Our Birth Process

I'm finally posting again! I dunno how often I will post now, because no one can really explain how busy and tired you get when you have a new baby, but hopefully I can get some stuff out from time to time. (Note: it took THREE DAYS to get this written, lol)

So, we went to the hospital, appointment to be induced in hand, at 5pm on Thursday, September 8, 2011. The Husband and Granny were with me (Granny came in town a couple of days beforehand). Lots of others came to support us during our process. Here's how it all went down:

Thursday:
Got to the hospital, got a room, got all situated in a hospital gown and hooked up to a fetal heart monitor, a contraction monitor, and an IV. I don't think she liked the fetal heart monitor so much because it kept getting kicked around. DeKalb Medical has a really nice Women's Center and the room was kind of like a hotel room. We pretty much settled in and watched some tv. They gave me half of a cytotek pill to start the induction process and I decided to work on my thank you cards for baby shower gifts. At some point during that mission a couple of nurses darted in the room and made me lay on my side...Chloe's heart rate took a dip and they wanted to make sure she was okay. They gave me oxygen and watched me for a few minutes and determined she was okay for the moment, but I had to lay on my side for the rest of the night. My mother-in-law (MIL) and Aunt-in-law (AIL) stopped by and asked the nurses and doctors a bunch of questions and wished us luck.

I got the second half of the cytotek a little bit later and then in the middle of the night the same two nurses and about 4 others and a doctor came rushing to my side because Chloe's heart rate dipped again. They flopped my back and forth on my sides and started talking about me possibly having a c-section if she kept doing it, because my cervix still hadn't dilated at all so they couldn't get in and find out if the cord was around her neck. They watched me for a while again (and this was the most scared I think I'd ever been in life) and then determined they weren't going to give me any more cytotek and wait for the am doctor (my actual doc) to make any more calls on what to do with me.

Birthing tip #2 (#1 is more important, and comes later): EAT WELL BEFORE YOU GET TO THE HOSPITAL. If you have a choice (or enough time) in stopping somewhere before you get there to have a great meal, DO IT. You wont eat anything solid until the baby is out and you're in a recovery room if you go to a hospital like the one I was in. Don't misunderstand, the hospital was awesome, they just don't let you eat.

Friday:
My doctor gets in and has them start me on the pitocin drip. I can finally take the oxygen off but now I'm hooked up to IV fluids, pitocin, a blood pressure cuff, a heart rate monitor, a fetal heart rate monitor, and a contraction monitor. They keep coming in to up the pitocin from time to time. MIL and AIL come back. MJ comes by and so does The Godmother after she gets off of work. The doctor decides to assess the situation once we are up to the maximum amount of pitocin the nurses can give me without doctor approval and finds I am finally about a couple of centimeters dilated. He breaks my water to hopefully get things moving along, which is a very weird feeling. That part was obviously necessary because my contractions finally start to get stronger and stronger, to the point where I decide that since I'm not very far along, I want to go ahead and get an epidural if I'm going to have to go through that pain getting stronger and stronger for the rest of the night. It's one of those describable indescribable kind of pains...kind of like cramps you would have with your menstrual cycle, but much, much worse and in your entire uterus, which is quite a large area with a baby in it. Up until then it just felt like the entire area was squeezing and tight, but now it was that with pain. I didn't like the decision when I made it, but I figured I needed to look out for myself sometime too. Being in that much pain for several more hours wouldn't have left me in a good condition to get her out efficiently, and she was so very wide awake when she arrived, so in the end, I'm happy I did what I did.

I ask for the medicine and look at everyone in the room like I want to stab them. With axes. In the back. That are on fire. My father-in-law (FIL) and brother-in-law (BIL..see the pattern here?) stop in and I think I actually manage to say "get out" very evilly but somehow still under my breath. This scares BIL, and he says so on Facebook, lol. They usher everyone other than The Husband out of the room and get me my happy drugs, which, are NOT fun to receive in the middle of a contraction, but I sat there as best I could. It was probably a good idea that they had The Husband sit on my feet during that process, lol. All is well and I can finally lay on my back again (I have to to make sure the drugs don't go to one side) and I don't feel the pain anymore. I do still feel a bit of tightness at each contraction, but that's nothing compared to the pain before that. I'm hooked up to everything I was hooked up to before, plus the epidural and a catheter now (no more getting out of bed at all, which is to be expected since I can barely feel my legs). Now it's kind of like a little party. I get kind of jealous at all of the eating and drinking around me (I'm stuck on ice chips, and have been since I got to the hospital) but I deal. MIL went to the store earlier that day and brought a bunch of stuff for everyone to survive through the night with, which was AWESOME of her to do. It gets to be about 10 and we find out I've dilated all of 3 cm. MIL and AIL ask the doctor what is estimate is of how long things will take and he says once I get to 4 cm it should be about one an hour and then at 10 I have Chloe. They decide that they are going to go home and we should call them when I am 6 cm along, but they hang around for a while. Everyone else leaves and I finally send The Godmother home too, who is falling asleep in her chair.

Saturday:
Around midnight, I start to feel pain again and had a nurse called to check on me. She came in and looked at the epidural, which was working just fine and decided to check me. I was magically 9.5 cm dilated! The Godmother was upset that she had just gotten home and was way too tired to come back and MIL and AIL were glad they decided to stay as long as they did. They propped me up so I could "labor down" and decrease the amount of time that I'd be pushing. It didn't take a whole lot longer until the nurse and The Husband were holding my legs and making me push with contractions. The doctor was called in because Chloe's heart rate dipped again and I had to push on my side. Eventually the bed got quickly reconfigured and the doctor got in position and the "one more push and we'll have a baby" speech was given.

Birthing tip #1: The most important tip. For me at least, there was only so much the epidural was going to do for me. Apparently, the pain would have been 100 times worse without the epidural, but yeah, I still felt everything that made it's happy way out of me and into the world. The Husband let me know that her head was out, and I let him know that I kind of already knew that fact. I got the rest of her pushed out and looked over and saw the most perfect being on the face of the entire earth. She was awake, alert, and quietly looking around trying to figure out how in the world she just got to where she was. The doctor got the afterbirth out which was basically some pressure and another good push. He let us know that her cord was a bit small, which is what led to her being a small baby. The Husband actually watched her come out and she immediately became the most important thing in the universe to him. He got mad at the nurse giving her her first bath, lol.

Chloe Giovanni Linly made it! She is here and beautiful and perfect and awesome and I've never known that I could love something or someone quite like this. I want the world for her. I want no pain or suffering or heartache to ever happen to her, and I know it will because that's life, and I plan to be here.

I finally got some food (hospital food wasn't bad at all) at about 8am and we spent the rest of our time in the hospital receiving visitors and sleeping whenever we could. We stayed until Sunday evening, even though the doctor originally said we wouldn't go home until Monday. I actually miss being brought a menu to pick from and having a bunch of food brought to me throughout the day, but we ended up leaving the hospital a day early.

Everything is new and different every day,hour and moment now. Life has become the most crazy, awesome, stressful, beautiful blur I could have never imagined.