Friday, June 18, 2010

Ella's Birth Story

Apologies, in advance, if this is a little scatter-brained. I am not thinking too clearly at the moment :-):

We kept it a secret (which was really hard for us to do), but we made our appointment to be induced on the 8th. I had gotten really uncomfortable, so Mike and I both agreed that we were okay to go forward with an induction. I was hoping it would happen naturally, prior to being induced, but it didn't work out that way. Our doctor made the appointment for Monday, June 14th, and I wanted to keep it secret out of fear of the induction not working. I didn't want to tell everyone she was coming and then get sent home from the hospital if my body didn't respond to the medication. We didn't spread the word until later in the day, when we knew I was in active labor and my water had been broken. I knew there was no turning back then.
So here's how the day went....

5:30 a.m.- I got up and started getting ready for the big day. We needed to be leaving the house by 6:45 in order to meet my mom at the hospital, hand off Jaycoby and be inside the hospital at 7:15.
6:30 a.m.- My phone rings. It was Salem Hospital telling me they didn't have enough nurses or beds to do my induction and that they would call me later when they had an opening. She told me that my doctor was hoping it would be in the next two hours, but I was expecting it to be later in the day. I was already glad we hadn't announced the induction, because our plans had already changed.
7:00 a.m.- Mike went back to bed and I was trying to sleep on the couch, while Jaycoby watched his morning cartoons.
8:00 a.m.- The hospital called and told me to be there at 9 a.m. That was WAY faster than I'd anticipated.
8:30 a.m.- Headed to the hospital and said our goodbyes to Jaycoby. We told him that Dr. West was going to try really hard to get Ella out mommy's tummy.
9:00 a.m.- Checked in to the hospital.
9:45 a.m.- Dr. West induced me. They told me labor could come on hard and fast...
10:15 a.m.- They had to give me meds to slow down the contractions. They were so intense and fast that Ella's heart rate dropped. There wasn't any time between contractions for her to recover. It was handled quicly, but it was crazy for a minute. Two additional nurses came in and that's always a bit concerning. The medication worked quickly, but it gave me the shakes. I was shaking uncontrollably for the next hour.
11:30 a.m.- Already 2 cm dilated. Time for my epidural. I'd told them I'd wanted one at some point, but we just had to do it when the anesthesiologist was available. She was in between c-sections, so she came and hooked me up.
12:30 p.m.- They were going to break my water, but Ella's head kept going back up. They did an ultrasound to make sure she wasn't turning. At this point, I was nervous that Ella was just determined not to come out and that my body wasn't going to be ready. Her head was still down though, so Dr. West was happy with what he was seeing. He had to wait for her head to drop back down to the opening of my cervix though, before he could break my water, so that the umbilical cord didn't try to come out first.
1:00 p.m.- Everything was still pretty high up. They had a hard time reaching my cervix. But he managed to break my water. Thank goodness I'd gotten my epidural or this procedure would've been really uncomfortable.
2:00 p.m.- 4 cm. I started to get uncomfortable, so the anesthesiologist came back in and gave me a booster. This helped for the 45 mins-1 hr.
3:10 p.m.- 5 cm and cervix is finally thinning. Getting uncomfortable again, so they called the anesthesiologist again. Got another booster, but this one never made a difference. I was too far along.
4:00 p.m.- 6 cm. Contractioncs were really intense and I was really uncomfortable. But I could tell things were picking up, so I tried to focus and just get ready for pushing.
4:30 p.m.- Dr. West checked me and I was 9+ cm. He left and I got REALLY uncomfortable.
5:00 p.m.- I was having a contraction and finally got to the point where I just decided I would let myself cry. I told Mike that it just really hurt, so my nurse suggested we try to push and see what happened. After one round of pushing, she told us that it was definitely time to push and that she was going to set up. I was instructed to just push through the next one while she was getting the room ready. Mike and I were doing our pushing and counting thing and the nurse glanced over and told us to wait through the next contraction. I saw her eyes get big when I was pushing, so it was obvious from her face that Ella was ready to come out. Dr. West was in the middle of a delivery next door and she wanted to be sure that he delivered our baby. She was rushing around, getting everything set up and constantly popping over to the next room to see their progress. Meanwhile, I was suffering through contractions and thinking about how much less those contractions hurt when I got to push through them. FINALLY, Dr. West was ready. I pushed through two more contractions while he got ready and then he was good to go. Of course, he sits down for the action and my contractions stopped for like a minute (but it felt like ten minutes). I did two more sets of pushes and....
5:35 p.m.- Ella Michelle Roth was born.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Oh my, first I could NEVER have kept a secret like that, good job! When I got your text I just assumed you had gone in to labor naturally!! :) You're so organized in posting the story already. I'm so sorry your epidural didn't work as well as it could have. But it sounds like you did so great and very little pushing, I'm SO jealous. Can't wait to meet your sweet bundle. Thanks for posting all the pictures, she sure is a cute little bug!