Ellie's Birth Story

Brett and I were getting pretty excited as the big due date approached (Friday April 4th) but it came and went and absolutely nothing was happening. No signs that labor was any nearer than it had been 3 weeks prior. I went to see my doctor on Wednesday April 9th and still no major changes. My cervix wasn't dilated at all... no end in sight. My doctor was concerned however that the longer you go past your due date, the greater there is a chance that the placenta will deteriorate and not be able to sustain the baby so - Induction for me!

My understanding is that the problem with induction is the following: pitocin causes really intense contractions, contractions put strain on the baby, if mom's body isn't ready to have the baby (cervix isn't dilated etc.) then it is more likely that the contractions from the pitocin will cause too much stress on the baby before he/she can be born and there is a higher risk for c-section.

Keeping that in mind here was our game plan. Thursday night Brett and I would go to the hospital so that they could give me cytotec every three hours to simply get my cervix ready. Then Friday morning they would start the pitocin to get the contractions going and hopefully we'd have a baby to hold by late afternoon of Friday.

Here's how it actually went down - Thursday night at about 8 PM the hospital called to let us know that the bed was ready so we packed up and made our way to the hospital nervous but happy and excited. They got me all hooked up on monitors and ready to go. It turns out that I was actually already having contractions and just didn't know it. All those times I thought Ellie was just being particularly aggressive with my ribs, apparently not. 9:30 they placed the first dose of the cytotec. It was completely manageable at first, but to be honest, by the second hour I was pretty miserable. It was getting kind of late so I wanted at least Brett to get some sleep; didn't work though because the monitor for my contractions got louder every time one came on so he always knew when I was in pain. Oh well - more of that to come as parents I'm sure!

12:30 the nurse came in to tell us that I was "contracting like a banshee" so they couldn't give me the second dose of the cytotec. She checked me and I had dilated to 2 - Yippee some progress finally!! She asked me to rate my pain on a scale from 1-10 (hate that question by the way); I didn't want to be overly dramatic but yeah I was pretty darn miserable and past distraction tactics being helpful anyway. She asked if I wanted any pain killers; I felt kind of like a weakling since I hadn't even been induced yet but consented. Then as she was hooking up the IV, my water broke. Strange feeling. Way more fluid than I was anticipating.  A half hour later I was dilated to a 3 and offered an epidural - yes PLEASE! Brett watched since he had never seen one before. I asked about it afterwards and am very glad that I never actually saw the size of the needle he used. *epidurals are awesome - made all the difference . Brett and I caught a couple of hours of sleep and then around 2:30 AM we found out that I was fully dilated to a 10. The Dr. decided to wait about another hour for her to descend on her own and then the pushing.

It was in the middle of the night so I started pushing with just the nurses (who were awesome by the way). Couldn't feel the contractions because of the epidural so I just went with their guidance. Eventually we were getting pretty close so we waited a bit for the Dr. to drive to the hospital. A little more pushing and at 7:23 AM on April 11, 2014 she was here :) 9 Pounds 10 Ounces (aka HUGE) 20.5 inches long, apgar score of 8-9, and tons of long dark hair. The nurses shaped it into a mohawk for us when they cleaned her up.

After she came it took a good long while for the Dr. to stitch me up but Brett and I were just enjoying Ellie. Around this time I started to get a headache and ridiculously tired (like REALLY out of it). They helped me get up for the first time to make it to the bathroom but just as I made it to the toilet I got extra light headed and passed out. Just as I came around I told Brett I felt like I was I was going to be sick and he made it back with the barf bag just time. I calmed down enough go get back to the bed with some help but then about 20 minutes later it happened all over again. More passing out, more nausea, more not feeling so hot. I guess I had just lost a lot more fluid than anticipated (and you can only have ice chips during labor) so my blood pressure was really low. They pumped me full of about a liter of fluids and I was good as new :) at least concerning these symptoms of course. Now it's just the normal soreness and recovery I think pretty much everyone has to go through.

I'm definitely impatient to get back to my old self but taking it slow. Ellie has stolen our hearts as well as our sleep ;) but we love her. Brett has been everything and more that a girl could hope for in all of this. Ellie was a little jaundiced so we are staying an extra night so that she can get tested again in the morning but after that we are excited to get home and start our new life together. This has certainly been one of our greatest adventures yet.