XP: My induction/birth story, and introducing Tessa :)

So after having my membranes stripped twice and nothing happening, I made it to my induction on the morning of Tuesday, Oct 25th. We were supposed to check in at 5 am, got there a little late but there was an emergency so we had to wait anyway. We were taken back to L&D around 5:45 am and began the admission process--medical history, blood drawn,and IV fluids started.

At my Drs appt the Friday, my OB said that I was 2 cm and 50% effaced; when I was checked at the hospital, the nurse said I was more like 1.5 cm...funny how something so little as 1/2 cm can make you feel discouraged! Pitocin was started at 7 am, with the smallest dosage (2 mL/hr) and was going to be upped every 30 minutes. Contractions had begun after an hour or so, but weren't really painful and I was easily able to talk to the nurses, DH, text my mom and watch TV.

Over the next few hours, the contractions continued but weren't really getting closer together or stronger and I was starting to worry that the induction was going to
take all day and/or end in a c-section. To be honest, all I could think about were all the induction horror stories I've read about online. Around 1130, my OB stopped
by the hospital to check my progress and I was now at 3-4 cm. By 1145 am, she broke my water in hopes that things would speed up, and it definitely worked. My
contractions started to get stronger and closer together and I was hopeful that I was actually making progress now. Around noon, I said that I wanted my epidural, so I was checked again...by 1215 I had progressed to 6 cm. At this point, both DH and I were starving, so while the epi was being inserted I told DH to get himself some lunch but make sure he finished it before he got back because I didn't want to see any damn food LOL. Epi was in and DH was back by 1 pm, and it took another 10-15 minutes or so for it to kick in and the pain relief was great.

Even though I had an epi with my first birth, I was still a bit nervous about it. With my first, it worked so well that I literally could not feel a single thing once
it was in. It was turned down 1 hour before pushing, and completely off 30 minutes before pushing and I gained NO feeling back. It was a difficult delivery (for me)
because I couldn't feel any contractions or pressure. Thankfully, THIS epi was much better. It provided much needed pain relief, but I was still able to feel a little
bit of contractions and (later) pressure urging me to push, which I think contributed to how quickly I was able to get her out.

Around 2 pm, my nurse came in to check my progress again because she felt things were going to be moving fast. She could not have been more correct! I was now at 8-9 cm and she said baby's head was RIGHT THERE. She washed her hands, walked out the door, and less than a minute later (literally!) I squeezed DH's hand as I breathed through a crazy amount of pressure and told him to get the nurse back in here, I needed to push. The nurse came right back, and from the time she checked me at 8-9 cm to now (roughly 5 minutes) I reached 10 cm. While there was an on-call OB, she said if I could resist pushing, she'd rather my regular Dr deliver. She made a call and my OB was on her way by 215 pm. It was insanely difficult to resist the urge to push, and it was an odd feeling since I hadn't felt that urge when I delivered DD1. At 235 pm, my OB ran into my room huffing and puffing and said "Hold on, let me get changed, don't push yet!" and was back in 5 minutes. I was dying to push at this point. I don't know the exact time that I started pushing, but it was only about 5 pushes (and DH said it had to be have been only about 1 minute of pushing).

Tessa Nicole was born at 243 pm. She was 6 lbs 1 oz, 18 inches long and scored 9's on her Apgars.

Since we were being induced due to IUGR, we were concerned that she was going to be super tiny. Our last ultrasound was the day before the induction and it measured her at 6 lbs 5 oz, so we were pleased that she was so close to that estimated weight! She's tiny, but not too small and she's healthy!

We were originally going to be discharged 2 days later (Thursday), but the next day the on-call OB told me that we could leave after Tessa's 24-hour blood screening as
long as she received the same clean bill of health that I had received. Thankfully, she had, so we ended up going home on Wednesday the 26th.

My healing is going pretty well, much better than my first. I'm assuming a big part of that is that I didn't tear this time, which surprised me! I'm 5 days post partum,
and my bleeding has  virtually stopped. With Taryn, I had period-like bleeding for 4 weeks before it started to taper off. Tessa is doing great as well.

At 2 days old, we had a follow up appt with a pedi and she was down to 5 lbs 10 oz so were told to come back in 2 more days for a weight check, and in that time she gained back 5 oz, so breastfeeding is going pretty well again, yay!

We're still getting a little settled at home, figuring out a new routine of sorts. Taryn has been a fantastic big sister. She loves to cuddle and sing to Tessa and she
seems to really adore her. I'm so glad it's going well with them, as that was something I've been really nervous about.