Welcome Ladybug Part 2

Nick and I checked into the hospital about four o’clock Thursday. The nurse tried to stick me for my IV…but I was too swollen to find a good vein. Even the nurse that they send in when no one can find a vein, couldn’t get one. I ended up with the IV in the bend of my arm, which stunk because I couldn’t bend that arm or it would cut the IV off. The plan was to use cervidil l that night and Pitocin in the morning. Dr. B comes in around eight pm and checks me. He says I’m about 1 ½ centimeters and wants to do a more aggressive approach using a drug I can’t remember the name of. After monitoring me for a few minutes, he comes back and says my contractions where pretty close together (not that I felt anything) and we were going to start on Pitocin instead. He made it sound like baby would be coming before he was done at 4am (haha, I wish).

Side note, he also told me I had a pretty good sized baby in there. That had me pretty nervous because my amazing sister-in-law had just delivered her little guy a week before me at 11.5 lbs and he was a week early. I really wanted to know what a ‘pretty good sized baby’ meant.

 About nine pm we start the Pitocin and a sleepless night for me. I mean when the nurse is in every 30 minutes to up your dose, the blood pressure cuff follows her, sharp back contractions that have me on my side in the fetal position because it makes them more tolerable, baby not cooperating for the monitoring so extra interruptions, the many bathroom breaks because they gave me an IV bag to quickly when I first checked in, and an uncomfortable hospital bed with an arm hanging out through a hole in the railings cause I can’t bend it….you know...it’s hard to sleep.

Nine am brings mom and grandma and Dr. C. I’m at a 2 (maybe it was 3), time to break the water. For the record, holy cow, I didn’t realize how much water was in there. I’m happy and chatting still at this point so we send Nick home for a shower. Baby was still very high and posterior so Mom and I start walking and trying to get baby to move and drop but the contractions get strong and sharp fast. None of the tricks I learned to help with the pain worked, I wanted so bad to go natural but dr. A had warned me that Pitocin labors are harder because they bring hard labor contractions on from the start and are generally longer. Nick comes back hours later to me crying and in bad pain. So bring on drug one, sometime around 11 or 12.

The nurse told everyone one to not make fun of the tipsy pregnancy lady (apparently that’s what it does) and I can attest that because after a while I finally figured out to keep my eyes closed to keep from throwing up and I said some funny things that afternoon. At one point, I remember telling my mom about getting out or putting away the Christmas decorations and something else about mailing some things. What I thought was funny/interesting, was as I saying these things, I remember thinking I was talking about normal topics of conversation for that moment but as soon as I said it, I realized that wasn’t right and I couldn’t figure out why I said it. But I was only half conscious the whole afternoon.

I didn’t find drug one enough help and decided to brave my fear of the epidural and get one. It didn’t hurt like I thought it would and I will gladly due it again in the future even though mine didn’t work completely. I seemed to always be able to feel it on one side…no one is sure why, theory is my swelling. Either way, I wanted to push with every contraction from about five centimeters on. It was a long afternoon but I was so grateful to have Nick and my mother by my side.  

So you know how everyone has those stories about how they were only at like seven centimeters then had a big contraction and all the sudden were a ten. I felt like I had a ton of those and they never did anything!!! Well, long afternoon shortened, I kept wanting to push but just before nine pm things changed. They told me I still had a small lip left but it was like my body just said, ‘it’s go time’. Luckily right as I felt everything change and was fanatically saying, ‘it’s time to push, it’s different now, it’s different’, Dr. C was in and agrees. Things quickly change and get me into position. Funny how once in position, I had a harder time telling when I was having a contraction but I was right every time. I also never knew how hard pushing really would be. It takes every muscle, no joke.

After a few pushes, Dr. C tells me the baby has a lot of hair and she knows because she can see it…to me that means baby’s like almost out…yea no. Didn’t occur to me that she could see up in there (sorry for graphics details here). I had a great Dr. and coaching nurse. She was so sweet and mom and Nick by my side helped. Although Nick was watching the Ohio State basketball game between my contractions. I was so tired while pushing, I remember saying I was done and she was just going to have to stay in there as was.

About half way, Ladybug started getting stressed and I was given oxygen; for the record I don’t like the masks and ironically felt like I couldn’t breathe with it on. When I almost had her out, baby girl’s heart rate spiked due to a long time of pushing (just over an hour) and my fever, so she was vacuumed out last second. Ladybug was not responding well at first, my mom kept saying, ‘come on Ladybug’ as the doctor quickly suctioned, had Nick cut her cord and rushed her over to the nurses at the warming station. Everyone said it happened so fast, it’s almost a blur. During this time everyone got to go see her but me and my delivery nurse was great about keeping me distracted so I couldn’t hear what was going on. Although, the spirit was defiantly with me because I was concerned but not worried about her at all.

It felt so good when all was said and done! I said ‘mother trucking (yes trucking not the real word) that was really hard’ and everyone laughed because even after that I would not get mean. Nick and mom said the nurses loved me because I kept apologizing for being annoying and complaining about the pain all day and because I kept telling Nick I loved him and asking for kisses instead of the usual mad at the husband stuff.

It was a surreal feeling when they brought her over a few minutes later. I just couldn’t believe she was here. It was also weird because I felt like I was looking at a mini me, but it was probably just weird looking at a mini Nick since she looks just like him. After everyone getting to hold her she was taken to the nursery for some monitoring and we started the phone calls, while I ate the BEST most heavenly PB&J ever. And that was it, we were parents!

Her poor head got scraped. Receiving more oxygen and her poor cone head from the vacuum. Under the warmer and calling grandpa to let him know everything was okay because he was worried when my mom suddenly stopped texting an hour before.



Daddy's favorite photo. He says she's a future doctor in the making

Meeting our daughter for the first time

Note to self: when leaving for the hospital and mom says lets just put your hair in a French braid, take her up on it because 24 hour labor hair is not attractive nor is it easy to brush out



Daddy and daughter. Meeting Grammy, Great Grandma Ludlow (glad I was able to have both of them there with me and share this neat experience with them) and our little Ladybug must always have those hands by her face, even in the womb