Nora's Birth Story
Tuesday night my doctor called me at work to ask how I was feeling. It turns out my liver tests in my blood work from the week before were sky high and had doubled since the last test. My doctor told me to go to our hospital for observation and more tests. She was concerned over the possibility of siezures or strokes!!
So within the hour I was at the hospital getting more blood drawn. They decided to keep me overnight to see what my morning liver functions looked like since my liver seemed to be improving. Tuesday night to Wednesday morning was pretty horrible because I got little to no sleep between nurse checks and blood pressure readings going off every hour.
Wednesday morning they were still observing me. The doctor asked how I felt about being induced and we talked over some options (including twice daily blood draws until Nora was born). In the middle of the morning they sent in a massage therapist and in the middle of my (wonderful) massage my water broke! Roughly at about 11 am.
We monitored my contractions all day but they were not growing more regular or any stronger. At 7pm we decided to induce stronger contractions with Oxytocin which is the same hormone our bodies naturally produce.
My contractions really started to kick in then. One bad thing with the Oxytocin is that there is no build up to the contractions, its like going from 0-60 in .005 seconds! I am not ashamed to say that between the exhaustion from the night before and the pain I broke down crying a couple of times. They were able to give me some medicine through my IV that helped me sleep between contractions and took the edge off with out hindering the contractions. Unfortunately, I was only effacing and not dilating. At 2 am Thursday they gave me the epidural (thank God!) even though I was only at 2.5 cm dilated.
After that I was able to get some sleep. At 4pm I was 6-7 centimeters and when they checked me at 9am, I was ready to go and fully dilated. My doctor was not on call but Dr. Richards was. He was great and so was my wonderful finance, Doug as well as our nurse. I started pushing at 9:15 and Nora was born at 9:55am. We did use the vacuum to help her out because I couldn't get her to properly crown. I did get an episiotomy and did not have any tearing.
I was able to get up and walk around as soon as the epidural wore off. Nora is itty bitty but thriving. I feel wonderful if still exhausted. I am thrilled with our new daughter and can't wait to continue on this wonderful adventure.
