Little miss was quite the stubborn baby and did not want to come out into the world on her own, though I can't say I blame her! She had it made inside my every growing stomach where she was warm and comfy. Since she was not ready to come out at 40 weeks and 3 days and my doctor was headed to the Bahamas, we were scheduled to induce on Thursday May 29th at 6:00am. The whole night before it felt like Chistmas. I did not sleep a wink..the husband on the other hand was out like a light!
We got to the hospital a little before 6:00 am on Thursday morning and were checked in right away and brought back to our room. We got all situated and then the real fun began! Here we are before all the fun began, I love how happy and oblivious we are!
Right after we took this picture they started the induction process, first they gave me a gel and told me to "hang out" for a couple hours. I remember thinking.. how am I supposed to hangout while waiting to have a baby! The husband on the other hand had no problem at all...
The gel did not help our situation at all, so they told us to go on a walk. Now mind you I wasn't allowed to leave the labor and delivery part of the hospital so we were walking in a TINY circle over and over again. We came back from our 30 minute walk and they gave me a pill to help get the party started, I can't remember the name of the pill but it is what made things get interesting.
I was hooked up to monitors that were monitoring my contractions, sweet girls heart beat, and my blood pressure. It was really fascinating and we were all pretty much glued to the monitors just watching the numbers because we were curious. It was fun to watch when I was having a contraction and to see if I could feel anything. My dad was in the room with Will and I at this point, keeping us company and just hanging out! He was in the middle of telling me story about how when my mom was pregnant with my brother that they had some issues with my brothers heart beat for a little bit, before he could finish telling the story the monitors started beeping, my dad stopped talking, and about 10 doctors and nurses rushed into our room. I had no clue what was going on but knew that it couldn't be good. They were in the room for a total of probably 10 minute but it felt like hours. The first thing I remember is the resident doctor asking if I had an epidural yet, and before I could even answer she broke my water (YIKES!!) and placed two monitors inside me and attached them to sweet girl's head. I had no clue what was going on still, and they kept moving me into different positions. Later on I learned that Weslee's heart rate was scary low for about 7 1/2 minutes. They were turning me from side to side, and in all types of positions to see if they could get it to come up. I remember looking around just trying to make eye contact with someone to see if everything was okay. I looked up and saw my OBGYN just standing in the background watching everything with the most calm demeanor. She smiled her every so reassuring smile and I felt a huge relief, and knew that we were both in great hands. Then they gave me a shot of something that reversed the pill that they had given me earlier to start the induction. Right when they gave me the shot I heard what seem to be a sigh of relief in the room and "it is working" meaning her heart rate was starting to climb. We were very close to doing an emergency c-section at this point, but they decided to hold off once her heart rate started to climb.
We had an amazing resident doctor that stayed back and explained what all happened, and we were so grateful for that. Apparently the pill that they gave me was causing the contractions to happen so fast (even though I wasn't feeling them at the time) that Weslee's heart wasn't able to recover in between contractions so it was causing a lot of stress on her , which in turn caused her heart rate to drop down to 60.
I was then told I needed to stay on my side for the remainder of the labor....oh man did my hip begin to hurt! We waited about an hour and then they gave me Pitocin to see if that would help me progress. At this point she still had not dropped and I was about 2 cm, so not much action. It was probably about noon now. After they gave me the Pitocin I had the worst shakes, and Weslee's body wasn't very fond of the medicine either because once again her heart rate was dropping every time I had a contraction. The difference now was after the contraction it would come back up on its own, so the doctors and nurses were a little more okay with this scenario then the one from earlier in the morning. We were both monitored very closely and had wonderful nurses and doctors! For the next 9 hours the doctors were turning up the Pitocin and then turning it back down depending on how Weslee was doing, I had to wear an oxygen mask for Weslee to make sure she was getting enough oxygen as well. Due to having my water break so early in the morning they were also pumping fluids back into my bottom to see if that would help stabilize Weslee's heart rate..and by fluids I mean 6 WHOLE BAGS by the time we were done! My face, legs, arms and whole body were so swollen, needless to say the pictures were quite attractive...I was not making much progress and she still had not dropped. I was having contractions that I could for sure feel now.
During my whole pregnancy I was told that I would not be able to have an epidural because of my low blood platelets. It was to risky for me to have the epidural because of bleeding by the spine. Though my doctor told me that the day of the delivery we would test my blood and if my platelets were 100,000 or above I could have an epidural. Well they came in a told me that my platelets were102,000 so I could have an epidural!! Thank goodness!! I had been on steroids the last 2 months of the pregnancy to try and help this situation, but still they had not ever been above 80,000. At about 5:00pm the gave me an epidural, and much to my surprise it didn't hurt at all! I am not sure if it was because I was so tired or if the doctor was just that good! The only thing that bothered me was that when they injected the medicine it burned going in because it is acidic.
At about 10:00pm my doctor came and checked on me again and I had progress to about 4 cm but Weslee still had not dropped. At this point she told me that even if I had progress to 10cm and she didn't drop there was not much she could do! Little girl was just comfy inside! So my doctor was going to go home and say goodnight to her kids and then come back in a couple of hours. We sent both families home and told them that we would call if something changed! After my doctor left I got another round of my epidural medicine because it was wearing off. Not 5 minutes after they gave me my epidural medicine my doctor rushed back in and told me that Weslee's heart rate was not stable and we were going back for an emergency c-section to take her out right then! WOW!
The next bit was quite a whirlwind. I remember them throwing scrubs at Will to put on and giving me more medicine to get ready for the c-section (mind you I just had gotten a second dose of the epidural medicine so I was full of medicine). At this point I was quite scared and all of the medicine inside me was causing me to shake uncontrollably, which made me more concerned. I still had the oxygen mask on which I was not fond of apparently and within 5 minutes we were in the OR ready to go. Side note: Don't watch 4 seasons of Grey's Anatomy before delivering a baby :)
According to my husband I was a terrible c-section patient. I kept trying to take of the oxygen mask (that I had to wear to help make sure Weslee was getting enough oxygen) because I told him I couldn't breath, I think I was feeling claustrophobic. I also told him that I HAD to move my legs and that I was going to keep trying until I could do it, mind you there was not way that I could do this and at this point they were cutting me open. oops!
We went into the OR room at about 10:30 so I was exhausted from the day and they had the brightest lights (which I know was a good thing, so that they doctors could see, but they were blinding me!) so I kept shutting my eyes. Every time I would shut my eyes my husband would yell my name and wake me up,so sleeping was not an option! The whole procedure took about 45 minutes and then we had our baby girl! I was so out of it after the c-section that when they gave me her I could barely hold her and was still shaking. I was so relieved that the process was over but the drugs were really hard on my body. I know lots of people that I talked to LOVE their c-section experience, but this girl was not a fan! My body did not have a reaction to the medicine so it was not fun, I know it was the only option for our little girl but yikes!
We then headed up to our recovery room with our sweet girl.
This is the first picture my husband showed me of her...ahh!! She looks giant to me here and obviously not happy! This was also the picture he decided to send out to his friends and my family!! Clearly not the picture I would of preferred :)
Here is our sweet girl once we got her cleaned up and in our room!
Check back to read about the next few days, and our stay in the NICU. Also for lots more pictures of Miss Weslee Grace!
Loved reading about Weslee's birth story. Glad she is doing great and everything ended up going well. I keep saying that I need to write down Ryan's birth story before I forget any of it :)
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