The Birth Story

Well, I figured it was about time I do a post about our little girl and how she got here. It's a long post...sorry.

It was a gorgeous day outside so Scott and I were sitting out on the porch when I realized that the Braxton hicks contractions (or at least I thought they were Braxton hicks) were coming fairly regularly, so we decided to time them. That was about 1:00pm. They came 5 minutes apart for the next 5 hours and were getting increasingly stronger.
I decided if this was labor and we were about to have a baby I wanted to go out to dinner one last time, so we went to Pappasitos for some delicious fajitas! While there I noticed that my contractions were slowing down, so when we got home, we walked over to my sister's house (just down the block) and played games until about 10:00 when my contractions were really uncomfortable.

Around 12:30 I noticed my contractions seemed to have almost stopped altogether, so I woke up Scott and made him walk around the neighborhood with me. It was cold, super windy, and started to lightly rain which made it very unpleasant. After a 20 minute walk my contractions were back so we went home.

Once we got home the contractions stated to slow again and around 3:00 am I decided to just give up and go to bed and if labor stopped it stopped. Instead, my water broke at 3:30 and we headed off to the hospital.

By the time we were at the hospital my contractions were strong and practically on top of each other. They stayed that way for about 6 hours. Sadly, I didn't progress AT ALL during that time. I was 4 cm when I got to the hospital and I was still 4 cm 6 hrs later. We decided I was so exhausted that my body couldn't do its thing and I couldn't sleep because the contractions were so strong and constant, so I opted for a light epidural so I could sleep. I could still feel my contractions and I could move around, but it allowed me to get a little bit of rest.

Once I got the epidural and a nap, I progressed to 5cm over the next 3 hrs or so, it was something, but after 23 hrs of labor it wasn't enough. So I got a small dose of pitocin to speed things up. Another couple hours later, still at 5cm. So I got another small dose of pitocin and an hour after that I was at 10 and ready to push! After a couple of pushes Scott announced that we had a baby girl! We quickly decided she looked like a Sophie instead of a Zoey (our other name choice) and spent the rest of the time staring at her.

All in all it wasn't the natural birth I had planned, but I am so glad I decided to deliver with midwives because they at least let me try various alternatives instead of pushing for the c-section since I wasn't progressing. So, I am still happy with the outcome!