Our Big Day

Today, Sophia Nicole is 1 day old!

Here's how it happened:

On Monday, May 10th, I had retired up to my bedroom for an afternoon nap as I was feeling very tired and having "cramps."  No more than ten minutes after Shawn left did my water break.  Thank goodness I had a basket full of clean towels nearby!  So I called Shawn and he raced home, sweat already on his brow.  He made sure I was okay, and he raced to pack some clothes for himself in a bag, along with some last minute electronics (iPod, computers, camera).  I got dressed and we left for the hospital!

We had to check into the ER and I was wheeled up to the Labor and Delivery unit of my hospital.  I first was sent to a triage room, but then soon afterwards made my way to our room, Room 18.  This was the room that I was to labor and deliver and recover in.

At my first checkup, I was only about 3 cm dilated.  A little later, I believe I made my way to 4.5 cm and we decided to walk around the L&D unit a few times to see if that could get things going.  I then sat on the labor ball (just a yoga ball) for a little to help, too.  I wasn't progressing very quickly.  So at that point, we settled in for the night.  During the night, my contractions had become 4-6 minutes apart and had started to really hurt.  I was given Fentanyl and Phenergan which made me very sleepy and took away some of my pain in two hour spurts.  So I would be comfortable and sleep for two hours, then wake up and labor for an hour.  This cycle continued into the morning.

Around 6am on Tuesday, May 11th, my doctor came to give my her first exam.  I believe I had progressed to 6cm dilated.  I was tired and in pain, so around 9am I was administered my epidural.  It worked pretty well, at first...  I was also given a bag of Pitocin to increase my contractions and to hopefully help me to dilate more.  Later that afternoon, with not much further dilation, my doctor had examined me again and found that my water had not fully broken and that I had a forebag.  Evidently what happened was my bag had ruptured on the top and had continuously leaked out and since there was still a bag of water at the bottom, where her head touched my cervix, I was not progressing very quickly.  So she ruptured my bag and she guessed somewhere between 3pm and 6pm would be my magic hour.  Sometime after that, my nurse told me we were at 9.5 cm dilated and we would begin soon.   Around 5pm I had progressed to 10 cm, fully dilated, and we could start.

I started pushing around 5:30, but unfortunately, my epidural had run out at that time.  I was told that it would still have it's effects on me for another couple of hours, but I quickly found that to be untrue.  I had regained some movement and feeling in my legs around 6pm, and even more soon after that.  So I pushed for about an hour and a half while feeling everything.  And it didn't feel good.  But I had my eye on the prize.  I don't know what time the doctor came in to deliver, but with a team, Sophia came into this world at 7:25pm on May 11th.  She weighed 7 lbs and 10.8 oz and was 21 inches long.  She was a big girl!

The bad part was, other than laboring for 28 hours and feeling most of the delivery, was that (sorry if this is TMI) I had 4th degree tears, which is pretty much as bad as it can get.  Some of the nurses here call it a vaginal C section.  When I was walked to the bathroom to see if I could go, I passed out twice only to wake up on the bathroom floor, which freaked Shawn out.  So my recovery is and has so far been a little painful, but Shawn has been a wonderful miracle, he is the best daddy.  He is having to tend to Sophia as it has been hard for me to move around.  I still have not been able to pick her up while I was standing.  :(  Shawn is handling this all like a pro and while I have the most admiration for him, he keeps telling me what a good job I am doing.  I hope he knows how grateful I am for him.  It is beautiful to see him be a daddy.  He is in love, let me tell you!

So today she is a day old, and we couldn't be happier.  Breastfeeding is going well so far, thank goodness!  We will be going home tomorrow and we're both anxious to see how things will go, but for now, we're enjoying it one minute at a time.  I'm not looking forward to my recovery as it will be tough, but we'll take it!

Thank you for all the well wishes and we will update with pics very soon.