After 27 hours of labor including 5 hours of pushing Sophie was born at 6:46 on August 30, 2010. Weighing 8 lb 1 oz and 21 1/2 inches long!
It has been forever since I posted but I figured a beautiful baby girl is a better reason than any!
The past few days have been the longest, most painful and most AMAZING days of my life. I have my little girl and little boy and I could not ask for anything more!
So at 41 weeks I was supposed to be induced but there was no room at the inn. They had me come down to the hospital for a post date non stress test and ultrasound to make she everything was going good but every bed was taken and there were women in triage in active labor so they had to send me home to come back Sunday morning. I had to call at 5 am Sunday morning to see if there was a bed available and the said yes! Me and Robert got here and 7 am and got all checked in and settled.
Since I was doing a VBAC I could not have any of the cervix ripening medications (increases the risk of a uterine rupture) so they put in a folly catheter. I had never heard of that before but it was pretty cool. It is a small balloon filled with fluid attached to a small catheter and it would run against the cervix and irritate it to release the chemicals that get labor going. I had that in for 12 hours and it only got me to a 3 but from no labor at all to 3 with no pitocin was good for me! After that 12 hours (11:45 pm on Sunday) they took it out and got the pitocin going. They had the pitocin on a very slow drip. They didn't wanna push it too much again because of the risk of a uterine rupture. After a while the pain was getting really bad so they gave me fentinol because I wanted to hold off on the epidural as long as I could to prevent slowing labor down. The fentinol really did not help much at all it just made me feel loopy and tired so I didn't get anymore of that! At about 2 am they checked me and I was at 5 cm and they decided to break my water. At this point I had the epidural so I made sure to get as much rest of possible through the night so I would have the energy to push.
They checked me again in the morning and I was only at a 6 so they started to push a little more pitocin and a couple hours later I was at an 8. At about 1:45 pm I was FINALLY at 10 cm and it was time to start pushing. I was very lucky to have 3 of the most important people in my life in the delivery room to help me: Robert, my mom, and Meagan. I do not know what I would have done without these three people there! Meagan and my mom each had a leg and Robert held my hand and helped me pull my head up to try and push her out while I was pushing. Even with the epidural that was the most intense thing I can ever imagine doing. They had to keep adding more medicine everyone in a while because the pain would get so bad and I just could not push anymore. Once the meds kicked into gear and was pushing great and had to much energy till the wore off again lol. I really got to a point that I really did not think it was going to happen. Pushing for 5 hours is a very long time and the nurses told me I was very lucky to have the doctor that was on duty because she is the most patient and most the other doctors would have pushed for the csection after that long of pushing. I tried many different positions to try to figure out what was best but being on my right side was the easiest for me. Right at the end we decided to use the vacuum because I had her right there and just could not get her out. They had the team in there ready to go and were getting the vacuum ready to go and moved me to my back and right before she was about to use it she had me do another push and she said oh no vacuum this baby is coming! It took about 3 more pushes and her head was out! A few more pushes and my baby girl was born! Rob, my mom, Meagan and Nana got to see little (or actually big) Sophia be born and there was a lot of crying going on in there! There was merconium in the fluid so as soon as she came out they did lay her on my chest while the suctioned anything she had swallowed out and I got to hold her for a little while! Then they took her over to the table to get her cleaned up and weighed and all that before letting me and Rob get a chance to hold her again before taking her up to the NICU.
During labor I had a fever that would not go down so as a precaution she has to stay in the NICU for 48 hours to make sure everything is ok with her. She looks great and scored a 9 on her apgar test but to be safe they gotta keep a close eye on her. It is so hard to have my baby away from me but I would rather her be safe and taken care of. Plus I can go spend as much time with her as I want and whenever I want so it's not too bad.
