I was blessed with an OBGYN that, like me, prefers the convenience of a scheduled delivery as opposed to being woken up in the middle of the night with a surprise, so I was able to be induced a little less than a week prior to my due date. Worked out really great for me because one of my biggest fears was the possibility of going into labor naturally, having to try to get a hold of Ben at work, wait 45 mins. for him to come home only to have to drive for another hour to get to the hospital. I've heard too many delivery on the freeway nightmare stories, so I appreciated being induced a little early.
I headed into the hospital at 11:00am. After about 20 minutes of admissions and paperwork, I was given the iv of petosin. Maybe a half hour later, Dr. Tanner came in to break my water. This may be (probably is) more than anyone wants to know, but I thought it was kind of interesting. They usually use a thin hooked device to break waters. I was induced with both of my boys, and that's how it was done, with no problem. This time it just wasn't happening, and he ended up having to use a scalpel, and that even took some effort.
We just hung out for an hour or so. I think I watched some "Swamp People". I was feeling quite a bit of pain, so I asked for the epidural pretty early. That was Ben's favorite part. I kind of wish that there were a mirror or something behind me, so I could see what was going on because it sounds pretty cool. I'm sure it would hurt a lot more if I saw it though. I could tell that things weren't going normal with this epidural because it was taking a pretty long time, and I could feel several "pops", and I think there is usually only one. When I thought that it was finished, the doctor administering it said nervously, "Sometimes when you get an epidural, the needle hits a pocket of fat or a blood vessel and has to be redone. It looks like I've hit a blood vessel, so I'll have to redo it. The good news is about 75% of it is okay, so this shouldn't take long". I didn't really care because I couldn't really feel it anyway, but Ben said that when he put the catheter in, blood started spurting out of my back like I sprung a leak. I think I would have liked to see that.
It wasn't too long before, even with the epidural, the contractions got pretty painful. This was a new experience for me because I really felt almost nothing at all with the boys. The nurse came in to check me, and in less than an hour I'd gone from a 2 1/2 to a 9 1/2. This was about a seven hour process with the boys. The nurse had me do a practice push, and when I did, baby's heartrate dropped drastically, so she told me to stop pushing. She suspected the cord may be around the neck a little bit, but she was fine as long as I wasn't pushing, and I was on oxygen. Dr. Tanner came down and must have fixed the problem right away because he had me start pushing again. After the second push, he told me to look down. I said "gross" and told him that I didn't want to see anything, and he again, a little annoyed, told me to look down. I looked down, and he was holding a baby. Weird. Two pushes. I didn't even know that she was out. She was so little, tiny headed, and didn't look anything like the boys. I think that Dr. Tanner may have just smuggled a baby in with him, and I'm actually still pregnant.
Luckily, we started seeing some of Miles in her mouth and some of me in her nose and a whole lot of Conan in her mannerisms, so I'm pretty sure she's ours. She's just so tiny! And her head is not a giant globe (I suspect the reason for the quick delivery). Everything looked good with her, and we got to spend most of the two days in the hospital with her in the room. With the exception of the regular blood sugar testing (that returned to normal by the time we were discharged), and a couple of hours I asked them to take her to the nursery, so I could sleep, she was always with us. Good practice for real life.
Now, we're home and trying to get adjusted to life with 3 kids. The boys love her, but we have to keep a close eye on them to make sure they don't accidentally jump on her while she's laying on the bed or to avoid Conan trying to carry her by her head. I think this will be our challenge. I'm glad that they like her and aren't too jealous as of yet.
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