We spent 4 nights in the hospital because I went in on Tuesday night to be induced and didn't have her until Thursday morning. Then you have to stay until post-delivery Day 2, which was Saturday. At first I was bummed that we had to stay that long (we were all telling her to arrive before midnight so that we could leave on Friday...she didn't listen ;), but in the end I'm glad that we did.
On Tuesday night we got the call from the hospital around 7:30 telling us that we could come on in. Mike and I were so pumped!
But first we had to have a little bit of ice cream cake for Tina's birthday!
We arrived at the hospital around 8:30 PM. I got settled into my room, got my IV started and they gave me my Cervidil around midnight. Then we slept (as much as you can in a hospital anyway). At 6AM they took the Cervidil out and started my Pitocin at 7:40. I still felt fine at this point. After my cervix check I was still only 1 cm dilated and 50% effaced, so it didn't appear that the Cervidil did anything for me. Funny thing is that at my appointment 2 weeks ago they told me I was 1-2 cm dilated and 75-80% effaced. Interesting.
Then began the waiting game. No one had any idea how long this whole process would take, but I think we all thought it would be a little bit quicker than it was. They started my Pitocin drip low, because everyone responds to it differently. Then the nurse increased it every half hour until 2:30! I ended up at a higher rate than most people (they usually stop at 20, mine went up to 24....not totally sure what that means since I'm not a L+D nurse). It took that long for me to dilate.
At 12:30 they broke my water...no going back now! 1.5cm dilated and 50% effaced at this point.
I was contracting this whole time, as I could so nicely see on the monitor, but they weren't horribly uncomfortable until 2:30. That's when the pain started. I decided to wait it out a while before asking for an epidural.... a while being a whopping 20 minutes. I seriously don't know how people do this without one.
So at 2:50 I politely requested my epidural and by 3:30 I got it. It only took about 10-15 minutes to kick in, and then I felt sooo much better. As soon as Tina heard that I was getting my epidural she rushed to the hospital...only to sit around and wait with the rest of us.
Cervix check at 4PM: 3-4 cm dilated and 70% effaced. I started feeling kinda nauseous at 5PM, but it wasn't too bad.
6PM cervix check 4.5 cm dilated, 80% effaced, and -2 station.
Then at 8PM came the big jump that we were waiting all day for! 8cm dilated, 100% effaced, and 0 station! Woo hoo!
By 10PM I was 9.5cm dilated, 100% effaced, and +1 station.
Then at 11PM....time to start pushing! I pushed from 11PM until 12:26 AM when she was born. It was exhausting but not nearly as painful as I thought it would be, thanks to my pal the epidural. It only got really painful at the very end. Until then it was a lot of pressure, but minimal pain.
So at 12:26AM Addy graced us with her arrival! It was so emotional that I can't even describe it. We were so lucky to have Tina there to document the whole thing. She captured the whole labor, delivery, and beyond beautifully.
I held her briefly right after she was born before the cord was even cut. Then Mike cut the cord and they took her to the warmer to clean her up and weigh and measure her.
At this time the doctor was still mashing on my uterus trying to get the placenta out, which was no easy task. Apparently I lost a fair amount of blood because I started feeling very dizzy and I told the nurse that I was pretty sure that I was going to faint. She layed me flat and put an oxygen mask on me. I felt my blood pressure cuff going off and the nurse in me couldn't resist asking her what my BP was. 70/40...just as I thought. They started running my Pitocin drip wide open to get my uterus to contract to stop the bleeding but it didn't work. So they gave me cytotec, which didn't work. Then they gave me methergine. I was feeling really really awful for several hours after the birth. I was vomiting on top of the dizziness, which was a lovely added bonus.
The worst part was that I couldn't hold my baby girl again and I couldn't feed her right away after the delivery like I wanted to. She was so alert and I know she would've been a little champ, but I was too shaky and dizzy and nauseous to try. The nurse told me that she didn't feel comfortable letting me hold her again until I felt better and, although it ripped my heart out, I agreed with her. Mike and Tina accompanied Addy to the nursery for her first bath while I tried to rest and recover.
At 3:30 AM they took me to my post-partum room and I was an emotional mess. Baby Addy was in the special care nursery for fast breathing and nasal flaring, and apparently she dropped her O2 sat to the 80's once. Mike assured me that she was fine though and that she'd be in my room with us soon. We ended up running into her in the elevator as the nurse was bringing her back to us. So she followed us to our new room and I cried the whole way. Then in my new room I cried some more. Don't really know why; I think I was just really overwhelmed and emotional (and still feeling really crappy physically).
We were able to get a little bit of sleep that morning (maybe an hour or two), and I felt much better in the light of day. It started to really set in that our baby girl was here! I loved her from the moment I saw her, and my love grows more and more every day.
Here is the first picture that I took of her with my camera.
Adilyn Marie Hetrick
I have a few pictures on my camera, but luckily Aunt Tina took over 900!!! That's right, over 900 pictures of the labor and delivery! It was so nice because that way Mike didn't have to worry about taking pictures (or I didn't have to worry about making Mike take a million pictures...he's never too worried about pictures ;)
Here is a link to the amazing slideshow that she put together from our experience:
Thanks a million to the best sister a girl could ask for and the most awesome aunt that Baby Addy could ever hope for! We all love you Bean!
So that's a recap of Adilyn's Arrival. Notice I didn't say brief recap....hey, I never claimed that it would be brief. I wanted to get all of the details in here so that we will remember them forever. I know that if I didn't record it, the memory would slowly fade with time. And I so desperately want to remember the most amazing experience of my life.
Happy One Week Birthday Baby Girl! Mommy and Daddy love you more than we could ever say.
Aunt Tina loves you too Addy! So glad I was there to document/share the experience with you - it was a wild ride!
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