Amielia Is Here!!

Hello Everyone! It's been tough finding time to do anything the last few days. Blog entries, laundry, showering, sleeping....they've all gone on the back burner....Just kidding, my laundry is ALL done *eyeroll*.... Really, I've just been doing the minimum around here and enjoying my little family. It feels great.

For those of you that want to know the details of Amielia's arrival, keep reading. If you don't wish to know the details, just skip around and look at pictures. Warning: The birth story is LONG. I mean REALLY LONG.

If you read my blog post immediately prior to this one, you know that we already had an all too real "false" alarm on June 10th. On Tuesday, the 14th, we went to my doctor for an appt. He was pretty surprised to see me still pregnant. He checked me and I was still at 5cm, 100% effaced. The baby was lower than Friday, which was great news. I talked to him about my concern in regards to not receiving the adequate amount of antibiotics for Group B Strep during delivery. He was confident that if I received 1 dose, things would be good. But I had recently learned from the hospital, that if I didn't receive 2 doses of Clindamyacin (I'm allergic to Penicillin), 8 hours apart, Ami would need to stay at least 48 hours. I knew that once my labor started again, it would go fast. When doing our research and preparation for this birth, I learned a valuable lesson. If there is something you can do to make your labor better for you and for the baby, DO IT. So, with confidence, we decided to be induced. This may surprise some of you, as I wanted to go "natural"....it surprised me. But it felt right. I knew that I was doing my best to make sure that I could receive the antibiotics and have the labor and delivery I wanted. My concerns with inductions were tied with the diagnosis of "Failure to progress", but since I was already at 5cm/100% I felt that my body just needed a kick start, and it would take over.

We scheduled the induction for Friday, when I would be 39w 1d. My doctor wanted to induce right at 39, but they didn't have anything available. We scheduled another appt for Thursday, for him to check me and the baby again. His Nurse, Jen, who we LOVE, said she'd keep trying to get me in Thursday. We went about our day to day things on Wednesday, and I got a call later that afternoon saying that she had gotten me in on Thursday at 7am, but that I could be bumped if they had too many "actual" labors come in. So, we got instructions to call Thursday morning at 6am to see if they still had room. We didn't tell many people about the induction, as we didn't know if it really was going to happen. At 6am I made the call and we were good to go! We dropped off Beth at my mom's (who didn't go back to sleep, sorry mom) and headed to the hospital.

We got checked in, and they started my antibiotics right away, hoping to get a head start. We met our wonderful L&D nurse, Tia, and things got underway. My Pitocin was started around 7:45am, at a dose of 1,  and I started having mild contractions about 20 minutes later. My contractions were about 3-4 minutes apart, and completely manageable. Although I needed to be on the monitors because of the pitocin, I could bounce on the ball, stand, lean, and even WALK, thanks to a wireless unit. I was happy with how I was doing, and for almost 5 hours things were wonderful! Tia brought me a "mixed drink" (sprite and cranberry juice) and we laughed about how we didn't drink, but could appreciate a good virgin mixed drink. Around 12:30pm my doctor checked me and I was still only 5cm. He said the head was perfectly engaged, and he wanted to break my water. He hoped that by doing this, my body would take over, and they could turn off the pitocin. This was music to my ears. I know how dangerous high levels of pitocin can be for the baby, and I didn't want to continue upping the dose if we had an alternative. At this point I was at a 22 for the pitocin. 

So, Dr. Davis broke my water. He asked if I planned on getting an epidural and I said "Nope"....he said that was perfectly fine as long as I could stay in control and calm. At first I was offended, it's MY labor, I can do what I want....but then I realized just how important his advice was. If I was NOT in control and calm, it would effect me, the baby and the experience. So, I took it as a challenge. About 5 minutes after he broke my water things got harder. Much harder. The contractions were coming every 2 minutes. They were strong, and very difficult to get through. I still could relax in between the contractions, but during them, I was drowning. I relied on Andrew and Jana to support me through them. Tia, was great, she noticed that with all my moving we weren't getting a strong heart tone on Ami. So, she took off the belt that held the monitor on, and held the monitor by hand through the next hour. She told me to do whatever I needed to, and don't worry about her.

After an hour of these contractions, Tia offered to check me. I was 6.5-7cm. This was great. But I started to panic. I didn't know if I could make it through another contraction, let alone 10, 15 or more. This was exactly what I was told NOT to do. Don't think about how difficult it is, just take it one contraction at a time. But I didn't.  I had tried EVERYTHING to deal with the contractions. Every trick in my bag was used. Unfortunately, I felt my body tensing up with every contraction, and I knew this would get me nowhere. So, about 3 contractions later, I decided I wanted an epidural. Did I lose the battle? Yes. But I wouldn't lose the War. I learned something at that moment that I will always remember. I was in control. I was making the decisions. And that's exactly what I wanted. So, at 2pm I got the epidural and didn't look back.When Tia asked how I was doing, my odd response was "this is better than a mixed drink!"

My dad had texted Jana asking how I was doing, and I remembered that I completely forgot to ask for a priesthood blessing before we went to the hospital. So, after I was comfortable in bed, my dad came and gave me a blessing with Andrew. It was wonderful. About 45 minutes later Tia came in and said she wanted to check me. I declined, thinking it had only been 45 minutes, really how much could I have progressed? She said she'd check back. At 3pm (about 15 minutes later) she insisted on checking me. After she checked me she said "You're 10cm, ready to push?"....I was shocked. I had gone from 6.5-10cm in 1 hour. Relaxation is amazing, my body could do what it needed. But I was still worried about pushing. Beth took 2 hours of pushing, and she was a vacuum assisted delivery. So, I was nervous. Luckily, my epidural only numbed pain, (not like Beth's where my legs had no feeling at all!).  So, I could still move my legs and body efficiently. I didn't really feel the need to push yet, so Tia prepped my 2nd round of antibiotics. 

At 3:30pm as she was putting in the antibiotics, I felt the need to push. So, we started what I thought would be a LONG process. After 2-3 contractions, she could see the head, and decided to call the doctor. The pushing process was pain free, but I could feel the progress and could work with my body. Once her head and arms were out, my doctor told Andrew and I to reach down and finish delivering our daughter. We gingerly grabbed her and put her on my stomach. At 3:55pm, after only 25 minutes of pushing, my beautiful little girl came into the world. She had a head full of dark hair, and was wide eyed. She was 7lbs 3oz, 20 in long, which is just a bit smaller than Beth. 

She was checked over, and given back to me, and we had alone time for about an hour. It was a precious time for us. After that we were moved upstairs, and she got to meet everyone else that was waiting for her arrival. Including her "Big" sister Beth. 

All in all, it was a GREAT experience. My recovery has been amazing. Because things were going well and we were able to have both rounds of antibiotics, (BARELY, since my labor was 8 hours 10 minutes), we were able to be discharged after 24 hours with a perfect bill of health. It's been such an amazing experience the 2nd time around. I got to make decisions based on what was best for me, not because of fear or being forced. I had a wonderful team, Andrew and Jana, and nurse, Tia, who did an amazing job taking care of me. Tia sent me a congratulations card that read "I'm glad I could facilitate something that was better than mixed drinks." It made us smile! We are SO happy to have this precious little girl in our family.

So much is going on for us right now, but this post is already SO long. I will update you on other fun parts of our life soon! A BIG BIG BIG BIG BIG THANKS goes out to my sister Bo (Jana), for all of the pictures and for being part of our special day. We love you Bo.

Happy Blogging!