SO. Baby Gardner is here, and it was quite a road to get her here. It’s been four weeks since Eloise’s arrival and the smaller details to the events leading up to now are slowly fading from my brain so I need to write this now.
My due date was 10-24-16. It was pretty clear upon approaching the day that Baby G was going to take her time arriving. We went ahead and scheduled an induction date (Sunday the 30th), just to be prepared. 24 hours before her induction time, I started having contractions. I went all Saturday into early Sunday morning with contractions. Easy and manageable contractions, so Matthew and I just hung out, went on a walk, picked up the house, and waited. Early Sunday morning they started to get a bit more intense so we headed to the hospital! ( Longest 10 min drive ever!) We arrived around 4:00 am. Since my induction was scheduled for 8:00am they went ahead, put my in my room and got me started.
I was only at 2cm when I arrived so they had me walk for about an hour. Matthew and I walked and walked around the labor and delivery floor. Came back an hour later and no progress. ( At this point I assumed this little one was going to just take their time) We got back and we switched to an exercise ball for a while. That didn’t really do much except bring baby WAY down but still at 2cm. So that is when they decided to give me Piton, a med to help speed up the process. (That is NOT the medical term!) Shortly after that my contractions started to get pretty intense. I mean this baby was down but I was still at 2 cm so we called in the lady for the epidural. We were all hesitant to administer it so early because let’s be honest, this baby could take another day to arrive. SO they checked me again and I had gone up to a 4 cm. They gave me the epidural (twice. they first one didn’t take) and the next time they checked me I was at 8 cm!! Progress! We could see the end nearing! They broke my water and we were off!
Since I had the epidural I decided to sleep a bit before the big arrival! I slept on and off and between contractions. At this point I am very tired so my memory starts getting a bit more fuzzy. ( I will have Matthew Proof-read this to make sure my timeline adds up. ) After the epidural they have to make you change side and move a bit so the medication doesn’t settle to one side. We soon realized that whenever I would roll off of my left side Baby Eloise’s heart rate would drop. This was no good for multiple reasons. 1. obviously being the baby’s safety and 2. they aren’t allowed to administer more pitocin for at least a half hour if the baby’s heart rate has dropped, and hers kept dropping. So I was stuck, not progressing and not being able to move very much. (Except a couple of crazy positions that were uncomfortable and hard to hold) This went on for awhile.
Eventually another nurse and an OB Dr came in and everyone had a quick chat. We realized that I was not progressing. (One nurse even thought that I wasn’t at at 8, but a 6!) We also realized that Baby G had had a bowel movement inside me. So now we were faced with a few obstacles. 1. the bowel movement. 2. the heart rate 3. the non-progressing. My Dr. Came in and we had a chat. She said that none of these obstacles were an emergency yet, but they all had the potential to be an emergency. She gave me the choice to keep trying naturally to let myself progress or have a c-section before any of those issues became an emergency (because once it becomes an emergency things get more scary!). Matthew and I barely had time to talk about it. At this point I had been at the hospital for 15 hours and wasn’t going anywhere. We agreed that a c-section would be best.
Once we made this decision everything happened really fast. Matthew scrubbed up and I was wheeled away. Everything about the c-section was normal. ( I think…) My Dr. did make a comment about how once she made the incision little Eloise instantly reached her hand out into the opening. Even though I was mentally “out of it” I remember her saying ” Well that doesn’t happen a lot” and then ” Its like in those scary movies with the hands coming out of the ground”. lol (How fitting since Halloween was the following day right?) Even though I was mentally not there, I still can remember almost every detail about the c-section until she was delivered when I started to fall asleep on the table. I do remember the look on my husbands face when they told us we had a little Eloise, and how he looked when they gave her to him. I also remember how Eloise just quietly stared at him for minutes. My two favorite people just getting to know each other.
Everything after that was all pretty normal and routine. She was born at 8:12 at 6pounds 14 ounces and 20 inches long. Our family visited and it was the best day ever.
A few days later while still in the hospital we noticed my iron (hemoglobin) was slowly getting lower and lower. By Tuesday they decided that on Wednesday I was going to have a blood transfusion. I spent the following day hooked up and getting blood.
Thursday we went home, we get settled and the family rested.
Friday we had newborn photos and Eloise’s first doctors appointment. I wasn’t feeling the greatest and REALLY tired and my chest kind of hurt, but I thought it was normal “c-section-and-blood transfusion-recovery” feelings. I thought maybe I was coming down with pneumonia.
Saturday we woke up and Matthew had a stomach bug and I could barely walk across the room without gasping for breath, heart pounding and chest pain. Short version, I ended up back in the hospital. It took us 2 days to figure out that I had a lot of fluid in my body and high blood pressure. After multiple tests they diagnosed me with preeclampsia. Yes, you can develop it after birth. The Dr said for some reason my body just took longer to go from “pregnant” to ” not pregnant:”. I finally got released from the hospital on Monday.
It was a whirlwind first week with a baby, but even going through all of that I have SO SO much to be thankful for!
I am thankful for the nurses and doctors who took care of me through the whole process. I had some amazing nurses who really cared for me and fought for me to have certain things (especially my second stay, with regards to Eloise). I am thankful for all my family who helped with driving, the baby, food, and just generally being there for Matthew, Eloise and I. I am more than thankful for my amazing husband. Through the whole delivery he knew what I wanted and needed and was able to speak for me when I couldn’t and he was there for me every second. He knew what I needed when I needed it. And lastly I am super thankful for our beautiful little girl Eloise. She was and still has been the easiest baby I have met, which is exactly what we needed that first crazy week. She is a happy and healthy, sing-songy little bird of a baby and we love her more and more every day.
