Delivery Story

As promised, here is our delivery story!

At my last prenatal appointment on May 22, my doctor scheduled for me to be induced on Tuesday May 28 at 5:30am. There weren't any complications or a major reason why, it was only that It would be 40 weeks and with how big my belly got and how tiny I am, I was just miserable and ready for our little girl to be here! 

The weekend prior to the 28th I cleaned like a maniac! I'm not sure if it was the nesting feeling I had, the packing we had to get done to move, or a just a combination of both. But I spent a good day packing, organizing and getting things ready for Tuesday. 

Since the school year had just ended that previous Friday, we had a going away party to attend on the Monday the 27th for a friend. As usual, I barely got any sleep and decided to start the day early with more cleaning. As I was in the kitchen getting my breakfast ready around 10am, I thought I had peed my pants! I thought maybe my water could have broken, but with being that far along and peeing your pants almost on a daily basis (no joke!) I just figured it wasn't time because there were no contractions, and hopped on the shower. 

Throughout the day there were still no signs of contractions or any slight cramping, I only had to deal with the very annoying (and gross) slight leakage I had going on. With this being my first pregnancy, I didn't want to be one of those women who go into the hospital multiple times with false labor and sent home, since I've never experienced these things before. So I ignored it the best I could. As we were about the get ready for our friends going away party, I finally decided I had enough with the leakage and called the hospital around 3:30pm to get some suggestions. When I got to a certain point of the pregnancy, I gave up on being embarrassed about how often I had accidents, so I had no problem telling the nurses "I'm not sure if I peed myself or if I'm in labor". I'm sure they have gotten that before anyway! They told me to just come in and they will check. To avoid having Justin make multiple trips back home to get our bags if I had to stay at the hospital, we just go everything together and headed to the hospital around 4:30pm. 

Right when we got there, they said they hoped I had already eaten because it could be a long night. That wasn't something that crossed my mind, but I really didn't worry an think we would have to stay since I still didn't have any contractions. They got us into our nice, big room and checked me while getting things ready in case I was staying. Around 6:00pm they finally came back on and told me my membranes did rupture, and that we were definitely staying! I was still not convinced it was really happening, so I stayed pretty calm, and then I started thinking about how hungry I was and how it would be a long night...

So we began our long night of waiting and excitement while we called family and friends. At this point I did start to worry about my doctor not being there the deliver Zoey because she had went out of town that weekend and was coming back sometime that night. Since I was progressing slowly, it actually ended up working itself out! From about 6:00 to 9:00pm I was only dilated to just under 3cm, still with no contractions, and the doctor that was on call had only given me Pitocin around 8:00pm. Finally, between 9:00 and 9:30pm I started to have some slight cramping, and thankfully they allowed me to eat something after 6.5 hours, so Justin being the amazing husband he is got me food. 

For the next 5/6 hour it was spent having visitors, watching tv, playing with the barf bags while taking pictures, which then progressed into my contractions being very close together (about every minutes and a half to less than a minute), sitting on the ball, walking the hall, and getting very uncomfortable/irritated. Thank goodness for Justin being there and helping me through the contractions! After about 1:30am I gave in and started asking about when I could get an epidural. However, I was only dilated to about 3.5cm, and they wanted me to wait until I was at about a 4 or 5. With both Justin and I very cranky and beyond tired, I didn't worry about the pain of getting an epidural, and around 3:00am I had finally gotten it! The only difficult part about that process was remaining completely still while having a contraction and getting the epidural. But after 10 minutes, I was already starting to feel so much more comfortable, and sleep finally looked like it was going to happen. 

From all the excitement and being constantly checked by the nurses, I may have only gotten about 2 hours of sleep. At about 6:30am I was dilated to 8cm! I was finally progressing a lot faster than the previous 10 hours, and by 8am I was fully dilated. We also got the great news that my doctor was ready and would be there for the delivery! Such a relief! The nurses prepared the room with everything to check Zoey when she arrived, and got me ready to start pushing around 9:00am. There were about 5 nurses/staff in the room during this part, and it was really relaxed and just getting ready to call my doctor in for the real hard pushing. In total, I pushed about 25 minutes with the nurses, then another 20 with my doctor there. It was such a great experience because we were all relaxed, comfortable, and making tons of jokes. I don't mind that at this point there as about 8/9 different staff in the room! 

Zoey arrived at 9:51am and was placed right on me for Justin and I to meet our little girl! The doctor asked of either of us wanted to cut umbilical cord, but we gladly left that to her. Zoey was 7 lbs. and 1.4 oz. and 19 3/4 in. long. Surprisingly, I fed her as soon as the nurses were done checking her and she latched on almost perfectly! Now breastfeeding hasn't been perfectly easy or pain free, but it has certainly gotten better as both Zoey and I learn from each other. 

We spent that night in the hospital to be monitored, but everything was great and we were ready to go that next morning! We (or mostly just me) panicked and had a hard time because she didn't pass two hearing tests (that made for a long few days) but that next week we took her back and she passed her third hearing test! These past almost three weeks we have spent with her by ourselves (as in without family) has provided great bonding time for us three as a family, and we couldn't be happier with our sweet little girl, even considering the la k of sleep. It has all been worth it.