Hadlee is here!

Well, it's been a long time since I've posted, but it's been busy! I'll start at the beginning....

I went to the hospital on the evening of Wednesday, February 11th. I had the first step in the induction that night. Then went to bed. I got up Thursday morning at 5--showered and "got ready" for the day. I was back in my hospital bed by 6 and they started my IV's (after missing the first 2 veins they tried!). The pitocin to start my contractions was started by about 6:30.

I could feel pain that I thought was contractions, but the monitor wasn't picking them up. They were also having problems keeping Hadlee's heartbeat on the monitor, so I couldn't move much once they found it. At around 10, my doctor came in to check where I was. She said I was 3 cm dilated and about 90%. When she was still in the room, my water broke, and she said that things would probably get stronger from there. They inserted a scalpel monitor so they could get an accurate constant reading of Hadlee's heartbeat. They still couldn't pick up any of my contractions through the monitor, so they started monitoring them internally. I dilated to almost a 5 by 11, so I asked for my epidural as the pain was getting pretty intense and consistent.

The lady came and did my (1st) epidural shortly after 11. She had some problems with it, but eventually got it into where she thought it needed to go. I had pain relief about 15 minutes later, and my left leg went completely numb. Although, nothing happened to my right leg at all! I thought it was weird, but as long as I wasn't in unbearable pain, I was fine! Well, about 1, the full pain of my contractions came back. My nurse called the anesthesia department again and the same lady came back. She didn't know why my pain relief had 'worn off' and thought that I was just feeling pressure. However, she gave in and gave me another large dose of pain relief through the epidural. I once again had relief so thought everything was going well.

Well, unfortunately, around 3:30 my pain again came back with full force. Again the nurse called the anesthesia department and a new woman came up. She came up and really argued with me and the nurse about whether or not I "needed" pain medication. My nurse and I told her about my left leg being numb and my right leg being fine. I also had full mobile capability of both legs at this time. She really didn't want to give me anything and tried to tell me that I was going to feel some pain and that the epidural wasn't going to make everything go away. I expressed that I knew that, but didn't understand why I had had relief and then the pain came back. She reluctantly gave me another strong dose through my epidural. My nurse and I had already decided that since we knew the pain was going to come back and they didn't want to try to fix my epidural we would call them again in an hour and a half and have them come back to re dose me. Well, the latest woman who had given the last dose came back with the head anesthesiologist (her boss) and he tested by epidural by holding ice on to both of my legs, feet, hips, and stomach to see where I was numb, and where I could feel. He told her that it was obvious that the epidural wasn't working as it should be and she needed to redo it. Needless to say, she wasn't very happy.

She came back to the room about 15 minutes later with all her tools to redo my epidural. She took out the previous epidural and tried to get a new one started. It took her about 25 minutes to get it into the right spot (which she said was probably the deepest she's ever put one), but finally the 2nd epidural was done. It was just as uncomfortable as the first, unfortunately!

She left the room right around 4:15 or so and I started to feel relief from my contraction pain again. Lucky for me, this one was in the right spot! It was about an hour after this that I started to push--just when the last dose of pain meds would've been wearing off.

I believe I started pushing around 5 with the nurse. We were pushing 3 times with every contraction, and she said I was doing good. Hadlee was starting to come out, so she called the doctor. My doctor got to the room right around 6. I think I only pushed through about 2 or 3 contractions with the doctor when Hadlee came out--at 6:23 PM. She weighed in at 7 pounds, 11.5 ounces and was 20 inches long. My doctor was amazed that she was as small as that--she thought she would for sure be over 8 1/2 pounds! I'm glad she wasn't!

She is perfectly healthy and is doing well. We have been home since Saturday. I will post more about how things are going later, but wanted to get the birth story up for those of you that are interested. I'll post a couple pictures in a few minutes to satisfy some of you! More to come!

Love, Amanda, Dave, & Hadlee