Labor and Delivery

Not only was this pregnancy a whole new experience for me but also my labor and delivery. I was having many of the "signs" I was going to be going into labor a couple weeks before she actually came which Mike and I didn't like because it just made us more anxious for her to get here! We were always asking Cayden when he thought Ellie was going to come and the answer did change from time to time but he usually always said Monday. On Monday the 17th( I had just turned 39 weeks) Cayden was in an awful mood from the moment he woke up. Mike is off on Mondays and we kept joking that she must be coming today because it was a Monday and he is in a bad mood because he knows it isn't going to just be him anymore. I wasn't really feeling any contractions that day and felt pretty good. We decided to run over to Babies R Us to get a few last minute things as well as the gift that Ellie was going to give to her new big brother in the hospital. Cayden was being pretty bad in the store so Mike decided to take him to the car while I went in line. I started to feel a little wet (sorry TMI) as I was walking to the line and unfortunately there was only one open. It was also taking FOREVER! I started to panic a little as I tried to patiently wait in line thinking my water was breaking and it was going to go all over. I have never experienced my water breaking on its own so I really wasn't too sure what to expect. Luckily I was able to purchase our stuff and quickly walk to the car. I continued to feel more and more wet and warned Mike that my water might possibly be breaking, I went home and called the nurse and she told me to head on over to the hospital where they would check to see if it was in fact my water breaking. I was then in a little bit of a panic mode since I had all of Ellie's stuff together but none of mine. We quickly packed my bag and called my mom to let her know so she could get Cayden. I still wasn't feeling contractions and was starting to question weather I was in labor or not but sure enough it came right up that it was my water. By then it was around 5pm. My contractions were consistent but not painful luckily so we were just anxiously waiting for something to happen. They mentioned to me that they could induce me and probably would which by then I was perfectly happy with because we wanted things to speed up! We found out my water had only partially broken so they finished it up. They asked me about an epidural and I told them about my experience with Cayden and being induced (the epidural didn't work) so she thought it would be best to get the epidural first then be induced. Plus the anesthesiologist was going to be doing a couple c sections in the middle of the night so I had to get it before then. He came in around 9 and did it. I have never experienced this before either and it was the weirdest thing. I did not like it at all. I was having a really hard time with it and making fun of myself about it too. The nurses thought I was crazy because at one point I even said I would rather have the labor pains than this but again I hadn't felt really any pain except for the lovely nurse who couldn't figure out how to put my IV in. She tried two different times and one of the times she bent the needle inside of me and I ended up with a huge lump on my wrist and really bad bruises. Luckily I got over my craziness and started to relax. They did the pitocin at around 10 and Ellie was born at 1:29 after 3 pushes. This labor was soo relaxed compared to Caydens and almost completely painless! I did start to feel the contractions on my left lower abdomen which was odd but luckily not for long because she came shortly after. The one thing I wanted sooo bad was to hold her right after she came out. With Cayden I didn't physically see him for several hours after he was born so this was a big deal to me. It was such an amazing experience. As she was coming out my OB asked how far along I was which made me nervous that maybe she looked really small so I asked him and he said no she looks like a good size so when I saw her from afar I could definitely tell she was big and shocked to find out she was 7.2lb and 20 inches long. I was so relieved! The nurses kept commenting on how thick her umbilical cord was and that she must have been well fed so my body must have been trying to make up for what poor Cayden never got. They were also surprised to see how much vernix she had on her skin which should have been mostly gone which made me wonder if she wasn't quite as far along as we thought. It was such a beautiful day, we were so grateful to finally have her here, healthy.