What a whirlwind three weeks it has been!
All our visitors are gone (until tomorrow) and I have a minute to record how Claire finally joined our family!
Thursday, October 16 at 11:30 am
We had made it to week 39 and 1 day and I was going in for my weekly appointment.
At the previous appointment my belly was measuring small, so we scheduled an ultrasound for this appointment.
After the scan, I was waiting in the room by myself for the doc.
I didn't know what was about to transpire but I was kicking myself for not bringing Jon to the appointment.
12:30 pm
My doctor came in and she went over the results from the ultrasound.
The baby was measuring abnormally small, my amniotic fluid was low, I had lost a lot of weight since last appointment, and my placenta had more calcification than normal for a 39 week placenta.
"We need a plan." she said.
She checked me... still at a 1 and cervix clear up in Canada.
"Go ahead and get dressed and we can talk about what we should do."
By this point I'm a bit concerned and really wishing I'd brought Jon along.
I was going through a million different scenarios in my head...
none of which included being induced THAT day.
The doctor came in again after I had dressed and she went over the "red flags" with me again.
"I think that leaving baby in your tummy for another week will no longer be beneficial to the baby. We need to get baby out. And I think we should induce today."
TODAY?!?! I was thinking maybe next week? Maybe this weekend when I have time to process this? I needed to go grocery shopping today!
We'd been waiting for this girl for nearly 5 years- its funny that I STILL didn't feel ready!
She said she would call upstairs to Labor and Delivery and get the process started.
I walked out of her office in a daze.
I no longer wanted to have a baby.
I was terrified.
Pregnancy never scared me.
Taking care of a newborn never scared me.
But the thought of labor always freaked me out.
No matter how much research I did, or how many classes I took- I just couldn't wrap my head around giving birth.
And I had heard that inductions could take DAYS...
I could not imagine days of only eating ice chips.
I kind of wanted to curl up in a ball and run away from the hospital.
I ran outside and called Jon.
Of course he was excited to leave work and was gung ho about "having a baby today!" Easy for him to say. He didn't have to push a baby out through a 1 inch hole.
I called my mother-in-law. OB nurse. She talked some sense into me and helped me feel a little calmer.
I called my brother. OB doctor. He too was able to prepare me for the ensuing induction... although he warned me on it taking days as well.
THUS I disobeyed doctors orders and ran home to eat some food.
(It helps that we only live 5 minutes away from the hospital)
I met Jon at home, we grabbed our bags and made it back to the hospital.
1:00 pm
Being a small town in Mississippi, they don't do "pre-registrations" at the hospital- so we waited nearly an hour to get all our insurance info taken care of.
For this part- I am certainly glad I wasn't in real labor waiting around for them to take our insurance info. Maybe they would have been a little more speedy had I been yelling in pain at them... but maybe not.
I suppose we'll never know.
2:05 pm
We got up to a hospital room.
More waiting.
There were other people on the floor having babies and my induction wasn't high priority.
Fine by me! Maybe they'll forget about me!
Nope... they didn't.
3:00 pm
They hooked me up to the monitors and put a blood pressure cuff on my arm.
I wanted to murder that blood pressure cuff.
It would pump up SO high and took SO long to let the air out, I really thought my arm would fall off every time it pumped.
Having my blood pressure monitored was worse than contractions.
I wanted to rip it off and go labor at home where no one would bother me.
Not really... but I was thinking irrationally and I didn't know what I wanted.
Poor Jon.
"Amelia- do you want to read?"
No.
"Do you want to watch Netflix?"
No.
"Do you want to watch football?"
No.
"Do you want to watch Modern Family?"
No.
Instead, we decided on getting a blessing...
and halfway through the nurse walked in and it was slightly awkward.
4:30 pm
The nurse prepared my arm for the IV and was making jokes about how her IVs in the past week have been really messy.
"Blood everywhere" she said laughing.
Not funny.
I'm sure my face was white as snow.
I just turned my head the entire time and pretended that someone was not playing with a needle in my vein.
IV in and fluids going.
5:00 pm
A new nurse.
