With Eden's birthday weekend wrapping up, I wanted to take the time to write down the story of her birth. I was not blogging when she was born, and therefore never documented the wonderful day that she entered the world. I'm afraid that if I wait for another year to pass, I will have forgotten some of the details of that day and I want to one day be able to share with her everything I remember about November 20, 2008.
Eden's original due date was November 29th, two days after Thanksgiving. I really didn't want to be in the hospital over the holiday, so my OB and I had discussed inducing the Monday before Thanksgiving. When I went in for my weekly OB appointment on November 19th, my doctor told me that she was not able to get me on the schedule for that Monday, but went ahead and put me on the schedule for my due date. I was so disappointed when I heard this because almost everyone in my family was going to be out of town that day: my parents, Cory's parents and my sister. I was almost in tears because there would be no one there to welcome Eden into the world. I think my OB could tell how upset I was and, being the awesome doctor that she is, she offered to strip my membranes. She told me that 50% of woman go into labor within 12 hours of having their membranes stripped. At that point, I was ready to try anything and agreed that we should give it a try. An added bonus was that my OB was on call the next day, so if it worked, she would be the one to deliver me.
I went home and began waiting for the contractions to start. Cory was at an optometry continuing education dinner, so I went over to my parent's house for dinner. We ate dinner...no contractions. I made a salad to take to the eye clinic's fall luncheon the next day...no contractions. I took Parker home and put him in bed...no contractions. I got in bed and started watching TV...no contractions. I had finally convinced myself that I was going to be in the 50% of women who don't go into labor, when low and behold, at 10 o'clock that night, I had my first real contraction. I had been having Braxton Hicks contractions for several weeks, and I knew that this one was different. Even though I knew this was a real contraction, I didn't want to get my hopes up. We had already driven to the hospital the week before just to be sent home with false labor.
Cory got home from his dinner around 11 o'clock and we went to bed to try to get a little sleep. I was still having contractions anywhere from 10-15 minutes apart. By 3 o'clock in the morning, my contractions had become 5-6 minutes apart and they were all in my back, which was exactly how my contractions had been when I went into labor with Parker. Because of the hour drive to the hospital, we decided to leave around 3 am, but not before I showered and did my hair and makeup!
When we got to the hospital, they hooked me up to the monitors and started tracking my contractions. At this point I was dilated to about 3 cm. After an hour of monitoring, my nurse came in and told me that they were not seeing a lot of contractions on the monitor and that they might send me home again. I was shocked because I had been having contractions the whole time I was there. (We decided later that the reason they weren't seeing them is because my contractions were all in my back and they probably weren't being picked up on the monitor that was hooked up to my belly.) My nurse checked me again and luckily I had made a little bit of progress, so they let me stay. I was so excited because I knew that we would soon meet our baby girl.
My OB came in around 8am and said she wanted to go ahead and break my water. I begged her to wait until after my epidural to do that. When I delivered Parker, they broke my water first and by the time they could get the anesthesiologist to my room, I had dilated to 9 1/2 cm. She agreed with me, and soon I was resting comfortably with an epidural.
My doctor broke my water around 10am when I was dilated to about 4-5cm. She then left me to rest for a while. Cory and I relaxed and watched The Price is Right. I was so excited that I was going to get to watch Jeopardy at 11am. (It is my favorite game show but with two kids, I rarely get to watch it.) My nurse came back in right as Jeopardy was about to start to check me again and much to my surprise, I was fully dilated and ready to start pushing. So much for watching Jeopardy! :-)
They called for my OB and had me start pushing. I was really anxious about this because with Parker, I pushed almost 2 hours with lots and lots of back and hip pain and I wasn't sure I was ready to go through that again. I was shocked when at 11:36am, after only 4 contractions and about 5 minutes of pushing, Eden Catherine entered the world and took her first breath.
Cory and I were amazed at how much she looked like Parker. I think that was one of the first things that I said after I saw her. Cory got to cut her umbilical cord and they got her all cleaned up so I could hold her. She weighed in at 6 lbs 14 oz, which was much smaller than I had thought she would be since I gained a whopping 35 pounds during my pregnancy!
If I had to pick one word to describe Eden's delivery, it would be the same word I use to describe Eden's personality: EASY! I told Cory after they gave me my epidural that if they had someone there giving me a manicure, I would have felt like I was at the spa! The delivery was so nice and relaxed- my nurses were incredible, my OB got to deliver me and everything went so quickly with minimal pain.
The only bump in the road that day happened shortly after Eden was born and my doctor didn't ever really understand why. I was holding Eden when I started to feel light headed. I told the nurse, who was luckily standing close by, that I needed her to take the baby and then I passed out. They laid me down and gave me some meds to help bring my blood pressure back up because it had dropped suddenly.
A couple of hours later when they were about to transfer me to my postpartum room, I passed out again. Cory had walked down to the new room to take my suitcase and the rest of our stuff and my nurse had gotten me out of bed to go to the bathroom. As soon as I got up, I told her that I felt lightheaded again. Sure enough, I passed out again but this time my nurse had to call in backup nurses to help her get me in a wheelchair. When Cory came back in the room, he said I was surrounded by about 6 nurses and they were giving me smelling salts to try and get me to wake up. After a few more hours of rest and monitoring, I was finally able to be transferred to my new room.
After that, everything was smooth sailing! I had the best nurses during my entire hospital stay and two days later, we left the hospital with our baby girl. Eden's delivery was a great birth experience and I truly believe that God made Parker's delivery so difficult so that I could appreciate how easy Eden's delivery was.
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