Claire's Birth Story

Claire Caitlyn was born on Feb 9 at 1:58 pm, 7lb 4oz, 20 1/2 inches.

After a spike in my blood pressure and a few hours of monitoring in Labor and Delivery on Tuesday night, we were scheduled for a medical induction on Thursday morning.  I had gone back and forth on being induced so this made my decision for me.  We didn't want to wait it out and have a repeat of Cason where my blood pressure got super high and stayed high for 2 weeks after birth.

I documented our day on my phone so I could come back and write this all down... so here are all the details... if you care.

5am -- wake up and call the hospital to make sure they could take me.
6am -- arrive at the hospital and start the process of everything.  For the next hour, we had this crazy lady nurse... she was nice, almost too nice.  Ha.  She had trouble getting my IV started (poke #1) so another nurse came in to help.  They both said I had good veins so nurse #2 boasts that she could do it with her eyes closed.  She does get the vein on the first try, but it's too close to a valve or something so we have to try again (poke #2).  Finally, they get me set (poke #3) right near my wrist which was a pain in the you know what the rest of the day.  And now my whole right arm is bruised... as well as my left arm having a nasty bruise from the triage nurse missing on her first attempt.  All of this and the intake questions take almost an hour.
7am -- pitocin is started and contractions start showing on the monitor pretty quickly but I'm not feeling much.  Crazy lady nurse goes off duty and I get a new nurse, also nice, but very quiet and almost nervous seeming.  Ryan and I were starting to worry because we knew from Cason's delivery that the nurse is the most important person in the room.
8am -- the pitocin has been upped twice and I'm starting to feel the contractions but they are not regular.  the nurse tells me that I can get the epidural once the contractions regulate and that she's hoping to get the anesthesiologist into me between c-sections so I don't have to wait.
9am -- my doctor arrives to check on me.  she says I'm still only 1cm but that I'm more open than I had been the past few weeks so I'm progressing.  She broke my water and they upped the pitocin again.
9:45am -- the anesthesiologist arrives to administer the epidural.  I don't remember it being as complicated and uncomfortable a process with Cason but I was glad to have it.
10am -- epidural complete and I'm relaxing as much as I can.  I can still feel the contractions but they are not painful.
12noon -- I start getting uncomfortable on my back and as the contractions increase so I roll to my left side (that was a challenge).  After about 20 minutes on my side I start to notice that my left side is VERY numb but my right side is almost completely awake and I'm feeling the contractions pretty strong.  I give myself an extra dose of the epidural to try to help.
12:30pm -- Dr comes to check on me and helps me roll to the other side to try to get the epidural balanced back out.  She checks me and says I'm 4.25cm and that we should have a baby about 4 or 5.
1:00pm -- I'm still feeling my right side pretty bad and the contractions are getting very strong.  I give myself an extra does of epidural and hope that it starts balancing out.  The nurse says to give it 10 minutes so I give it 15 and give myself a 3rd upping.  I'm a wimp and don't do pain.  Sometime around now an orderly starts bringing in a warmer and all the delivery supplies.  She doesn't say a word and Ryan and I just look at each other wondering what is happening.
1:20pm -- Contractions have gotten very irregular.  The nurse comes in to check on me because she saw this on the monitors.  I tell her I don't feel any pressure but I had also "pushed the button" on the epidural 3 times in the last hour.  She checks me and says "you don't feel any pressure?  you have a baby between your legs".  It was go time.  She calls the doctor and they start getting me all setup.
1:50pm -- The doctor arrives and we are ready to push.  The contractions are almost non existent so we just keep pushing instead of pushing through contractions and waiting.  I push 4 times and...
1:58pm -- Claire Caitlyn joins the world.  The doctor put her right on my chest and Ryan cut the umbilical cord.  They cleaned her up really quick and gave her right back to nurse... and she latched on and started nursing right away.