Introducing Sabine Knox

Feb 25, 2017 · 4 min read

At 12:40am Wednesday morning, Anni’s water broke.

She, Grandma Cathy, and I all happened to be awake after irresponsibly binge-watching Netflix Originals. We made our way to the hospital and checked in.

Anni was at 4cm dilation when she checked in. She’d been 3cm on Friday when we had a false alarm and had come in early. 10cm is the goal here.

Cathy and I slept for a handful of hours while Anni endured increasingly painful contractions.

Around 8am, she got an epidural, which largely removed all of her pain.

Her blood pressure dropped below target levels, as did the baby’s heart rate. The tables had turned: Anni was feeling good with the pain gone, while Cathy and I were anxious about their health.

(Let’s be honest. The tables never really fully turned. Anni was a champion through an incredible challenge.)

Everything went back to “normal” after oxygen, vasoconstrictors, and some other interventions. (normal = SNAFU)

A similar drop in vitals occurred when Anni was given the lowest dose of pitocin, which is meant to accelerate her body’s preparation to give birth. The doctors gave Anni no further pitocin until after the birth.

We then waited for quite a while, as the key preparedness metrics — dilation, effacement, and station — slowly moved in the right direction. Anni received numerous hand and foot rubs over these hours.

The Birthing Party Volunteers: Kim Lindauer, Grandma Colleen, Grandma Cathy, Anni, and me (holding camera)

Perhaps around 6:15pm, we got the green light. 10cm dilated, 100% effaced, and +2 station. Anni began pushing at each contraction. She followed a 10–8–10 rule: 10 seconds of pushing, 1 breath, 8 seconds of pushing, 1 breath, and 10 seconds of pushing. Then she’d rest until the next contraction, which was 1.5 to 2.5 minutes later.

Anni had an athlete’s mentality. Despite later saying that pushing — with an epidural — was worse than the painful early labor before the epidural, Anni stayed focused and positive. She vocalized goals. One of these goals: “This time I’m going to get her to crown.”

After about 90 minutes of pushing, our baby arrived.

Brad and Cathy watch as the doctor gets a grip on the baby’s head.

Anni cried. I cried. Baby cried adorably. Everyone cried. Maybe the doctor.

We had a small list of names already. We planned to meet her and then decide. She had an alert, slightly mysterious look in her eyes when she was first born; I felt that type of presence fit “Sabine” well. Anni already had it on her list of 2–3 favorites, so we named her “Sabine Lindenberg Knox”.

Anni’s and Sabine’s final ~20 minutes of vitals before birth. Thin vertical lines designate the start and stop of each minute. The purple line shows uterine contraction strength; the roughly half-minute humps show her contractions in these final minutes. The 3 small humps within each bigger hump are when Anni was holding her breath and pushing for 10 seconds, 8 seconds, and 10 seconds during a contraction. The blue is Sabine’s heart beats per minute (BPM). The sensor didn’t work well during the contractions, and you can see that Sabine’s BPM were typically lower after a contraction; both Anni and Sabine recovered after each contraction.

My mom Colleen, Anni’s mom Cathy, and our friend Kim were there through the most challenging parts, giving Anni and I support and confidence. I’m deeply grateful that they could be there for Sabine’s birth.

We then spent two nights in the hospital. At night, we chose to have Sabine stay in the nursery, brought to Anni only for feeding. Anni was immensely thankful we did this: it gave her 2-hour chunks of sleep without worrying about all of Sabine’s little sounds—and whether those sounds signaled distress and a need for intervention.