Baby Madeleine: a baby story

I figured I better document everything before I forget the details. It has certainly been a crazy week and I can barely believe that last week at this time I was waiting to go to the hospital to be induced. Now I sit holding a baby with hiccups... she seems to get these a lot. So much has changed!

Saturday I was supposed to be at the hospital by 8. Brody, of course was at the Michigan football game, which ended right before I was due to be at the hospital. I made him leave early even though the game was incredibly close. Michigan ended up winning.  I was hoping that I'd have contractions or something but I wasn't. I get the hospital fully prepared to get the process started immediately, but unfortunately the doctors didn't care about my schedule and no one even came to check on me until 11! When they finally came, they decided that they could just start me on pitocin and not any other labor inducing drugs.  I was happy about that and anxious to start.  The nurse came with all my drugs at midnight and then labor began. I didn't really have strong contractions for the first few hours so I tried to rest.  This was hard because I was hooked up to so many monitors, one which kept falling off me.  The nurses had to come in almost every 20 minutes to check on things.  Needless to say it was a sleepless night.  At 4 a.m. my water broke on its own.  I paged the nurses and about 10 came in to see me.  It was a flurry of activity-I was expecting things to start happening faster then, but it didn't.  In the meantime, Brody basically slept through all of this (which was especially annoying to me when the pain started to kick in).  After my water broke the contraction gradually increased in pain. I don't really recollect any of the timing because, well it was incredibly painful.  I remember watching the Help, requesting a labor ball to sit on (which i really liked), meeting my new nurse at 7 a.m. (I absolutely loved her, I don't think I would have made it through the day without her) and eating popsicles. 

I wanted to wait as long as possible for the epidural.  I didn't think I could do it on my own because I hadn't ever heard anyone be induced and go all natural.  So I suffered through as much pain as I could.  The pain started to get unbearable though. I tried all coping methods, like showering, walking, etc. but it was a bit more than I could handle. Especially after the contractions made me throw up from the pain. When I was in this much pain I thought for sure that I had to close.  So I begged to have the doctors come check on me.  Well when they finally came they said I was only 5 cm, but fully efaced.  They then told me that the average person dialated a cm an hr and then pushed for 2 hrs (first baby).  I about passed out at that point and lost all the fight in me and was done doing it on my own.  I couldn't last that much longer without some relief.  So they ordered the epidural.  When they finally gave me the epidural (which is quite the process) it kicked in super quick.  

I was able to sleep for a couple hours after the pain relief, which was glorious. At the end of my nap I was starting to feel the pressure that signifies the need to push. But since the epidural makes it hard to feel down there I wasn't positive. I told myself I'd give it another half hour and then I'd page the nurse. Well luckily the doctor, rather resident, came to check on me just before that time. She was shocked that I was completely diluted and the baby was ready! She told me that I should start pushing. Brody was still mostly asleep and it took him awhile to register that this baby was coming. I had prepared to push a long time but things progressed quickly. So fast that when they paged the doctor to come in he told me to stop so he could get his gloves and gown on. Moments later I pushed one last time and they just pulled the baby out! They put her on my chest right away. I was totally overwhelmed. I thought she was so beautiful and was instantly crying! I was so happy to have her here. You totally don't notice the rest of the gruesome labor. All I can say is there is just lots and lots of blood. I'm glad I was prepared for that! Overall the experience, though not what I planned, because of my induction, was perfect and I'm glad I had so few complications and that I went pretty quick and easy!

Madeleine Nadia: 10/21/12: 3:36 p.m.: 7 lbs 3 oz: 19.5 inches