Wow, I meant to get this up and going 2 months ago, but alas, taking care of a newborn and keeping the house clean and the husband fed have kept me quite busy! So I will try to get caught up and keep up on things!
So, we will start with the birth, hopefully I will remember the details!
We went into the hospital on Saturday, July 5th for a scheduled induction. During the last few weeks of my pregnancy my blood pressure was pretty high and I wasn't allowed to work. For the safety of Ella and me we decided to go ahead and get her out of there at 39 weeks.
We arrived at the hospital at 9 pm and after all the usual rigamarole they placed a cervical ripening agent on my cervix and hooked Ella up to the fetal monitor. I got and Ambien and we tried to catch a few z's. Not much changed overnight so in the morning I had a nice breakfast before they got the ball rolling. My nurse, Glenda, who was fantastic, said she didn't like our room and thought we should have a better one. So she put me on the portable fetal monitor and let me walk around and go shopping for a more suitable room. We found a better room and they got me settled in and started up the pitocin. My contractions got pretty regular, but they were nothing to write home about. My good friend Jess came to be with us as an extra support person and photographer for the event. So we all hung out and chatted and watched my contractions on the monitor.
Around noon I thought I would go for a walk again so I ordered a light lunch and thought I would stroll around the hallway while we waited for room service to arrive. Well I stood up and found myself standing in a large puddle. No walking for me! The nurse asked if I wanted my epidural and I thought I wanted to feel the "real" contractions so I would know how they felt. That hair-brained scheme lasted all of about 10 minutes before I was begging for the anesthesiologist. It took a few minutes for him to get his supplies and get set up and in the mean time I truly thought I might die. Pitocin contractions are even more "unpleasant" than the normal ones and I was not a fan. Matt was awesome and helped me breathe through them, but by about the time the anesthesiologist was introducing a large needle into my spine I was about done with the whole thing.
The epidural was fantastic! I was quite loopy on the Fentanyl, feeling no pain. I went to sleep for an hour and a half! I was four centimeters dilated when I fell asleep and when I woke up I was 8! About 10 min after that I got the urge to push and the nurse said I was "complete". So she helped me figure out how to push for about 20 minutes and then I pushed for another hour and then we met our beautiful baby girl! The doctor arrived about 20 min before Ella made her appearance.
Ella had the cord wrapped around her neck twice, called a nuchal cord X 2, which can be a very bad thing. Luckily it wasn't tight and she never showed any signs of distress. They put her on my chest and her little eyes were open and she was looking right at me. I was the most amazing moment of my life. Matt was right there and he cut the cord and didn't even need a chair or smelling salts or anything!
It was 5:05 pm on July 6th when she was born. She was 6 lbs, 12.5 oz and was 20" long.
We stayed in the hospital for a few days and went home on Tuesday, July 8th. It was a chilly day for July, but we were all exhausted and snuggled up on the couch, Happy Campers indeed!
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