Alice's Birthday!! - Labor and her first few days

Oct. 6th - Monday

I had just finished my last day at work two days before. Today we were going to run errands and get some things done around the house. We started the day off by going to get John updated on his shots. When we were leaving the health department to come home I told him I think I've been having contractions. It felt like back spasms so I was unsure.

We cut our errands short and decided to just do things around the house. I started to record contraction length and times around 1:30pm. They were all over the place!  Seven minutes apart, twenty then and hour but they just kept coming. We got our hospital bag packed and did a few "last minute pre- hospital tasks". We both thought for sure I would be going into labor within a few hours.

It got late. My contractions became stronger and more consistent in length and time. They were averaging about every ten minutes for the last two hours. Then it was more like every five to seven minutes for an hour. By this time (1:00AM) we were both exhausted and decided to go to the hospital to get checked out after all this had been going on for twelve hours now and they were really starting to hurt.

The Hospital

We arrive at the hospital and get checked in to Labor and Delivery. They escort us back to a nice big "birthing sweet". They have me get dressed in a hospital gown so they can check my cervix and see how far dilated I have become.

I was only at 1cm (out of ten) and 80% effaced (out of 100%). This was what I had been a few days earlier at my last OBGYN visit so no progress had been made with my contractions.

The nurse got me some Morphine in hopes that I might be able to go home and get some sleep. I thought I was in a lot of pain 6/10, little did I know.

The nurse told us that you can have painful contractions and still not be in active labor if your cervix isn't being opened by them. We of course asked, "well how do we know if we should come back then?"

We were informed if your water breaks you need to come back in or if the contractions get noticeably worse enough that you can't function when one is happening. ( I thought I was already at that point, boy was I wrong).

We were sent home at 2:30AM

John made me a quick quesadilla and then we were going to go to bed. I was so drugged at this point the morphine shot had just taken it's full effect.  It took a while to finish my food because I felt so drowsy. I remember telling John "I feel like I'm moving in slow motion".

Anyways I managed to finish and we got into bed. I was still having contractions but the morphine was dulling them. I fell asleep for about an hour and then I would have a contraction wake up and immediately fall back asleep once it was over. The contractions got to be every five minutes and I could no longer sleep in between them. I got up and decided to start keeping track again. They were under three minutes apart then two minutes I kept timing for an hour and wow did they hurt 8/10 here. After an hour I decided we needed to go back to the hospital even though I was worried we were going to get sent home again.

I woke John up and we went back.

The hospital - Round two.

Same as the first time I changed and then waited to be evaluated. The nurse tells me you are dialated to a three! Yay we get to stay! She then asked me if I would like an epidural. Yes, please. Linda became my new favorite person. She told me she'd start and IV hook me up to monitors to track the baby's heart rate my blood pressure and contractions. I was going to get an epidural soon after and they were going to check my cervix once and hour.

An hour passed and they checked my cervix which was at a 4cm and gave me the epidural. It was now about 7:30AM and so we were thinking I'd maybe start pushing around 1PM if things continued to progress.

They broke my water and checked me again within the hour I was at 8cm! My epidural had me at zero pain and we were excited things were moving quickly. When they broke my water the commented on how there was a good amount of blood in it so they were going to monitor me closely.

My contractions were over lapping and not having a breather in between them this of course was putting stress on the baby. Her heart rate which had been in the 140-160 range was now dropping to 60-80 beats a minute. They checked me I was at 10cm now within about 20 minutes of the last check. This baby is coming out now we were informed. They paged the Dr. and the NICU (New Born Intensive Care Unit) team and informed us they were going to have to use forceps to pull the baby out to get her out quickly.

They set me up in stirups and had me start pushing. I pushed twice then they used the forceps. I pushed two more times and she was out. But she wasn't crying. She had gotten the cord tangled around her neck. They snipped it and quickly took her over to evaluate here with the NICU team. She was blue and not crying. It was the longest minute of my life before Alice made a squeal. She was still lethargic and they continued to evaluated her and clean her off for the next ten minutes.

By the grace of God she pinked up and started crying. They brought her over to us and I was so happy and relieved for our wonderful miracle and that she was okay.

Alice was born Oct. 7th @ 11:51PM
Weight 6lbs. 15oz.
Length 18.5 inches

Here are some pictures from the hospital