Our Baby Girl is Here...

LMBESQ · April 2009

I posted on Saturday, April 4th, that I thought my water was leaking- well, it in fact was. We arrived at the hospital at 3:30 Saturday afternoon, and were admitted to the hospital after tests revealed extremely low amniotic fluid. Apparently my water had sprung a leak several days prior and I had not realized it until Saturday.

I was admitted to the hospital at 7 p.m. on April 4th, and was unfortunately confined to the bed due to the low amniotic fluid. My contractions were 3 minutes apart but bearable and leading to no progress. My Dr. was on a plane to Costa Rica, and the Dr. on call that night was not willing to let my body get started on its own. At 9pm the Dr. decided pitocin was necessary in order to get my labor going. I labored on the pitocin without any pain medication throughout the night. My husband was more supportive than I imagined he could be, helping me use the hypnobirthing techniques we had learned in our classes throughout the contractions. At 11 a.m. on Sunday, I was checked and was only 4 cm- I then realized it was time to give my body and myself a break and get the epidural. It went in without incident and my body started to progress much more quickly afterwards. I began pushing at 5:30 p.m.

After a lengthy 27-hour induction, our beautiful baby girl joined the world at 6:43 p.m. on Sunday, April 5, 2009. Blakley Emerson weighed in at 7 lbs., 2 oz., and was 20 in. long. Blakley is my maiden name. We are completely in love with her!

We had taken numerous hypnobrthing classes and I was able to use the relaxation techniques throughout the first 19 hours of labor, but after 14 hours of pitocin contractions that were 1-minute apart and a sleepless night in L&D, I got an epidural-and don't regret the decision to get one for a split second. Getting the epidural allowed me to rest up a bit for pushing, and the pushing was the easiest and quickest part of delivery. Plus, our ultimate goal was acheived: a healthy baby and healthy mom. I thought I would post this to encourage any of you nervous about your birth "plan"- just remember that all that will matter in the end is you and the little one's health. Despite the rough labor and delivery, I wouldn't change a thing about my birth experience.

I'm going to upload a picture now. Thanks for reading!