And Then There Were Three

Baby Belle is finally here!

She was born at 6:09 PM on Monday June 27th.

After the longest nine days of our lives, Stephen and I went to the hospital early Monday morning to be induced. After I got all settled in I was put on Pitocin to start contractions and the doctor came in to break my water. 

That's when things started getting a little scary. 

I bled quite a bit when my water broke, more than the doctor was comfortable with. He decided they would just keep an eye on me to make sure everything was alright, but that they wanted to keep me going so I could try to deliver naturally. I got my epidural and waited for the contractions to get stronger. My labor kept going but I didn't feel much pain, which I chalked up to the epidural, but the doctor got more and more worried that I wasn't progressing quickly enough. On top of the fact that I was barely changing in dilation and the baby wasn't moving down, her heart rate was dropping quite a bit every time I had a contraction. The doctor was getting more and more concerned and after about ten hours of labor he started hinting at the possibility of a C-Section.

At the beginning of the pregnancy I would have been terrified at the idea, but for the past week or so I'd been thinking more and more about the possibility of it happening. When the doctor said he was worried about how slowly I was progressing with natural birth and it was getting dangerous for the baby, I told him I was fine with a C-Section and that I was comfortable doing whatever he needed to do. We made the decision right then and there to go ahead with it.

I asked Stephen for a blessing and he and the doctor (who we know is a bishop in a singles ward) gave me one just before the surgery. It really helped both Stephen and I to be more at peace.

Five minutes later we were in the operating room ready to go. Naturally I couldn't see what they were doing past the divider, but Stephen was able to stand next to me and watch the process while he coached me. The anesthesiologist was there with him and was explaining everything and told me to let him know what I could feel so he would know if he needed to turn up my medication. At one point I started to feel some poking so I said "I feel like I'm being poked like under my belly button," and the anesthesiologist said "Oh honey he's cutting,".

Belle had been under a lot of stress during labor and her position was not ideal. After they cut me open they had to use both forceps and the vacuum to get her out. Even through all the numbness I felt a lot of pain and with the anticipation it was a very long ten minutes. Finally the doctor said "Oh, she's got a lot of hair!" and after a moment I heard her cry. At that point Stephen was called over by the nurses to look at her and I lost it. I kept having to tell myself to calm down because shaking and sobbing probably makes it hard for the doctors to stitch you up.

Stephen brought her over to me so I could get a look at her but it would be over an hour before I'd get to hold her. He went down with her to the nursery while she got cleaned up and weighed and I had to wait for 45 minutes in the recovery room while a nurse came in every so often to push on the incision to make sure everything was in place. It was probably the worst hour of my life!

Finally they wheeled me down to the Mother Baby floor where Stephen was waiting. The nurse brought her in and talked for a very long time about something I didn't pay much attention to because I just wanted to hold her and this woman was talking so slow. But FINALLY they handed me my daughter and I was able to relax. 

She is perfect in every way and we love her so much. We are so excited to have our new little family member with us!