for a good 20 minutes. It was so nice to not be rushed and just hang out (although the water was pretty nasty, but surprisingly I didn't care).

Erik got to hold him for the first time when they helped me back to the bed. We were both so in love with him immediately. It was a good thing because they had only wrapped him in a towel and he immediately started to poop all over me and the towel. Erik found it hysterical and I couldn't get the nasty first poop off of me! If you've had a baby, you know how that first poop is like tar and sticks to everything.

After an hour, they put him on the other side of the bed and did his vitals. He was 20 1/4 inches long and 8 pounds exactly. He was perfect and he looked and sounded great. He looked just like Londyn to us for the first couple of days but now seems like a good mix between Londyn and Scotlyn. We got to go home when we were ready, which was about 2 hours after he was born. We got home by 8pm and it was so nice to be in my own bed that night. My mom had kept Scotlyn up and she was able to meet her baby brother. We could hardly get her to bed, she was so excited.


Londyn met him when she woke up in the morning and both girls have been in love with him. They think everything he does is so funny and are extremely attentive every time he cries. They want to hold him every chance they get. He's only been here 4 1/2 weeks, but he feels like he's been part of our family forever. It's funny how fast another person can fit into a family so quickly. We're so blessed and happy with our experience. I'm terrified that next kid will come in an hour, considering all my births were almost halved
 each time.

Before I finish, I have a fun fact. All of our kids have been born on a 4. Londyn was born at 8:04pm, Scotlyn at 3:34pm and Finland at 5:34pm. We'll see what time the next one comes! Haha.