Forgive my delay in posting...its been a little crazy around here. This is mainly due to a little miracle entering our lives on February 10 and she's a little needy. :) I've been attempting to write this post for 4 weeks now!
Introducing Everleigh Ann, born at 4:56pm on Tuesday the 10th. She weighs 7 lb 12.5 oz and is a long 21 inches!
I want to write down my birth story so I can remember the details years from now. What better outlet than my blog? If you don't want to read about it or are scared of blood, guts and gore, than I suggest you stop right here. :). It's also crazy long, so forgive me if you get bored.
We decided a week before Feb 9 to get induced. My doc left it up to us because we knew from ultrasounds she has a big head (97th percentile) and he wanted us to be comfortable with the decision. Ryan was all about induction because he's a planner and induction has a plan in some ways. I struggled with the decision for a few days because Ryan said its my body and my decision, and I partially felt like I was messing with nature and my body and baby's decision. They say your body wouldn't produce a baby your body can't birth. I also have always been terrified of the birthing process and I've heard inductions that have gone terribly wrong. Ultimately, we decided to get induced because I knew a 39 week head is smaller than a 41+ week head. It's good that we decided to induce, because when we went to see the doc on Monday the 9th before heading to the hospital, I had high blood pressure and had some pretty major swelling.
The doc checked me before heading across the street to Memorial Regional Hospital and I still wasn't even a cm dilated. Womp.
We got to the hospital around 2:30 and the nurse got us settled into our huge labor and delivery room. Ryan got some of the bags unpacked while the nurses set up my IV and went through paperwork questions, etc. Around 3pm, the doc came in to insert Cervidil to soften my cervix and hopefully start to dilate me a little. My doc made a very clear plan to my nurse that the Cervidil was to be removed around 3am and to start Poticin at 4am. He also asked that I get my epidural before 6am. He did this because he said he knew I wanted it early and he said he knew he was going to be doing things to me that could cause pain (break my water, etc) and didn't want me to feel it. I loooove my doc.
The Cervidil didn't hurt one bit, and once they put in Cervidil I couldn't pee for 2 hours. How rude for being so pregnant and not being able to pee! Ryan watched a bunch of shows on the iPad and I texted on my phone and watched TV. I decided to take an Ambien while watching The Bachelor because I knew I was going to have trouble sleeping and I knew I was going to need my rest for the following day.
I know Ambien can make people feel loopy, but all it did for me was allow me to sleep for maybe an hour. It was hard sleeping with the blood pressure cuff always going off and the IV wires anyway, but being in a new place and a new bed really didn't help.
The night nurse started the Potocin right around 4am as planned. I felt nothing and tried to rest a bit. The epidural wasn't done before 6am, however, because there was a code blue and the anesthesiologist was preoccupied.
Around 7ish the anesthesiologist got to our room and thankfully Ryan was able to stay and help me through getting the epidural. Since I wasn't in any pain yet, I felt every second of the burn but it honestly wasn't too terrible. He finished in about 5 minutes and it was the craziest feeling ever having the numb tingles rushing down my legs. I enjoyed the catheter, believe it or not, because it was a real pain getting up to go to the bathroom, especially once the IV had to be dragged with me.
My doc came in around 8 or 9am to check me. Unfortunately, I still wasn't dilated at all. Not what we wanted to hear. At that point he did a Foley bulb to try and dilate me. It was interesting because there were two student nurses, my new day nurse, and my doc all looking at my lady parts with the bed raised and bright lights on. I think Ryan felt even more uncomfortable than I did. Ha!
After he did the Foley, his plan was to come back at noon and break my water. This was the last attempt my doc could make to make it easier for Everleigh to enter this world.
While waiting for noon time, I can't really remember what we did. I think I took a nap while Ryan watched more Sopranos. The nurse came in quite a lot to check for contraction strength, vitals, etc.
I believe the doc came back right around noon. He checked me and I was 2 cm! Progress! My contractions were picking up but I still couldn't feel a thing. The doctor then broke my water and I really felt like I peed myself, which they warned me it would. The fluid looked healthy and doc then said his plan was to come back around 3 to check my progress. He also had some sort of internal monitor inserted in me to see how strong my contractions were since I couldn't feel anything. I'm not sure what it meant, but there was a goal of around 300 in numbers to really show my body was getting somewhere.
While we were waiting, the doc came back in just to hang out with us on his little lunch break he had. We really love my doc. He's personable and caring and has really lived the American Dream (came from war stricken Bosnia and took him almost 10 years to go through all of the hurdles of certifications, etc to become a doc). He thinks he's really funny, too, which lightens the mood. The nurse also hung out with us for a bit and kept updating that my numbers were getting stronger...all good!
3pm came around in no time and the doc was back. He checked me right away, and we didn't hear what we wanted. I was STILL only 2 cm after all of that. The nurse didn't even believe me, so she checked me herself and said "oh man...yeah still def only 2". I knew right away we were going to talk c section because he mentioned it before if there wasn't any progress.
I cried, Ryan and I talked about it, and we decided to go with the c section. The doc would of let us wait a little longer, but we were on the clock since my water broke and 2cm in almost 24 hours wasn't exactly promising. The doc made some calls and scheduled delivery for 4:30pm.
In no time, I was being wheeled away into the OR. Ryan had to wait until I was in and set up before he could come in. They started doing prep stuff right away, and when they touched my belly to see if I could feel anything, I had to tell them to numb me more on my left side because I felt the touch very clearly.
