Thursday, September 10, 2015

Isabelle's Birth Story!

Izzy Leigh is here and she is a firecracker!    She's been a pistol right from the beginning, from all of my pregnancy issues, to her screaming for a loooong time after being born, to her week long stay in the NICU; she has kept us on our toes.  So here is her birth story....

I am three for three with inductions due to reaching my due date with no baby.  This time I had my scheduled induction for my actual due date.  I pushed for that, just because I was so uncomfortable, and I knew my babies are born big so I was just ready to get it done.  That, and my due date was good timing for Tina (true story, ha ha!).  

Anyhow, at 7:30AM on Friday August 7th Jay drove me to the hospital while Tina stayed with the girls. 

Heading to the hospital!

Mike met me at the hospital entrance since he had just worked the night before.  We went up to the L+D floor, I got my IV, got hooked to the monitors and at 8AM the midwife, Karen checked me and stripped my membranes.  I was 2cm dilated, 80% effaced, and -2 station on arrival.  Karen agreed to go straight to Pitocin (again, with my pushing for it) since that's what worked for me the other two times.  Pitocin was started at 8:30AM at 2mu/min.  They went up on it every half an hour by one.

Let's get this party started!

I began feeling some tightening contractions (but not yet painful ones) when Pitocin was at 4mu/min and my back started to hurt once we were at 5.  By 3PM the Pitocin was at 11 and Karen stripped my membranes again.  I was 4cm dilated, 80% effaced, and -2 station at that time.  They then decided to increase the Pitocin by 2mu/min every half hour. 

 I requested my epidural at 4PM when Pitocin was at 14mu/min.  Back pain was getting pretty bad at that point.  Got my epidural at 5PM and I was 5cm dilated, 80% effaced, and -1 station at that time.  Huge sense of relief with that epidural!  I didn't really realize how uncomfortable I was until I wasn't anymore.

At 5:30 my Pitocin went up to 20mu/min and I got really tired and kind of nauseous.  BP was 95/58 (which is pretty normal for me in a non-pregnancy state), but they wanted to keep my systolic above 100 so they gave me 10mg of ephedrine and then 4mg Zofran for my nausea.  Felt much better after that and my BP went to 119/75.

I was really hoping the midwife (now Jane) would break my water but she was hesitant to.  But alas, during my 7:30 cervical check, my water broke.  I was 6cm, 80%, and 0 station at that time.  We paused the Pitocin for a break and restarted it at 10mu/min at 8PM.  Then increased it by 2 every 30 min.  

At 10PM the Pitocin was at 18mu/min and I was 8cm, 80%, 0 station.  Started feeling pressure with the contractions and when my nurse Sara checked me she told me that it was time to push.  And I remember being like, "Really?"  It's so crazy how you can't really feel much with the epidural.  I've had 3 babies now and never really felt the "urge to push".  I just pushed because they told me to, ha ha!  The beauty of the epidural. 

 So it looked like baby girl would get her own birthday after all.  Tina, Mike, and I were placing bets on whether she'd be born on 8/7 or 8/8 like Mike.  I already can't remember who won that bet, although I think it was Tina.  I know that Mike thought he had time because he ordered a pizza and some wings and almost decided to go pick it up!  The nurses and I convinced him to have it delivered ;)  It was hilarious, because literally RIGHT after I had her, the delivery people called and said they were in the lobby.  Mike responded with "Um, my wife literally just had a baby.  Could you maybe bring the food up to our room?"  And they did.  It was so comical.  Amongst all of the chaos, at least Daddy got his food, ha ha.  Thank goodness because he was so fixated on getting his wings.  The whole situation is making me laugh as I type this.

Anyway, at 10:50PM I started pushing and at 11PM on the dot, baby "Chizzy" was born!  Yup for the last few weeks of my pregnancy we called her Chizzy (thanks to Aunt Tina) because we weren't set on a name for her yet, but we were going between Charlotte and Isabelle.  So Tina combined the names and came up with Chizzy.  Once she was born I knew this girl was no Charlotte.  Charlotte seems so quiet and demure.  Our little pistol came out kicking and SCREAMING!  She was (and continues to be) a little firecracker.  And Mike, Tina, and I all agreed that Isabelle (Izzy) was a name that was much better suited for her feisty personality. 

So we had the first name, now we needed a middle name (as she was screaming in my ear the whole time ha ha!).  We talked and we contemplated and then Mike suggested Leigh, just like Aunt Tina. We had never thought of that before, but we all loved it!  Isabelle Leigh Hetrick was so named :)

I held her skin to skin for that first hour and it was sweet (...and pretty slimy.  I remember she kept sliding off of me.)  I ended up getting Methergine and Cytotec again (yup, three for three on that one too) and they increased my Pitocin to 50mu/min due to lots of bleeding.  Methergine was then ordered every six hours due to my history.  Midwife had a hard time getting my placenta out, just like the other two times.  And at some point shortly after delivery I got really dizzy, tired, and nauseous.  My blood pressure went down to 70's/40's (just like it did with Addy), and I'm pretty sure I threw up, so I got another dose of ephedrine and another dose of Zofran.  And then all was well in my world.

So I went from ephedrine and Zofran to beer.  Seems healthy right?  Yup, I felt like I deserved a beer after all of that ;)

At midnight they took Izzy for her weight, length, bath etc.  And we were all astonished when she weighed EXACTLY the same as Addy and Emma!  8lbs 10oz!!  All three of my girls weighed that exact amount!  I still can't fathom it!  She was 20.5 inches long, making her the shortest of the three.  Head Circumference was 14".  Then they wrapped her up tight and handed us our little package:

Welcome to the world Isabelle Leigh!

Essentially we got no sleep that night and then were up all the next day with visitors.  But that's to be expected and it was great.  It is so nice that since we live so close to family now we had lots of hospital visitors unlike the last two times.  Isabelle was very tired and not really interested in eating, but that's normal too for that first day.  We had a great day visiting with everyone and Izzy just snoozed the day away.  All was well and we were expecting to go home the next morning.  


Such a little momma already!


Look at the indentations on her head from the baby hat!  All of my babies were born with huge heads!


Addy added a bow :)


My three girls!


Mike and I with our newest addition :)  We had no idea what was about to come...


At 2:30 AM our discharge plans came crashing down around us when Sara, the night nurse, came in to tell us that it looked like Izzy had an infection and would need several days of IV antibiotics, necessitating a stay in the NICU.  And so began a very tough week for the Hetrick family.  (I told you Izzy was a firecracker!)  But that's a story for another time....

1 comment:

  1. Wow, I'm really impressed that you made time to blog! Good for you! And an ongoing story it is..... Love Izzy Leigh!

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