The Story

It's been over a week now, and things are still very hectic around here, but I'm finally sitting down to write out E's birth story.

I was scheduled for my induction on Wednesday, the 21st. My mom came to stay with us overnight on the 20th because we had to be at the hospital at 5:45 in the morning. On the night of the 20th, I had some bloody show, and started having contractions. They were slightly painful, and were fairly close together (3-7 mins apart), but I knew that they weren't nearly painful enough to be the real thing. I was super excited, because it was like E was telling me that induction or no induction, she was ready to come out. The contractions continued for part of the night, but I was able to get a little sleep. By the time we got up in the morning, the contractions had stopped.

We arrived at the hospital and got started on the pitocin around 6:20 a.m. My cerivx was at about 2, so the contractions from the night before had made about .5 to 1cm change in my cervix since I had been checked the day before and I was 1 to 1.5. My contractions started fairly soon after the pitocin was administered, and the nurses turned the pitocin drip up every 15 minutes until my doctor arrived about 8:30. When he arrived, he checked my cervix again and broke my water. E was still at -3 station (her head was still high in my pelvis) so that check hurt SO much. (Picture the doctor with his arm up to the elbow in my hoo-hoo trying to feel her head at -3 station.) I seriously think that was the most painful part of the entire labor because it was before my epidural.

When they broke my water, they found that there was a little meconium in the fluid, so they told me that there would be a neonatoligist present during the birth to check E out right away and to try to avoid having her suck the fluid into her lungs when she was delivered. I was disappointed to have even a small complication like that, but all things considered, it could have been worse.

After my water was broken, the nurse called for the epidural, and while I waited I had some pretty intense contractions for maybe 15 -30 minutes before the epidural was in place. After that, I still had some low abdominal cramping on the left side with each contraction, but the epidural greatly decreased my discomfort. (God bless the anesthesiologist. Amen.)

At around 10:30 my doctor called in to ask the nurse to check my cervix. I could tell that she was skeptical that I would have made much progress in just two hours, but was surprised to find that I was almost fully dilated with only a lip of cervix left. She told me to wait until I had the urge to push, and then call her.

I was worried about calling too early, so I waited until I was feeling a lot of pain and pressure (even through the epidural) with each contraction. That was about 10:45. They called my doctor (whose office is only about 10 minutes from the hospital) and he showed up soon after. As soon as he was set up (literally about 2 minutes after he walked in the door) he told me to push whenever I was ready.

With the next contraction, I pushed about 5 times in a row over a period of 2-3 minutes. At the end of the fifth push, I could feel the head, and the doctor told me to stop pushing. She came out and the doctor put her on my chest briefly before sending her to be checked by the neonatologist. I looked at T and basically said, "Did that just really happen??" I couldn't believe it was so fast. (I pushed for 45 minutes with D.)

The doctor did an episiotome, so he had to stitch me up afterwards. He was humming to himself as he was sewing, and the look on T's face was priceless as he watched how nonchlantly the doc was doing the job. (T is not a blood and guts guy at all. He didn't even look at the head this time. I think D's birth was enough of a memory for him. Haha.)

The neonatologist's check went smoothly, and we've been enjoying our new little bundle ever since. I'll updte with some more "first week" stuff soon, but for now, this is all there's time for. Thank you all again for all of your wonderful comments. It's so amazing to be able share good news within a community where there is so much support.