Olivia's Arrival

Some people hate the details and other thrive off of them. Whether you care to read the following or not is up to you. But for my own sake here is Olivia's birthing story.

At my 36 weeks appointment I was already dialated to a 2 and 70% effaced, this baby was coming early, we were sure of it. At 37 weeks I was barely a 3 and about 80% effaced. At 38 weeks I was still a 3 and about 90%. Slowly but surely. Starting Saturday, October 2nd I was having contractions (false labor contractions) about every 6 minutes, then 15 minutes, then 3 hours apart. It was like this for a few days and then they stopped all together. I thought that baby was going to come, but she was playing tricks on me.

When I went to my 39 week appointment on Friday, October 8th, I started having contractions in the doctors office, but my doc (Dr. Aagard) didn't seem too concerned, and since I was at a 4 and 90% he told me to let "pain be my guide". So basically he wanted to wait till I couldn't breathe in order to have this baby. I went home, went on with life, the contractions were close, then far, painful, but not really increasing in pain. Ryan's friend Tanner had his wedding reception that night, so I figured, we might as well go, this baby's probably not coming anytime soon. At the reception the contractions were beginning to be more painful, and a little more often. We stayed and chatted with friends, but it got to a point where I wasn't much for conversation. We told everyone bye, knowing at this point we probably weren't going to make the wedding ceremony the next day.

We grabbed some dinner, and decided to watch a little TV to help the time pass. At about 9:00 pm I started timing my contractions because they were a lot more consistent. They were 6 minutes apart, then 12, then 5, then 7, etc. I was feeling a lot more pain in my back, and I was getting a lot more uncomfortable as time passed. But not to the point where I couldn't breathe...yet. It was 11:00 pm and we decided we might as well go to bed and try to get some sleep. Well that was a good idea for Ryan, he got some good sleep, while I ended up pacing the living room timing and enduring pain. Then about 1:00 am the contractions were all the sudden 2 minutes, then 1 1/2 minutes apart. I now understood what the doc meant, pain was my guide, and it was definitely time to go. I went upstairs to get Ryan and he jumped out of bed, grabbed our bag and was ready to go.

It's a good thing we live about 2 miles from the hospital or else I think Ryan would have lost his mind with my moaning and groaning. We go up to the 3rd floor, get all hooked up to the monitors and had to wait it out for an hour to see if I progressed at all from a 4. It had only been 45 minutes when the nurse decided to check me because I was basically screaming my lungs out with pain. I hated Ryan having to see me that way, but hey I was birthing a child, anything goes. The nurse said I was still at a 4 and so they couldn't admit me. I told her there was no way I was going home. But the doctor has the final word, and lucky for me he had sympathy and let them admit me. We switched rooms, got me hooked up to an IV and within 15 minutes my epidural was in place. Heaven. It was 3:30 am, 2 1/2 hours of excruciating pain, and now nothing but numbness, it was fabulous.

Although it was the middle of the night, my anxious sister Jen drove out and my mom somehow got my dad out of bed, and they all came to give some words of encouragement and support. They were going to wait around, but when the doc said it would be another 6 hours or so, they were out of there. Ryan and I fell asleep and woke up at about 6 am. I was at about an 8, but our baby girl was still so high, so they were going to have me get to a 10 but then rest and descend. At 7 am I got a second dose of the epidural because it was starting to wear off and there was no way I wanted to feel what the contractions were like now. This made me completely numb, I thought I was numb before, but this was complete paralyzation. I made Ryan come help me move my legs just so I knew that they could work.

At 9:00, I was still numb, but it was time to push. The nurse had estimated about 15 minutes of pushing...well an hour and 10 minutes later I was still pushing. About half way through the pushing my epidural or "happy-dural" as my doc (Dr. Melendez) called it, was wearing off, and doing it fast. This was actually helpful because it helped with the pushing, but it wasn't pain free that's for sure. About an hour into pushing they realized that she had turned posterior, which is why I had had to push for so much longer. They thought for sure I was going to to have to rush in to an emergency c-section, but with my luck and the doctors skill, he was able to turn her and get her out of there! She was born at 10:27 am on October 9, 2010 at 7 lbs. 11 oz. and 19 inches long. Because of the stress of the delivery her heart rate was up above 200 bpm, so they had a specialist come in and take a look at her, and then they rushed her down to the nursery, I got to hold my little angel for about 5 seconds and didn't see her again for about 5 hours. They ran a bunch of tests, but everything seemed to be just fine. We had a happy, healthy baby girl!

It wasn't until she was about 36 hours old when we discovered this little miss had high levels of bilirubin, leaving her with a case of good ole' jaundice. She was under the lights in the hospital for about 24 hours, then they let us go home with our own bili-bed and she continued to be under the lights for a few days. Her levels kept going up. Day 5 she was about 18, eh, not good. More lights, and finally it was going down! After 7 days of hospital visits, blood tests, and an uncomfortable tanning bed for Olivia she was basically jaundice free, thank goodness.

Now we finally feel like we can enjoy our little one. She has been eating and sleeping great. Except I think she's got her night and day mixed up, hopefully things will fix themselves sometime soon. But until then I will appreciate any sleep I get even if it is only 3 hours a night :) Olivia, you better know how much your mommy loves you!