Birth Story

I 

We were scheduled for an induction on Thursday April 23rd.  As we pulled out of the drive way it was a chilly morning and the roofs of all the homes in the neighborhood were covered in white and the grass had about 1/2 of snow that had fallen that night.  We drove about 15 mins to University Hospital Case Medical Center (it is the hospital chain your dad works for) and checked into our room.  We had an awesome nurse and they got me all set up on pitocin to start getting my contractions going.  I had contractions from 20 weeks and then about 4 days before I was supposed to be induced they almost completely stopped.  It was crazy. She just started the pitocin really slow and then my body took over from there and started going strong.

We got in the hospital about 6:30 am.  Everything kinda was going slow and we were mostly just hanging around.  I was up walking around the room, stretching, and sitting in a rocking chair.

They started pitocin around 10 and My contractions were strong, but nothing was too unbearable.

At 10:30 the doctor came in. He said I was dilated to a 4 and he broke my water.  My doctor through the whole pregnancy was Dr. Chapman, but the week you were due they had me see a doctor named Dr. Janicki because Dr. Chapman was out of the office.  I am was originally due on April 29th but was able to get induced on April 23rd.

Around 11:00 they came in to give me an epidural.  It was done by a CRNA student.  There was about 4 CRNA people in there.  In the past my blood pressure tends to bottom out when I get the epidural so they were very cautious when they gave it to me.  They gave me a test dose then another smaller dose all the while watching my blood pressure and even pre bolusing me with 1000 cc. Everything seemed pretty good except I could feel the epidural on my left side and not as much on my right.  They had me lay on my right and then they left the room around 12. After they left I called Maddie, Emily, and Grandma, but became so incredibly tired I could keep my eyes open.  I told them I had to go and then went to sleep. When I woke up just a little bit later I felt like I couldn't open my left eye. I looked at your dad and asked if there was something wrong with my eye and he said that it was drooping. I told him my entire left side of my body was numb up to my head. He started testing me for a stroke then said he thought I maybe had something called
Horner's syndrome. He told the nurse and she went and got the anesthesiologist and sure enough that is what I had. They turned off my epidural and waiting until the numbness came down. It came down to my thigh and then they turned the epidural back on but just turned it on at 1/6 of what I had before. The epidural never ever felt like it came back on. Instead it just felt like I never had it.

At this point they had called the doctor and I was 7 and he said he was on his way. About an hour after they had called him I told them I felt like you were close to being here. They went and got a resident and she told me I was dialated to an 8. I looked at your dad and told him I was a 10 and that you were coming right now. Before I knew it I was pushing and there was no doctor still. I felt every single ounce of pain. There was no epidural left in my body that I could feel. The nurse started getting everything ready and just as the doctor walked into the room. He gowned up and I pushed three times. Your dad was holding me hand helping me. Telling me to take slow breaths and I could do it. He was awesome the whole time. I was a little worried I was going to break his hand because it was very painful but he is tough. Before you knew it you were here. It was 12:33 pm on April 23rd.  They put you up on my chest and your dad cut the cord. You were crying and soo snuggly. I just held you and never wanted to let you go. That was by far the most painful experience I had ever gone through, but also one of the best. 

You were beautiful. You have deep big blue eyes and dark eyebrows. You have a beautifully perfect nose and sweetest little face. Your head was perfectly round. You have very long fingers and thumbs. After a while they took you to get measured. It was dads first time to see you. He was completely in awe of how beautiful you were.

He kept saying, "she is so beautiful, she is just so beautiful."

You weighed 7 lbs 8 oz and 20 inches long. You were actually very swollen from all the IV fluids they gave me and that you came so fast. Within about 10 hours you weighed 6 lbs 11 oz. they told me not to worry because you just lost a lot of water weight for the IV fluids. After dad got to hold you for a while. I fed you and you did great.

Then you snuggled right into my arms and went to sleep. We are so happy you are here and can't believe how lucky we are to have you.