Here is her birth story.
Sunday morning at 1am (Saturday night) I started having pretty regular contractions about 10 minutes apart. By middle of the night I had the "show" (girls you know what I mean) so I was pumped that baby would be born on 7/15! Darian woke up at 6:30 and I told him, today was the day! Well, 7/15 wasn't the day. By mid morning my contractions were gone and it was just another day. I was so bummed. I even made the bed that morning thinking I wasn't coming home for a few days!
I continued having a few Braxton Hicks here and there but nothing steady. Then about 8pm they kicked back up again and by 9pm they were pretty steady. Then they hit. They started coming every 7-10 minutes and I was gripping the furniture during them. By 11:30 pm they were in full force. Our instructions were to call the doctor when they were 5 minutes apart for 1 hour and lasting 1 minute each. Well it hadn't quite been an hour when we called but they were lasting on average 1:30 seconds and I was definitely in labor. After we got the house in order (Darian vacuumed at 11:30pm, God love him), bags packed and stuff in the car we got to the hospital at 1:30am.
We are ready to meet our baby!
Once I was checked in, settled in our room and hooked up to monitors they exploded! They checked me right away and I was .25cm dilated...aka NOT DILATED! I was pissed. Seriously? I had been contracting all that time with tons of "show" and NOTHING?! The nurse was even a little baffled. Clearly I was contracting, the monitors were proving that, but my body was not cooperating. I can't even put into words the intensity of the contractions. I wanted to cry during them. I couldn't sit, I couldn't lay down all I could do was stand slumped over an exercise ball on the bed. The worst part was I basically hadn't slept since Friday night. I was EXHAUSTED! There was one point where I actually dosed off standing up which REALLY freaked me out. All I could think of was, I'm going to fall asleep standing up and hit the floor hurting myself and the baby. This totally freaked me out. Darian was also falling asleep. At first I got a little angry that he was sitting in a chair with his face in his hands sound asleep while I was contracting but then I realized if I wanted him to be helpful during the important part, he needed sleep. So, I told him to lay down and take a nap. This is what Darian was doing at 4:48am.
The nurse suggested that I get in the tub and see if that would take some pressure off my back because the back labor was terrible. I woke Darian up to come sit with me because I was really worried that I would fall asleep in the tub. At first I didn't want to get in the tub (insert germaphobe comment here) but I was willing to try anything to help. I got in the tub and although it did feel good, it didn't really help the contractions. I was actually able to fall asleep for a few minutes between contractions which was amazing. At this point they were lasting SO long that I was about at my wits end and then at times I'd have 2 right on top of each other and that was just torture.
The nurse came in around 6:40 to check me and said I was barely 1 cm. Great. After she checked me, she asked if I had ever had surgery on my cervix. She found some scar tissue during the exam which could only be from the IVF's or IUI's. I'm not sure if she moved it or what but the next time they came in to check about 1.5 hours later I was 3cm. Yippee! Finally some progress. I expressed my concern about how tired I was and how I didn't feel like I would actually be able to push once the time came. They suggested I get some IV pain meds. The meds were enough that I could lay down and took the edge off allowing me to doze off between contractions.
It was probably about 9:30 or so that I got the epidural. The anesthesiologist was amazing! Dr. Gibbs prepped me and I didn't feel a thing. Literally, not even a pinch. Once the epidural started working I was doing my best to keep my mind calm. Not being able to feel your legs is a very scary feeling. But, I was able to rest a little and so was Darian. The only problem with the epidural is it can make your blood pressure drop. I already have pretty low blood pressure so this did become a problem. They had me on my left but that wasn't working for the baby. Her heart rate wasn't tolerating the contractions very well so we switched to the other side. At first this seemed to be better but then my pressure got low and the baby's heart rate kept dropping drastically during each contraction. They gave me some oxygen to help. I'm not sure what time everything started to get scary but I knew something was up when I was getting a lot more attention from the staff. I was just laying there watching my contractions and the babies heart rate. My contraction would skyrocket off the chart and sometimes it wouldn't affect the baby but then when I'd have 2 back to back her heart rate would plummet. That is when shit hit the fan. The doc came in and said unless I was fully dilated we are going to have to do a c-section. I was only a 6 so she said, change of plans... we are doing a c-section now. She was very concerned as to why the baby wasn't tolerating things and wanted to get her out ASAP. All of a sudden I was taking off jewelry, signing consents and getting prepped for surgery.
They had D put on his paper scrubs, started wheeling me back and told him someone would come get him when it was time. The docs and staff were amazing. One nurse's shift was over and when they tried to relieve her she said "I've been with her all night, I'm not leaving now". So nice! To say I was scared would be an understatement. After a few kisses from the hubs we headed into the OR. Apparently they keep it really cold in there but I couldn't feel a thing. I was just trying to hold it together the best I could and listen to everything they were telling me. They got me all moved onto the table, put some morphine (or something for the pain) in my IV, hung the drape, strapped my arms down and started prepping me.
This is when they brought Darian in. He said he was sitting on a stool in the hallway and thought they had forgotten about him because it had been 10-15 minutes since they took me back (or at least that is what it felt like to him). I was shocked when he told me that because it felt like minutes to me. When they brought him in he said he had to put his hand up blocking his view because he thinks they had already started cutting and he definitely didn't want to see that! It seemed like forever, yet only seconds at the same time, and we heard the doc saying things like "He's got a full head of hair, move HIM this way". I think she said "he" 3 times. Of course we were hanging on every word... more to make sure the baby was OK than any gender but I was thinking we've got a boy now SCREAM! Just seconds later we hear the doctor say "I was so worried about the breathing, I didn't look down...It's a GIRL"! Then she let out a little scream. It was the best noise I have ever heard. If there is such a thing as love before sight, that is what I had. They had the pediatrician in the room ready to work on her so they got busy. Some dad's would have been rushing over but Darian said he didn't want to see her until I did, so we waited. They probably had her for 5 minutes before they brought her over. Then we met the love of our life!
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