There were probably 8 nurses/anesthesiologist/docs in the room and they were all so calm. I was feeling very anxious because my mind immediately went to my arm surgery just 2 months prior. Ryan had to talk to me the whole time and distract me from what was happening on the other side of the tent.
The doc kept us updated the whole time and started the surgery by asking for a beer. Classic.
It took maybe 15 minutes before they said they were starting to see her and to get ready for her. I started to feel a LOT of tugging and pushing and pulling. I felt like it was going on for forever and the pushing on the ribs started to get really really bad. It didn't take long for me to feel sick from anxiety and I had to ask for nausea medicine because I was 2 seconds away from throwing up. They gave me a pan near my mouth but thankfully a minute or so later, we heard "SHE HAS RED HAIR!" And a baby's cry. She was here...finally. My sick feeling went away and I felt so many emotions I felt like it was a total body experience. Excited, nervous, happy, weird, helpless, tired, and overwhelmed. They whisked her away to check her and I caught a glimpse of her almost immediately.
They told us she had almost a perfect Apgar score and then gave us weight and height measurements. Ryan got to hold her and then they placed her on my chest. Talking about love at first sight. I couldn't believe this was our baby. She was beautiful and so, so alert. We just stared and I got to talk to her for a good 5 minutes.
My baby :)
Shortly after, they wrapped her up and let me hold her while being wheeled back to our room. Once we were in the room, we had an hour with just her. I got to breastfeed and she latched right away. I had horrible shakes from the anesthesia wearing off which is something I didn't know to expect but was told by the nurse it was completely normal. After we spent time with her, we let the grandparents come in to meet their newest granddaughter. Everleigh is so lucky to have 2 sets of grandparents that loved her before they even met her.
The night she was born was a blur. We opted to have her sleep with us, and I'm pretty sure I was so interrupted we didn't sleep for one minute.
Around 1am, the nurse said I should try to stand up and get a shower. I agreed and she brought in another nurse to help me walk. This is when things got a little hairy.
When I stood up, I immediately started dripping blood. I left a trail from my bed all of the way to the shower. The nurse mentioned it was more than they like to see and they were going to keep an eye on it. The nurse took out my catheter and epidural and let me have a pack of crackers and some juice since I was STARVING and begging for something. I hadn't had anything to eat since Monday at 7pm and here it was Wednesday morning...hangry was an understatement.
If you haven't heard of "mashing" then consider yourself lucky. It's what the nurses call pressing down on your uterus to make sure it's contracting down. From about 1-4am, I was "mashed" so many times I couldn't stop crying out of fear for the next time. For those couple of hours, there seemed to be more and more nurses coming in to check on my blood loss.
The head nurse eventually made her way in around 4am and after they weighed my blood loss from the clean up pads from my shower, etc, the nurse made the decision to call my doctor. He suggested that they insert some sort of medicine (pills, in my ass, might I add) to stop the blood clots. The next thing I knew, my doctor was in my hospital room by 4:30. We knew then that something definitely wasn't right.
I would rather forget the next part of the night, but everything that happened led me to my beautiful baby girl, so I want to remember the details..even if they re painful.
When my doc got there, he decided to "mash" me and then proceeded to try to manually get out the blood clots in my uterus. Y'all, WORST 10 minutes of my life...by far. Let me give you this visual: legs spread apart, doc doing his thing where basically his entire arm was in my biz, with me holding Ryan's hand on my right side and a nurses hand on my left side. I looked up to the ceiling, and all I remember at one point is seeing the reflection of the cross above my head and thinking that this was it...I'm going to die. I'm pretty sure I screamed like crazy and BEGGED the doctor to please, please stop. He kept promising me only another few seconds.
After an eternity passed, he stopped and then left the room. I remember thinking I don't really know what's going on, and then Ryan left the room needing to go for a walk and catch his breath. As painful as it was for me, I'm sure it was just as painful for him to watch and know he couldn't help me.
The next thing I know, my doctor comes in to tell me that they were going to have to get the blood clots out by doing a D&C. I knew nothing about a D&C except that it's done for miscarriages and abortions. He explained they were going to have to open up my uterus to get the blood clots out, and because I had some food (really 2 crackers shouldn't count, I thought), they were going to have to put me under for the surgery. I also had to get a breathing tube.
I couldn't stop crying when I was being wheeled to the operating room. Ryan couldn't stay with me and I just couldn't wrap my mind around having a third surgery in less than 2 months, The nurses were great and I even had the same anesthesiologist that did my epidural the morning before. They wheeled me into the room, transferred me to the operating bed, put a mask over my face and said we'll see you in a bit.
I woke up feeling fine but my throat was really hurting (was told it was normal from the breathing tube). I was exhausted and we told any visitors that planned on coming that day to please wait because we hadn't had a second of sleep and really needed a day of recovery. The day after she was born was a pretty big blur - I think most of the day consisted of nurses coming in to check on me, and bringing Everleigh in from the nursery every 2 hours to nurse. As much as I didn't want to, we sent Everleigh to the nursery that night so we could try to get some sleep before bringing her home.
We were in the hospital on Friday and had visitors loving on Everleigh all day and night Thursday. We were told Thursday night that Everleigh was a little jaundice and they suggested she spends the night under the lights to help clear it up. We obliged, and by Friday afternoon she was cleared with low levels and we were on our way home!
Ryan drove so careful on the way home...not only did we have new precious cargo, but every little bump and turn really hurt my incision.
Trust me, I want to go on and on about the first night at home, first pediatrician visit, etc, but I already wrote a novel and I need to tend to my baby girl. She's already over one month old, so I plan on posting more about her once I get a minute (HA!).
