She's finally here, we can hardly believe it! We have been blessed with a beautiful little girl. Its hard to believe it was almost 3 weeks ago, I'm starting to forget the details already! Because of my hypertension (high blood pressure) and fibroid concerns, my OB and Dr decided they would begin induction a day before I was due, so I was admitted to hospital on Wednesday Nov 28th at 3:30 pm. At 6:00 pm my Dr inserted Cervidil to soften everything up, hoping that it would help to move things along because my body was no where near showing signs of being ready and Madison's head was still too high. The plan was to do about 2-3 doses of Cervidil and then proceed to Oxytocin to bring on labor over a couple days.
Denny went home that night to get much needed rest and I didn't sleep at all. The bed was so squeaky and uncomfortable and there was babies crying on either side of me. Plus, I was anxious about what was to come, so I woke up extremely tired the next day. I had a few very small contractions, but nothing to say labor was starting.
Thursday morning Denny came to find they forgot to order my breakfast...again. I was getting a few more contractions in the morning, but still nothing strong. We started walking the halls in the afternoon as my contractions started getting a little stronger. Denny kept making me laugh so hard...that made the contractions worse...but kept me in good spirits! The contractions were lasting a little longer and we were getting a little more excited that something might be happening!
We got in a short nap in the afternoon and at 4:45 pm my Dr came to check me. Baby's head still wasn't in place and I was only dialated about 1 cm, so they gave me another dose of Cervidil and stripped my membranes. Well, let me just say that it was painful and by the time the Dr left, I had my first emotional breakdown. I was starting to get a little scared and was getting tired from lack of rest. As things progressed it became a big reality of what I had to do to get her out...I got a little overwhelmed.
Mom came to visit during dinner and my contractions started getting stronger and stronger...Denny & I were having fun seeing how high a number I could get to on the monitor...it was a fun game.
At about 7:00 pm my contractions started coming strong with very little breaks in between. They were coming every minute or so and lasted a minute or more. I was really starting to feel pain, but was trying to be in good spirits. At one point it was so bad, I thought a warm shower would be nice. Well, big mistake...Richmond hospital had some sort of issue with their water and didn't tell me, so I had a cold shower that put me into the shivers and more pain than I knew how to deal with.
Once I was calmed down somewhat from the shower I tried sitting on the ball and squeezing Denny's knees, I guess it helped somewhat. Denny was watching to Canucks game at this point...I didn't even care. The nurse came to check on me somewhere around 8:00 or 9:00 and I had dialated to 5 cm so I went to the bathroom before I was getting put in the delivery room. Surprise surprise, my water broke! This was a good sign because it meant that I acutally ended up going into labor myself, without the need of drugs. I'd be afraid of the drugs since my labor came on fast and strong on its own and the drugs are supposed to make it worse!
They moved me to the delivery room and around 10:00 the pain was too much. The gas wasn't doing anything and I was feeling pressure to push so strong, but it wasn't near time...so I asked for the epidural. Took the guy and hour and half to get there, brutal! At about midnight he put the epidural in and I got a little bit of dozing in and some MUCH needed rest before the big event. When he put in the epidural I remember him hitting a nerve that shot electricity down my leg and my leg went flying out infront of me. That scared me!
The epidural was nice for resting and helped me through some contractions, but started to wear off on the upper half of me fairly quickly and I started feeling contractions again. But, it did keep me nice and numb in my "down-belows" so that worked out okay I guess.
At 2:40 am I was 10 cm dialated and baby's head had come down, so I started pushing. Its funny how fast everything happens and before you know it you're like, "What? Push a baby out? Are you kidding me? I'm tired!". They told me it could take a few hours to push the baby out...I was NOT having that! I was so done...I hadn't slept more than 3 hours in the last 36 hours and the pain was making me crazy.
So, when they said push, I pushed. They asked for 3 pushes per contraction...I pushed 4 times...towards the end I just wanted that little stinker out and I was tired of them telling me what to do. They wanted me to feel for her head as it was coming out, but I was not into that, I was too focused on pushing her out.
Within less than two hours I had pushed her down and they called my Dr. Before she even made it to the room I had her head half pushed out and was told to stop...WHAT?!?! How do you stop?! A few more little grunts and my beautiful little Munchkin came out crying at 4:16 am November 30th, one day after her due-date.
When they put her on my tummy all I could say was how cute she was and I kept encouraging her to cry. I wanted to hear her scream her head off so I knew she was okay. I couldn't believe how cute she was and how tiny! (PS now I wish I hadn't encouraged her to cry...cause she likes to do it a little too much now).
Denny didn't know what to do...so I had to force him to go be with his daughter...he wasn't sure if he should stay with me or be with her...I'm glad he got to be with her. As it turned out Madison had her hand infront of her face on the way down and she tore me all the way down. So, I was bleeding a lot from the lacerations and my Dr worked on my for about 40 minutes stitching me up but it was so bad she couldn't see all the lacerations so they had to call in my OB from Vancouver to come finish me up. I was on the table bleeding and in pain for 2 hours by the time they finished. That was the most painful experience of my life. I would do the labor 3 times over before the stitching. Despite the freezing, gas and the shots of whatever pain meds they were giving me I felt every stitch go in...OUCH!!!
While I was being stitched I could hear Denny walking the hall outside the room with Madison, he was singing to her and talking to her...it was so precious. Poor Denny was having such a hard time watching them sew me up...I was in agony and having a hard time not making noise about it. I was fairly quiet through the pushing, but the end was more than I knew how to bear.
Madison latched on to the breast right away while I was waiting for my second set of stitching and we were so glad to see she liked eating. My heart was about to burst...I couldn't believe our little girl was finally here...and even more unbelieveable was that she wasn't 8 lb or more like everyone thought she'd be! She was only 6 lb 14 oz, born with dark grey eyes and lots of soft dirty-blonde hair.
Little did we know...this was just the beginning of a couple long hard weeks!...
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