I like to worry and had worried about switching nurses.
What if she was mean and I didn't like her?
Well... God is good and my new nurse was an angel.
She was so supportive and sweet and talked me through everything.
I'm sure she doesn't even remember me but I seriously love her.
Lacey was her name.
She came in with Dr. Angras (my doctors partner) and they talked about the medicine they were going to put in to help thin the cervix... because remember I was at a 1.
Dr. Angras checked me and things were a LITTLE bit better than expected.
I was between a 1 and a 2 and was 50% effaced.
Then came time for the medicine... which was a suppository... which had to be placed BEHIND the cervix.
Holy hannah. I thought I was going to die.
Even with small hands- the doctor did not have an easy time.
Probably the most uncomfortable thing of the whole experience.
The doc explained that the medicine works in four hour increments...
"We are hoping to only have to do two treatments... but sometimes women require 4-5 rounds of this medicine before labor can start."
Excuse me? 4-5 rounds of medicine that works in 4 hour chunks? Are we really talking 16-20 hours before we can even start labor?
Oy.
But yet again, God is good- and it definitely did not take 20 hours.
7:00 pm
Lovely nurse Lacey came in to check on me.
Man these checks were awful.
As she was telling me that I was at a 3, fluid came gushing out.
"And your water just broke! It seems that the medicine is working! You probably won't need pitocin after all!"
Hooray for a body doing what it's supposed to do!
She warned me that now my water has broken, labor will most likely speed up... so if I want an epidural... ask for it now.
WELL I had been having contractions for the past two hours and they weren't THAT bad... so I decided to hold off.
Oops.
My contractions started coming every two minutes and I was in enormous amounts of pain.
Did I mention that the cervix thinning medicine was also a laxative?
Oh yeah... lots of fun.
9:00 pm
Dilated to a 5.
Asked for that epidural.
Best decision of my life.
10:05 pm
Between the anesthesiologist getting ready and my last attempts at using the bathroom, it took a while to get that epidural.
Holding still in between contractions was a beast and Jon wasn't in the room.
Again- my nurse was an angel and let me squeeze the heck out of her hands.
But the epidural was in, and the relief was immediate.
I know an epidural is not everyone's cup of tea- but it was for me.
And it made me so happy.
I went from being uncontrollably shaky with high blood pressure,
to calm, collected and relaxed.
I was a definite fan.
11:00 pm
Nurse came back in to check me.
Dilated to an 8.
Oh what, was that a contraction?
Psshh- didn't feel a thing.
Labor is awesome.
11:45 pm
Nurse in again to check.
Dilated to a 9 almost 10!
The nurse helped me push a little to get to a full 10 and called the Dr. in.
For the next hour the room would be a flurry of people as they transformed it into a delivery room.
Suddenly Jon was in scrubs and everyone was there ready to have a baby!
Friday, October 17 at 1:07 am
Real pushing starts.
I could feel pressure, but definitely not any pain.
It took a while to understand where I needed to be pushing (because of the epidural), but once I got the hang of it- it sure didn't take long.
1:31 am
Our Claire baby was born.
During each push I would close my eyes to help visualize what I should be doing and wasn't looking up. They kept saying "one more push, one more push"- so when they told me to stop pushing I was confused as to what was going on!
When I looked up, I saw Claire in all her gooey glory and immediately started crying.
She was beautiful!
They put her on my chest and all I could think to say was "I love you! I love you!"
While cleaning her, they stitched me up (I tore a little bit) which was definitely long and annoying because I just wanted to hold my baby again!
The Dr. had a PA student with her and was letting her do the stitches... maybe that's why it was taking a little bit longer.
Anyhow- I was finally able to hold my baby girl again.
It was all very surreal and still is.
I don't think I fully understand that she's ours... and that she's our responsibility.
We spent the next 2.5 days at the hospital getting to know our little girl.
Coming home!
It's been a crazy three weeks trying to figure out things for our little girl.
We definitely don't know what we're doing,
but we're loving the process!
And there you have it- I worried about an induction taking days and it took 8 hours.
Hallelujah!
Yet...
