I am going to attempt to get the details of her birth out while they are still fresh in my mind. I started having some contractions throughout the day on Sunday, October 25, 2009. They weren't regular enough to call my doctor, especially since I had an appointment on Monday. Monday morning about 6am I started having the contractions a little more frequently. I got ready and went into to work. I started timing them and they were coming about 5-7 minutes apart. They were hard to talk and breathe through so I went ahead and called the doctor's office and asked if I could come in earlier. The nurse told me to come in at 10:30am instead of at 3:15pm. I called Jason a little before 10 and told him we were going up there earlier. Jason met me at home so I could grab my hospital bag just in case. He timed the contractions all the way to Amarillo and while sitting in the waiting room. At that point they were a little closer together.
My blood pressure was a little high, probably because I was in pain. My doctor checked me and said I was still only dilated to a one, very thinned out, and confirmed that my water had broken. I don't know exactly when it broke. She sent me over to the hospital to be admitted. While I was getting hooked up and the nurses were doing all the stuff they needed to do, they were concerned about my blood pressure being so high. My doctor wanted them to get a urine sample, but I couldn't get out of bed because my water had already broken. So, my options were to get the epidural then they could get the sample from my catheter or they could straight cath me and I could wait on the epidural until I was further along. I decided to go ahead with the epidural. The anesthesiologist came in to give it, but they were still waiting on my lab work to get back. After waiting a while, they finally checked the status of it and it hadn't even been sent in yet. So, he left and had to come back a little later.
After I got the epidural, he gave me a large dose of the medicine and my blood pressure dropped to 80/40. I felt like I couldn't breathe and the baby's heart rate dropped a lot. The next thing I knew, there were about 4 or 5 nurses in, I had oxygen strapped to my face, and a different medicine into my IV to get my BP back up. I finally got stablized and feeling better. The nurses were having a hard time monitoring my contractions so they had to instert an internal monitor. It wouldn't read correctly, so after a while they decided to take it out and put a new one in as well has another internal monitor on the baby's head. The charge nurse put the new one in and more of my water bag broke. They started pitocin to get me to progress more but my body started to fight it. After they turned it off and let me rest, I was only dilated to a four at 7pm. My doctor came in around 5:30pm and said she thought it would be the middle of the night before the baby came.
The nurses went through shift change, my epidural was starting to wear off and I was very uncomfortable. I could only lay on my left side because her heart rate would drop too much when I moved to the right. I finally told my nurse I needed more meds in my epidural and I was feeling some pressure. She checked me at 9pm and said, "it's time to start pushing, we are gonna have a baby." My doctor was called, everything was set up for delivery, my Dad and Lori got back just in time. Lori and Jason stayed in the room. I pushed for less than thirty minutes and at 9:39pm Elise was born. She weighed 5lbs. 15 oz and was 18 1/2 inches long.
Every since that moment I have felt more overwhelming joy that I could just burst! She is so perfect in every little way, Jason and I are so lucky to be blessed with this tiny, perfect, miracle! I might explode with happiness!
