Autumn Claire Conterio: Birth Story

 Autumn Claire Conterio

Born: October 22nd, 2020
3:16 PM
6 lbs 15 ounces
19 inches

In the Summer of 2019 I felt strongly that there was one more sweet baby ready to join our family. I prayed so hard & had many conversation with Jeremy about this since we weren't totally in agreement on this topic. In July before we ever had decided on moving forward with anything I had the feeling I needed to see a Doctor. If you read Summer's birth story you know I am not regular with my periods. I went to see my Obgyn & after some tests + multiple months of taking my blood, I was diagnosed with PCOS. I was put on Femara to help me ovulate, the first month I didn't ovulate so they doubled my dose, the second month I did & I got pregnant! In January we went to Hawaii with our kids and the third morning we were there I started bleeding & the pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. I was heart broken. I read you can ovulate between a miscarriage & getting your period back so I was taking ovulation tests during that time. Three weeks exactly after my miscarriage I ovulated on my own without any medication & I got pregnant again! This pregnancy was mostly like my others but I was sick the entire time. 

I was trying for another VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) so at 37 weeks my Doctor stripped my membranes, just like with Carter & Summer nothing happened. So on October 21st. at 38 weeks + 3 days I asked him to do it again but twice. I came home from that appointment & went on a long walk, pushed Summer up this big hill twice. Felt nothing throughout the day & went to bed that night. The morning of October 22nd. around 3:30 in the morning I woke up to contractions. I did not want them to stop so I got up & just started walking around my house. I used my exercise ball that I also had been using for weeks to bounce. They started out around 20 min apart & by 6 AM they were about 10 min apart. I went on another walk around 9 AM outside & they would come every 5-10 minutes. I knew I was in active labor at this time but I didn't want to go to the hospital until I knew I was going to be further along. The day before at the Doctors I was almost a 2 but not effaced at all. I went over to my friend Haley's around 10:30 & I kept having them between 4-8 minutes. The ones that went longer hurt a lot more than the ones 4 minutes apart. Finally around 11:30 she was like " I think you should go to the hospital" I went home but was so tired from being up so early I laid on my bed & literally feel asleep between contractions. I only took a quick power nap & a little after noon I told Jer I think it was time to go. We stopped to get lunch & while we were driving there I had the some really strong contractions. We got to the hospital just after 1, they put me in a room to check me to see if I was going to stay or not. I was almost a 4 & about 80% effaced, so they said they would be keeping me. I was a little annoyed I wasn't further along at this point but was happy we were going to be having a baby! Around 1:45 they had me walk to the room I would be having her & my contractions started getting really strong. Around 2:30 I was at a 6 & I was screaming for my epidural, I was trying to hold out as long as possible without one but my contractions were coming every minute. It was the most pain I have ever felt in a delivery by far. When the anesthesiologist came to give me my epidural, trying to hold still during contractions every minute was not easy. As I was sitting up getting my epidural my water broke & I felt like I needed to push. They laid me back down to check me & I was at a 10! My Dr was still on his way & my epidural was not working. He gave me an extra shot but at this time I just kept yelling "I'm done, I don't want to do this anymore!" Jer said after, "I was so confused why you were saying that, there was no other options" I was literally screaming & shaking with each contraction. I was just in so much pain I wasn't even thinking. Finally the left side started to go dumb but I could feel everything on my right side. They called back the anesthesiologist, he gave me another dose & had me lay on my right side to get it to go dumb. Finally I started feeling the contractions less & less & my Dr arrived. I pushed through two contractions & Autumn was born at 3:16 pm. They said I was the last to arrive that day & first to have a baby! My recovery has been the easiest & I have always had medication to help me dilate so I am wondering if getting to a 10 naturally really helped. I wanted to have a natural birth if possible but honestly the pain was unreal & I had not done any preparation to have a natural birth

Why Autumn? We had a few other names we liked, Rae, Remi & Monroe were all on our list of names. We don't really pick a name until we see our babies. My Mom had said the name Autumn a few months ago & we really liked it. Then a few weeks before having her Jeremy's brother also recommended Autumn & again we both said we liked it but we have a Summer. I didn't know if I wanted to be "that family" once we had her though, we just felt like she was an Autumn. I like that Summer was born in Summer & Autumn was born in the Fall. We wanted to name Kennedy, Claire but again about a week before having her my Mom said the name Kennedy & once we saw her we thought she was more of a Kennedy. We don't have middle names for our other girls which I regret not doing so we gave Autumn a middle name. We may go add middle names to Kennedy & Summer. If we do we plan on doing Kennedy Jean (my Mom's name & she was born on my Mom's birthday) & Summer Lynn.