Avery's Labor and Delivery Story

Alrighty, I'm awake and ready for a decently long blog, so I figure I should start at the beginning.  Over the next week or so I'll try to catch up on all the events and things that have gone on since Avery's birth, but for now, I'll just tell you her birth story.  :)  (I'll try to keep the gory details to a minimum)  ;)

Thursday morning I woke up around 2am like I'd been doing for the past several months.  I went to the bathroom, and when I couldn't fall back asleep (a curse that had only begun to plague me a few days before) I got on my phone to blog.  I wrote for a while, still anxious and excited to meet Avery for the first time.  I almost wished for those painful contractions to start because I was so impatient to see her.  But in the end, I knew that on Friday morning we were being induced, and that we would see her very soon!  :)

Well, around 3am I began having contractions.  A few of them were strong and powerful.  Most of them were pretty managabled, but they were still contractions!  I began timing them and grew VERY excited as they got closer together.  They eventually got close enough together that Michael and I decided we could make a trip to the hospital.  We packed everything up in the car and headed out.

When we got to the hospital (around 5-6am) we filled out the paperwork and they set us up in a room.  They monitored Avery's heartbeat with one monitor, and my contractions with another.  Although, they were having a hard time picking up my contractions on the monitor.  They checked my cervix and said it was still at 3.5cm and 70% effaced (my doctor told me 80% on Tuesday, I think he felt sorry for me).  They told me they would be back to check me an hour later to see if I was progressing.  I had a very hard time getting comfortable and moved and wiggled over the next hour, making it difficult for the monitor's to do thei jobs.  Eventually I got some sleep.  The doctors came in again an hour later to check the progress of my cervix.  It hadn't changed any in the hour we'd been there.  We were given the option of staying another hour to see if things would change, or to go home and rest and come back the next day for our induction.  We decided we would be more comfortable at home, so they discharged us and we left.

It was about 10-11am Thursday morning when we left the hospital.  We were both hungry, so I suggested we got to Ihop for pnacakes for brunch.  (Mind you, I was still having contractions through all of this.  Some strong ones, some weaker ones, but they continued all day)  We had a lovely lunch.  I had pumpkin pancakes!  They were amazing!  I also had hash browns, eggs, some of Michael's bacon, and coffee.  :)  It was nice going out to eat with Michael.  Since I was still having contractions, Michael decided to stay home from work and be with me in case Avery decided to speed things along and go ahead and come on Thursday.  After lunch we went home.  I had a lot of cleaning I needed to do (I knew I was on my last day before I had a baby), but I was also sore and in a decent amount of pain.  So my knight in shining armor came to my rescue!  I laid in bed with a heating pad on my back, side, and front, and Michael worked on tidying up the house for me.  :)

