Thursday August 25th, 2011 at 7 pm I went into the hospital to start dilation. At this point I was already a week late and still had not started to dilate at all. We got to the hospital and they got me all hooked up to the monitors and started my IV, which was not that fun by the way. My parents, Zach's parents, Andrew & Alicia and our Doula's Evelyn & Pam were there with us that night for a little while. I in some way was expecting a miracle to occur, that I would dilate instantly and my water would break all on it's own. Well, that is not what happened at all, I had to drink some medicine every two hours for four doses and then wait. I felt timy contractions but it really just felt like I needed to go to the restroom. The next morning at 6:45 the nurse came into check my progress and well absolutely nothing, so they began giving me pitocin to hopefully get things moving. My Doctor came in at around 8:45am and I was just dilated to a 1 at this point, it was very disappointing because I was hoping to be much further along. My options at this point were to wait until lunch continuing to increase the pitocin and see how I progressed our be discharged from the hospital go home and come back on Monday and start all over. At this point it was already started and I didn't not want to go home empty handed, so we continued on. At 12:45pm my dr came and checked me and I had now dilated to a two which was just enough to break my water. At this point my pitocin level was already at a twenty and my contractions were so easy to handle, I thought I was doing great. However, it was not long after that those easy to handle contractions became not so easy. Talking through them was no longer an option and breathing was my best friend. I remember having a few visitors and thinking that I felt bad for not being able to visit. Before I go on you should know that this whole process was not what my husband and I had planned for, we wanted a natural labor not medicine at all. I wanted everything to happen all on its own, but sometimes in life you don't always get that. At about 4:30 pm after being on pitocin since 6:45am an having my water broken the contraction had become so intense that there was no break in between them they were literally one right after the other with less than a minute in between each one. I stayed dilated to a two pretty much this whole time, the nurse's decreased my pitocin level which at it's highest reaches twenty-four. Still nothing was helping, I knew at this point that there was no way that I or my body was going to relax enough to have this baby. It was at that moment I made the decision to have the epidural, telling my husband was hard because I felt like my body had failed us. Everything about this labor was not what we had talked about or wanted but at this point I knew I wasn't going to make it any further. Once I was given the epidural a whole new set of issues started to occur, our little baby girls heart dropped and it continued to be an issue for the rest of the time. She was very picky about what side I laid on and as soon as that changed so did her heartrate. I stayed on oxygen for the duration of my labor. By the way before I was given the epidural they checked me again and I was only at a three. I did my best to rest, mainly because I was exhauste. Zach was so amazing in every aspect of my labor he was there with me through all of the hard contractions and right by my side after. They came in and checked me a couple of times and it was a very slow progress. I remember in the daze of my sleep hearing them say I was at a good 5 or 6. I also remember during this time the babies heartrate was unsteady, the nurse contacted my dr to let her know how the baby and I were doing and she asked them to check me again. The nurse at this point was a little hesitant to check because it had only been about thirty minutes since the last time she had checked and didn't want to give me bad news, but when she checked I was already at an 8 to a good 9. That was very exciting, at this point I am pretty sure it was about 8:30pm, they came back thirty minutes later and I was at a full 10. I could feel the pressure of the baby and it was the craziest feeling in the world. I was told to push, at this point the dr was not in the room, I pushed about four times and they told me to stop it was time to get the Dr. As soon as the Dr came into the room they got everything set up and two pushes later she was here. Our little perfect Amelia had finally made it into this world. She was a wonderful 7lbs even and 20in long. I would not change any of it for the world, my doula's have said that you do what you can for as long as you can for this pregnancy and that is what we did. Our world has definitely been changed and I am so excited to see what this little life brings to our family.
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