emilee's birth

emilee's birth story probably starts about 2 weeks before her birth. i go to my weekly appointment to find out my blood pressure had taken a jump. the doctors were a little concerned, so they took me off work, and asked me to return two days later. when i return in 2 days, the blood pressure is still high. the doctors decided to take me off work, and kept talking about inducing labor if the blood pressure continued to climb. they asked me to stay off work, and to monitor my blood pressure at home. they also ordered me into their office every 2 days....each appointment i went in not knowing if i was going to be induced or not. finally, at 38 weeks pregnant, i was told i would be induced the following week, at exactly 39 weeks. however, when i returned that monday, i was told the induction was pushed back to friday.


the week before emilee was born i was having contractions all week. it would start in my back and wrap around to my lower abdomen (the low gut, if you will). it was a really weird experience...as i was never sure if this was "it" or not. obviously, it never was! ;)

i was told to call the hospital at 6:30am on friday, may 28, to find out when they would start my induction. if the hospital wasn't busy, i'd come right in...if they were busy, i'd have to wait until beds were available. talk about the longest day ever...i called the hospital at 6:30, at which point they told me to call back at 8:00 because they were busy. so i called at 8:00, then 10:00, then 1:00, then 4:00, then 7:00...and finally at 9:30 they had me come in. at one point in the day the nurse that answered the phone said "just go ahead and do what you were going to do today instead of sitting and waiting on us". oh really? because i was pretty sure what i was going to do was have a baby!!!!!

when i got there, the nurse got me changed and then my doctor came in. he checked me and i was still at barely 1 cm dilated and my cervix hadn't thinned enough, so he decided to start cervadil. not before telling me scary stories of women who were induced and stayed in labor for 4 days first, though. haha. he was trying to scare me...and it kinda worked. however, it had already been the longest day in history and i just wanted to get this thing rolling. jill, manda, and daniel were all there with me...they gave me ambien to help me sleep. haha. no sleeping for this girl. i kept watching my contractions on the screen and watching my blood pressure and watching emilee's heart rate.

at about 2:30 am, i told the girls "i think my water just broke". when the nurse came in, i told her and she used this little strip to swipe the pad under me and said, "no, i don't think so. you probably just peed". i was like um, no really - my water broke, but she wasn't buying it. about 45 mins later, she came back in to help me get to the bathroom and when i stood, my water HAD broken, and proceeded to spill all over the floor and near her feet. kinda like "i told you so". haha.

this part was all very boring, as the cervadil had to be in for 12 hours. after my water broke, my contractions picked up and started to intensify. but 8:30 am they were starting to get really uncomfortable, so the doctor gave me some pain meds to help. at 10:00, they removed the cervadil and and checked me again. at this point, i was 2 centimeters dilated and 80% effaced. they decided to start the cervadil. there was a doctor change at 7:00 am and i was kinda glad, as i liked my female OB better than the other guy.

the rest of the day was pretty eventful. i got my epidural around 1:00 pm, and i seriously just hung out. the biggest fiasco was the inlaws losing manda's pass to get back to labor and delivery. seriously, my labor was so uneventful, and i'd be lying if i said it was hard/bad.

i was checked on and off all day - and finally at 6:00 pm, i was 10 cm dilated. did this mean i got to push? nope. sure didn't. i had to "labor down", as emilee hadn't dropped low enough. at 7:15 (after an hour and 15 mins of sitting there just shaking - be it nerves or the transition phase or whatever, it was weird) - my doctor came in and said she had a c-section scheduled at 8:00pm and did i want to just wait until after she completed that to push. i looked at her like she was crazy. no i did not want to wait any longer. she said she was worried i'd hafta push for 2 hours or so (i guess this is common for overweight gals), but if i wanted to go ahead and try, we could.

a nurse came in and coached me. it was a nurse, my husband, and jill in the room. it all went faster than they expected and the doctor came just in time. i actually had to stop pushing to keep from having emilee without the doctor. 28 minutes of pushing and out popped this baby girl with the chubbiest cheeks known to man. :) it was crazy to me. once her head was out, the next push had her body out and i swear it felt like a little fish swimming out of me. (keep in mind i had an epidural haha).

as soon as she delivered the doctor literally tossed her onto my tummy and i went to pull her closer and got a "wait! the cord is short!!!" and then watched as the doctor talked my hubby through cutting the cord. he handled it all like a champ. i was so proud of him. so, so proud. he didn't think he'd be able to watch any of it, but he did. and fed me ice chips in between contractions, and told me when he could see her hair.

after daniel cut the cord, they pushed her down my gown and my girl laid on my bare chest, covered in blood, and fluid, and white pasty stuff. lol. it didn't even matter. i was just so happy to finally see her.

we both had a fever, and they were worried they'd have to send her over to NICU, but it came down quickly and she was just fine. after i got over to my room, we kept our girl with us for about an hour or so and then let the nursery keep her for the night. we had had very little sleep in 48 hours and were needing it.

i can honestly say i think labor was the easiest part, with recovery being the worst. the absolute worst. this could be because i tore really bad (i don't know exactly how bad, i just know that the nurse apologized while i was pushing because "oh, honey, i'm sorry - you're already tearing" and the doctor said "i need more sutures when stitching me up!).

emilee's birth story is not what i expected.  nothing about this was what i expected, but i will say i went in thinking it'd be a LOT worse.  :)