The day was pretty good if you can overlook the contractions (you can, I couldn't). :P While Michael worked around the house I got some much needed rest. It was a nice last day getting ready for our angel to arrive. I wanted to look decent when we were in the hospital. So often you see pictures of moms right after giving birth and they look like they were hit by a train. :P Well, now that I've gone through it, I understand why they look that way. ;) Towards the end of your pregnancy you don't feel like getting up and doing your hair and makeup every day. It's just a lot of work and you're already tired. You anxious and impatient, and the last thing you really want to mess with (especially through contractions) is your hair and makeup. But I knew there would be pictures taken there in the hospital after she was born, and I did not want to be one of those women. So I texted Sis and asked her to come over and dry and straighten my hair. She very generously agreed to come over. :) Thanks so much, Dude. I definitely owe you one! Sis got to our house around 9pm on Thursday to work on my hair for me. I was still having contractions, but wasn't timing them because they hadn't been closer or harder than before. So Sis began working on my hair. Over the course of the hour that she was there, my contractions began getting harder and closer together. Around 9:45 I began timing them, quickly realizing that they were consistently under 5 minutes apart, more commonly 2-3 minutes apart. So shortly after Sis left at 10pm, Michael and I began packing our things into the car one more time to go to the hospital. I hoped that since we were supposed to be there only 9 hours later for our induction anyway, that they wouldn't send us home. But we wouldn't know for sure until we went back to the hospital. We got to the hospital around 10:30-11pm. They put me into a labor and delivery room instead of a triage room like they had the morning before. They checked my cervix and said I was dilated to 4cm. Now, while this was progress, it was still a little disappointing, because I was definitely in some pain and I was ready to get this show on the road. But they needed to know I was progressing, and that meant waiting for an hour and checking my dilation again. That hour and the next hour after that were probably the worst 2 hours of my life. The contractions were quick and painful. They were also a minute long or more, so I had very little time to rest between them. I was hollaring loud enough to make people in the hallway uncomfortable (which was my goal). I REALLY wanted that epidural! But, until they knew I was progressing, no epidural. After the hour was over, they checked me again and said I was dilated to 4.5cm. This was frustrating because again, I was in pain and thought things should have been moving faster. Well, since I was progressing, they decided to go ahead and keep us. But before I could get the epidural, since my platelets were low, they had to draw blood again and send it off to be checked (the second hour of the longest 2 hours of my life). When the test came back my platelets were at 94,000 and the anesthesiologist felt comfortable with that number and giving me the epidural. They got it in and waited for it to take effect. Too bad, though, that it only numbed half my body. My left side got numb, but nothing happened to my right side. They tried upping my dose, but no luck. So, we had to do another epidural. They left the one in that numbed my left side and put in a second epidural to numb my right side. After it took effect, I could FINALLY get comfortable. Eventually I didn't feel the contractions at all!!! I cannot tell you what a relief that was. I think people who go all natural are just a little crazy. But then again, I have a low tollerance for pain, so I knew in the beginning that plan was not for me. Once I was comfortable we just had to wait for the contractions to move things along enough so that I could push. In the meantime, Michael and I were able to get some much needed sleep (it was after 3am at this point). The doctors and nurses came in periodically to check on my dilation and effacement and to make sure the epidural was still working properly. Otherwise, our rest was uninterupted. Finally I got dilated to 9.5 cm. My doctor decided instead of waiting for that last centimeter, to go ahead and have me push a little to finish the dilation. I did and we got to 10cm. My doctor told me I would be pushing in about 20 minutes. I texted and updated on facebook letting everyone know what was going on. It was 9:30am when I started pushing. It was hard to do. I held my breath and pushed for 8 seconds, then I'd get a breath and have to do it again, another breath, another 8 second push. I did 3 pushes for each contraction. Luckily, my contractions were spaced far enough apart (3-5 minutes) that I had time to rest in between them. This was good because the pushing made me nausiated. One time between the contractions I even threw up. :( It was not fun. Eventually she was crowning and I got to stop and wait for the doctor to get to the room to deliver. It was very exciting, but I hoped the doctor would take his time because I needed a rest. When he got there, everyone suited up. Everyone got clothes on like they were going into surgery. There were tons of people in the room, nurses, nursing students, medical students, residents, doctors on call, my doctor, more doctors and nurses for the baby... It was a mad house! But after everyone got ready they just waited for another contraction and it would be time for Avery to meet the world. That moment finally came and they told me that another contraction was starting. I took a deep breath and pushed for the first 8 seconds, breath, pushed for another 8 seconds, breath, pushed for another 8 seconds. My doctor asked if I had one more in me. I said yes and pushed for another 8 seconds. She still wasn't here, so this time I volunteered, I can do another one if I need to. He let me. I pushed for another 8 seconds, was told to stop, something happened that I couldn't see, and then I heard her voice. :) Avery Rose Voss was born at 10:55am on Friday, October 5th, 2012. She did not need pitocin to make her come out. She chose her birthday (her due date) on her own. :) The rest of the story doesn't really matter. They stitched me up, cleaned Avery up, weighed her and checked her out. My wonderful epidural was still working, so I just watched her as they cared for her and as Michael looked over her in total awe. It was an amazing moment. :) Later the epidural would be removed and I would begin to feel the trainwreck of what my body had just been through, but by that time I had a sweet baby girl in my arms and I could care less. ;) So now you know the whole story. :) We couldn't be happier to have Avery in our lives. She is the world to us and we look forward to raising her and seeing the amazing and wonderful woman that she will become. :)