She's finally here!

The entire birth process has taught me that things don’t always go according to plan, but the important thing is the end result, which in this case was my healthy baby girl!



During the pregnancy, I had all hopes of delivering without drugs and always thought that labor would just start and progress naturally. Over the past few weeks I started realizing that I had little control over the process and that my body just didn’t quite respond to the contractions like it should. When I got to the hospital on Wednesday night I still was not dilated despite painful contractions all day and a few other telltale signs of labor. The Cervidil was started around 8pm which meant I needed to be on the monitor all night meaning I got very little sleep. Matt decided to go home that night so at least one of us was able to sleep. 12 hours later I was checked and at 2 cm (finally something!) the ob broke my water and we decided just to see what happened before starting anything else since the contractions had gotten stronger through the night and seemed to be working.


Matt got back a little after this while I was out walking around and trying to figure out ways to help the back labor. The back labor continued to increase through the morning to the point that the pain never went away between contractions, at this point I was now having issues with nausea too. I knew I still had a ways to go and was already exhausted and needed a little sleep. I was checked again and now at 3 cm, so at this point I changed my mind about everything and requested the epidural immediately. My freak out about the needle in my back thing was the farthest thought at that moment when the pain so bad. The epidural was the best decision I could have made even though it wasn’t what I planned and led to needing to start Pitocin to keep things strong and progressing. I finally managed some sleep and became a new person. At 3pm I was at 5 cm so the thought was I’d be complete and pushing around 8pm, so back to sleep I went until the nurse checked at 5pm and said “You're complete, time to start pushing” What?, that only took 2 hours. Everyone kept commenting on how I was a runner and would push great, according to the nurse who was on when I delivered this was relevant information that she was told in report, I guess runners are also great/fast pushers.


The ob was on her way and since I was feeling fine I was told to wait an hour to push and just let my body do some more of the work. Around 6pm I started pushing and then things got bad again, for some reason with just about every push I got nauseated and started vomiting. This meant a few breaks in the pushing, but even with that my baby girl was born at 7:38 pm on January 28th. The NICU team was there for the delivery since they questioned meconium in the fluid, but she was just fine and had no issues with aspiration.

Here she is Ophelia Reese 7lb 10oz & 20.5”


1st Picture with mom

Look at all that hair...

Meeting Morgan for the 1st time

Comments

  1. I have been dying to hear how it all went! Sorry things didn't go as planned, I have had that happen 3 times! But the end result was a healthy baby girl! CONGRATS! She is beautiful!

    Get lots of rest! Your body just ran about 10 marathons in 24 hours!

    Sarah

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  2. Oh, I am so happy for you. But finally is right! Man, did I feel for you at the end there, but it looks like it was worth the wait. She is so beautiful and healthy looking.

    Thanks also for your great description of labor. It brought me right back to my experience, wanting to go naturally, not progressing, getting an epidural and then everything just happening magically after a nap. Anyway, could it really have anything to do with being a pregnant runner? We can only speculate.

    Enjoy her and your family's little love nest these next few weeks!!

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  3. Thank you so much for linking up your birth story with us. I really enjoyed reading it. The beginning reminded me of mine! :) I am glad you got to have her vaginally! She is simply beautiful... though I know a few years old now! :)

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