Evelyn Nancy

Hello! The babe has arrived! Well, actually she arrived 5 weeks ago, but we’re still kind of in the newborn fog, so it took me this long to sit down at a computer and try to type up her birth story. I waffled back and forth about whether I should write it all down, but I figured I might want to look back on it someday (or maybe she will – who knows!).

But first – a little recap of running in the second and third trimesters. Generally, I felt good while running during this pregnancy. I had no round ligament pain like I had with Teddy. My biggest complaint was the constant urge to pee! The second trimester felt pretty great – I was able to log multiple 10 mile runs and ran a few races – a 10k with my husband in late March and a 5k on Mother’s Day. I even got to run a short kids race with Teddy – his very first one! We came in absolutely last and it was so much fun.

I somehow (I still don’t know how this happened) managed to WIN a 5k in mid-June. I’ve run the local Whipple City 5k every year for the past 5 years and this is my second time coming in as first female. The other time I won was in 2015 (finish time of 22:27 // 7:14 pace). This year I was 30 weeks pregnant and had no intention of running fast, but on race morning I just felt GOOD. I was second or third female for most of the race, but decided to give it a go and kick it in to the finish. My finish time was 23:07 // 7:27 pace. I’m never in super awesome shape for this race (it’s usually right after a spring marathon or before I start training for a fall race), so my times have never been close to a PR, but I was really pumped to see my pregnant time only 40 seconds off my non-pregnant time.

After this race, I gradually started to run slower and fewer miles. I think I logged a 6-miler in late June and a 5-miler in early July (at about 33 weeks pregnant). After that, I stuck mostly to 2, 3, and 4-mile runs. The weight of the baby really started to feel HEAVY.

I feel fortunate to have run up until 39 weeks – my last pregnant run (2.5 miles with Brian and Teddy in the jogging stroller) was about 36 hours before I gave birth. Running in the last month or so of pregnancy was hot (#summerrunning) and sometimes blah, but it helped me maintain a sense of routine, a sense of self. Something that can be hard to come by as the parent of young children, ya know?

Evelyn Nancy Harrington

So! Evelyn’s birth story! During my last pregnancy, I had gestational hypertension at the end, resulting in an induction and Teddy’s birth at 38.5 weeks. I never had preeclampsia (no protein in urine or abnormal blood tests), but given my history, it was something top of mind for this second pregnancy. I had to do a few 24 hour urine samples (basically you collect your urine in a jug for 24 hours and they test it for protein – fun!) and I had more frequent monitoring in the third trimester. Generally, my blood pressure was good, though. Howeverrrr, around 36 weeks, it started to creep up. It was never in the critical range, but higher than the midwives and doctors liked (it was hovering around 140/90). At my 38 week appointment, my midwife suggested an induction once I hit the 39 week mark. For a lot of reasons, inductions aren’t ideal, so it wasn’t my first choice, but at the end of the day, a healthy mom and baby are the most important outcome, right? Unlike last time where I had to go immediately from a midwife appointment to labor and delivery (didn’t even have my hospital bag!), this induction was a lot more chill. Most importantly, since we knew about it a day or so ahead of time, we had time to prepare. We were able to line up childcare for Teddy and take care of last minute errands.

We headed to the hospital the morning of Sunday, August 19th and by the time we checked in, filled out paperwork, and I got some initial blood work, it was mid-morning. To get the induction started, my midwife checked me and announced that I was about 2 cm dilated, 80% effaced, and soft/medium. That was good news! It meant I didn’t need a cervical ripening agent and could go directly to Pitocin. We started the Pitocin shortly before lunch time and for the rest of the afternoon Brian and I chilled in the hospital room while they gradually increased the Pitocin from level 1 to level 10. By dinner time, I was getting a little frustrated. I was only having very mild contractions and was at 3 cm. It felt like very little progress in 6 hours and I started worrying about how long things were going to take.

My midwife came in around 7pm for another check and decided to manually break up some scar tissue on my cervix to help with dilation (yes, it was just as uncomfortable as it sounds!). Shortly after she did that, the contractions started getting VERY intense. For the next two-three hours, I labored by walking, bouncing on an exercise ball, and kneeling over the bed. It was honestly the most pain I’ve ever been in – more painful than Teddy’s labor for sure. By around 9pm, the contractions were about 45-60 seconds long and coming every 90 seconds. I felt like I was barely getting a break and didn’t know how much longer I could hang in there. So, I decided it was time for an epidural! My outlook on childbirth (both with Teddy and Evelyn) was to be flexible – would I like to go drug-free? Sure. But I was also very open to medication if I needed it, It took awhile for me to get the IV with a bag of fluid (necessary before you can get an epidural) and it was probably 9:45pm before the anesthesiologist showed up. He got me prepped and the epidural was in my place by 10pm. MY GOD! The relief was immediate. It was amazing. I still got the shakes like I did with Teddy and it made me feel a little woozy at first, but at that point anything was preferable to the nonstop contractions! I told the anesthesiologist that he was my new BFF and getting the epidural was the best decision of my life (sorry Brian). 🙂

After the epidural was in place, my midwife checked me again (4cm dilated) and manually broke my water. She told me to get some rest and said she’d be back in a few hours. However, over the next hour or so, the baby’s heart rate kept dropping (likely from the umbilical cord being compressed during each contraction) and I started getting nervous that they were going to mention a c-section. My midwife decided to check me one more time (it was probably around midnight at this point) and her eyes got wide. “You’re 10 centimeters!,” she said. I had gone from 4 cm to 10 cm in about 90 minutes – fast progress! She went to go wake up her student midwife and we got ready to push.

Once my midwife was back in the room, it was time to start pushing and about 25 minutes later at 1:04am, Evelyn Nancy was born. She was immediately put on my chest and I was able to hold her while the placenta was delivered and I got cleaned up. The immediate postpartum period always sucks (Going to the bathroom! The blood! Sore nipples! Trying to sleep in a hospital room while nurses constantly come in and out lolololol), but I knew what to expect this time around, so it didn’t seem quite so bad. The labor was painful (at least until I got the epidural hah!), but from my first “real” contraction until delivery, it was only about 6-7 hours. We’re 5 weeks in and physically, I’m feeling tired, but mostly normal. Nursing is going really well and we’re slowly starting to figure out life as a family of 4.

Welcome little one! She’s named after two strong women in our family.

I recently went on my first postpartum run and it was incredibly humbling. My stomach is squishy, my boobs are full of milk, and 10:30 pace feels like a hard tempo run. Sigh. I don’t love the process of getting back into shape, but you have to start somewhere, right? I don’t have any big race plans on the horizon. I opted NOT to register for Boston – I was tempted, but personally, I have a tough time balancing serious training and breastfeeding (and lol sleep deprivation and an active toddler). I think I could probably finish the race, but I’ve run it 4 times already…the next time I race it, I want to give it my all. I’m thinking about a race next fall though – maybe Chicago or CIM?? Stay tuned! This was a VERY long post – thanks for sticking around till the end!

Also, I started blogging TEN YEARS AGO. Yikes. I changed the privacy setting on those early early years, but for a laugh here’s a link to a post from exactly a decade ago. I was aiming for much more of a food/cooking blog back in those days…fun to look back on! Sorry for the lack of photos – not sure what happened to them.

I don’t update this blog very often, but you can always find me on Strava and Instagram!