Labor and Delivery Diary

First off, let me give you some basic info on my past deliveries with the boys: Brennan was a breach baby, riding very high, as content as can be--I went 41 weeks with him. We scheduled a c-section for Monday, January 27, 2003 at 7am. He was pulled out butt-first (he loves that little detail about his birthday) at around 10am, weighing in at 7lbs., 2oz. and 19in. long. C-section recovery was not fun and I really wanted to avoid it in the future. Micah was head-down, perfect in that way, carried him for 41 weeks as well. My sister came up from VA with the twins the week I was due and we were both disappointed when she headed back on Saturday after being here for nearly a week with absolutely nothing happening, but a contraction here and there. He has been a stinker from the beginning. I went into labor Sunday evening around 11:30pm. After laboring for a couple hours, I growled at Ben to call his mom to come over and watch Brennan, and we were off to the hospital. We got to the hospital and I was dilated to 5cm. Yay! When my doctor broke my water, there was meconium and because of that they wanted to get him out as soon as possible. Long story somewhat short...I got an epidural at 7cm (@ 6am), starting pushing around 9am, his heartrate went down, they rushed me in to do c-section, his heartrate went up, they used the vacuum, I pushed, he came out at about 10:30am. Crazy. He did swallow some meconium into his lungs, so he had about a week in the hospital with getting all that out. Born Monday, November 28, 2005, weighing in at 9lbs, 21in long (ouch!). I said to my mom, "I'm never doing that again." Ha!... I was very glad to be able to do a v-bac (vaginal birth after c-section)--the recovery was 10 times better.

Whew! Now, here I am, doing it again. Let me first say that being pregnant with a 5 and 2-year-old running around is no piece of cake. I was incredibly miserable the last few weeks and seriously have actually done more in the week being home after giving birth to Emma than I have done in the last 30 days. I went into labor on my due date (February 28) after a good week of labor signs. At about 10:30am I started having actual contractions. I called the doctor at about 1pm and since I'm a v-bac (at risk for uterine tear) and tested positive for the strep B thing and needed to be on antibiotics during labor, he asked me to come in. We made it in at about 1:30 pm and I was only dilated to about 3cm. They had me walk around the floor for an hour and that did nothing. So, I head home at about 4:30pm. With everyone by my side, including my neices holding ice to my contracting area, I labored for about 5 hours at home. The contractions became 2-4 min apart and were lasting longer. So, at about 9:30pm, we headed back to the hospital in hopes that I was at least dilated to a 5 or so. I was only at a 4! "A 4!", I hollered at the poor nurse. But they decided to keep me this time, hook me up and see where everything went. I made it to a 6 within a couple of hours, the doctor came in and broke my water and once again saw that there was meconium in there. To keep an eye on Emma and help her out, they hooked her up to an internal monitor and used a flushing out system to dilute the meconium--that also meant I couldn't continue to walk around at all, which totally seemed to help at home. But I was able to basically sit on the end of the bed and labor, which was nice. The doc said I could get an epidural now, so I'm like, yeah! They called the epi doc and he was with another patient. For some reason, it took forever with that other patient--at least an hour--and he was even baffled by that, never having that much trouble before. He finally made it into my room at about 1am, apologizing for the delay. They got me sitting up, ready to get stuck in the back, my sister stayed with me since only one can stay and Ben can't handle it, and it took like 5-10 minutes to get in. During that time, however, I had another contraction and the blood-pressure cuff went off. Stupid, friggin' blood pressure cuff. So, they get me back on the bed, and I'm like, "I still feel a lot of pressure and pain." And they're like, well, you're going to for a few minutes. And, I'm like, no, this is different. And they're like, holy cow, she's complete! Fortunately, the doctor was standing right there on the phone about another patient, and when he turned around I was ready to push. They pulled Ben and mom in quickly and because I couldn't help myself and it felt like a mac-truck bearing down on my bottom, I pushed. It took three pushes and out she came, looking beautiful and pink and yeah, kinda' slimy. They took her over quickly to the bassinet to suck out some meconium from her belly and get her cleaned off. But she was perfect. They stitched me up (yay) and handed over our beautiful baby girl. There are no words to explain this protective feeling I already have toward her that I don't remember having with the boys. She was born March 1, 2009 at about 1:25 am, weighing in at 7lbs, 11oz, and 19-and-a-half inches long. I feel pretty proud of myself because as my nurse said, "You can pretty much say you did that natural!" Okay, I will...and I'm never doing that again. Welcome, Emma Grace, you are and always will be, the baby of the family.