Ellie's Birth Day, Part 1

Okay, it has been almost two months since I've blogged. I'm sorry. But I've been enjoying my time with my girl and writing this post has has been such a daunting task that I've just avoided it. But I need to get back into the swing of things so I can start blogging about everyday nonsense again.

This post might be the length of a novel but I have to document everything so I can remember it clearly as the years go by. Here we go :)

On Thursday, July 12, I had my normal weekly doctor's appointment. Everything was going fine at the end of my pregnancy, but I had noticed before I went in that Ellie had not been moving quite as much. I could still feel her move every once in awhile, but she was not nearly as active and the things that normally made her dance (coffee, etc.) she wasn't responding too. I assumed it was because she was running out of room. I mentioned it to my doctor nonchalantly and she wanted me to have an ultrasound just to make sure everything was okay.

As I sat back down in the doctor's office after my ultrasound, I was confident that the doctor would tell me that everything looked normal and that my baby was just getting a little squished in there and she would see me next week. Imagine my surprise when she walked in, told me that my fluid levels were very low, and that it was no longer safe for me to carry Ellie to full term. I was 38 weeks, Ellie was already 7lbs and healthy, and it was safer for her to be out of me than in me. Her final sentence was "so, how would you feel about having a baby on Monday?"

WHAT?!?

What a crazy weekend that was. Grant had a sinus infection and then passed it on to me. I had to go to the pharmacy on Saturday morning and get a Z-Pack for myself to kick the yuckiness that I was feeling.  I think we went to Le Peep twice that weekend for breakfast, just the two of us. It was all just very surreal.

We were told to check in to the hospital on Sunday night to get everything started. Sunday we got stuff done around the house, made sure our bags were packed and finished crossing things off of our to-do list. We went out for our "Last Supper" which I knew would be pasta. The wait at Olive Garden was 45 minutes to an hour (um, no thank you) so we went to Johnny Carino's to load up on the carbs. I had bow tie pasta with alfredo sauce and chicken. And bread. Lots of bread. So much bread, in fact, that my initial blood test at the hospital came back showing my as highly diabetic and they had to re-test. They were all concerned until I told them how much I just ate!

We drove to the hospital. Walking from the car into the hospital was just crazy. We were laughing... "I can't believe we're doing this!". We checked in a little after 9:00pm and things IMMEDIATELY went crazy.

I was so shocked at how quickly everything went. My room was ready, my name on the board, they had my bracelets ready to go. They had me changed and in the bed within 3 minutes of my arrival. One nurse was asking me questions on my right while the nurse on the left was trying to find a vein to do take my blood. She blew a valve and IT HURT. Blood was everywhere and she was trying to find another vein and I started to kinda panic. It was all just happening so fast. They said my blood pressure plummeted and they had to give me oxygen. This was all in the first 10 minutes after my arrival. I should've known that things would only get crazier!

They instantly started the induction process. I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty details, but they had to do something to me every few hours that was painful and weird. The goal was that after doing this every few hours, my body would kick itself into labor. I would often have contractions during this procedure and that made it even worse. Good times :)

It was slow starting and it was a loooong night and neither Grant nor I got any sleep whatsoever. My doctor came in early early Monday morning and was not too happy with my lack of progress. She thought the drug would've kicked in stronger and she advised me that it would be a loooong day. And then... it started. And it started in a big way.

Hi, my name is Jen, and I would like to tell you about contractions. THEY. HURT. I was thrashing. My mom got to the hospital that morning and was there for the intense labor part. I was kicking, holding on the sidebars of my hospital bed and begging for the epidural. They said I couldn't have it yet. I kept asking. And then they gave it to me. :)

So, the epidural process started out a little... traumatic. I was not too nervous about it. But the anesthesiologist started working on me and I started screaming. He was shocked... "you can feel this? I gave you local to numb the area.." to which I responded YES I CAN FEEL IT THANK YOU VERY MUCH. And then he gave me more local and started working on me again and I started screaming again. Crying. Holding the hand of my mom and bruising the shoulder of my nurse Tina. (Thankfully, Grant had stepped out during this moment. He would've been passed out on the floor). "You can still feel this? You should be numb!". WELL I AM NOT NUMB, CLEARLY, SO PLEASE DO WHAT YOU CAN TO MAKE THAT STOP.

Again, this process took forever cause I kept having contractions throughout his attempts and he kept having to wait until they passed. Finally, after his third attempt, I started to get relief.

And let me tell you something: all that excruciating pain was SO WORTH IT. Oh my heavens. I loved my epidural and I would do it again. I still had feeling and knew when I was having contractions but I wasn't thrashing in pain anymore.

And then I get to have a lemon popsicle and I was a happy girl.

Family and friends started arriving and I was progressing VERY well. The labor was moving quickly and strongly. My contractions were very intense and were coming quickly. Everytime the nurse checked me I was progressing and we assumed we'd have our girl around dinner time.

While everyone was hanging out in the hospital room and visiting, the nurse would come in every few mintues and ask me to change positions. She'd say "Can we have you lay on your left? The baby doesn't seem to like this position very much" and I'd flip over. Then she'd come back in and move me to the other side. In the course of an hour, they probably had me move a dozen times. And all of a sudden, I wasn't progressing. My contractions were still very, very strong and very, very close together. My body was doing exactly what it was supposed to be doing. But I was no longer getting any further along as far as dilation was concerned. Faster labor, stronger contractions, Ellie was no closer. Weird.

TO BE CONTINUED....