Alyssa Jane is here!

Hi Everyone!  I always enjoyed reading about people's birth experiences, so I wanted to quickly type mine out for you.

Sunday night I was sent to the hospital to be induced.  I was checked at 1cm 50% effaced, and given some medication to soften my cervix for 12 hours, so hubby and I went to sleep. The next morning I was checked again, i was 2cm 60%.  The doctor's wanted to give me another 4 hour medication to soften my cervix, but I was having too  many contractions on my own to get that medicine.  They decided to wait and see what my body would do naturally.  All day Monday I had contractions spanning from 2-3 min apart to 5-7 min apart.  These contractions were hardly noticable to me, so i tried to sleep as much as i could and just relax. I took lots of walks around the floor trying to get things started.  At 9:45 that night my water broke naturally, and here my contractions started becoming more painful.  I bounced on the birthing ball, i walked around, used the tub for hydrotherapy and pretty much did anything I could to breathe through each contraction.

But by 2am the contractions were so close to each other and I was in so much pain I couldn't handle it anymore.  I had only progressed to 5cm 60% so I requested the epidural.   It was amazing, and it let me sleep for a few hours.  Tuesday is such a blur for me.  I was stalled at 5cm pretty much all day, and the epidural medicine kept needing to be adjusted as it kept wearing off & my contractions would hit me full force. The doctors had me on picatin to get my contractions to be strong enough to dialate me more.  By the late afternoon I was finally at 6cm 75%.  But by 6:00 I had only progressed to 7cm 100% baby at +1 station. 

At this point the doctors had to turn up the picatin to get my contractions going, but the epidural medicine couln't be adjusted anymore, so I was feeling everything.  I was too overwhelmed with the pain, and was out of time to get fully dialated & push before 24 hrs hit.  The doctors suggested a c-section & I cried.  I really wanted to avoid surgery and was already sad I had opted for the epidural.  But I was sad & frustrated I wasn't dialated properly enough to push & overwhelmed by the pain... so after about 15 min of sobbing, I consented & they started getting me ready. 

They wheeled me into surgery at 6:30, gave me a spinal block, and by 7:00 my hubby came in and they started.  I couldn't feel anything, but I was shivering & so cold!  At 7:50 my sweet angel was born.  I didn't get to see her right away but her daddy was right there by her side the whole time.  He was finally able to bring her over to me & she  breastfed like a champ. 

Now we're home & recovering well.