Little Miss Rayleigh came with bumps in the road (birth story)

Last Tuesday we went in for our regular weekly appt and the doc sent us for a BPP for the 3rd week in a row (never expressed concern but wanted one anyway). We went and LO's heartbeat was low for her (hovering around 105) so the tech called the doc in to check it out. I was sent to L&D to be monitored and was pretty anxious because I knew if things didn't improve they would take her via c-section. Her heart rate stayed low but not to the point of urgent so the doctor decided to induce the next morning--- not that we expected good results since I was not dilated at all.

Tues morning at 6AM they started pitocin and the contractions were in a good rhythm by 7:00. The doctor showed up at 9:00 to check me and I was only at 1/2-1cm :-( He managed to break my water and immediately the pain hit me like a ton of bricks. The nurse convinced me to go ahead and get the epidural since I had a long road ahead of me. I have a back condition that meant the epidural wouldn't work 100% but it was effective in stopping the pain during contractions. The nurse checked me at 11:30AM and I was only 1-2cm. I called my parents and told them to take their time because there was NO WAY it would be before 4:00 before anything happened. The nurse came back to check me at 1:30PM and right before she did, I told my sister that I thought I needed to poo. The nurse was checking me and looked at me and said "Oh my God, You are not going to believe this but it is time to have a baby." I had gone from 1cm-10cm in 2 hrs!!! DH and I were freaking out, we weren't mentally prepared yet. I hadn't even gotten to see my parents and get a "good luck" hug from them but when it is time, it is time. After 45 mins of pushing, they called the doctor in and as I was pushing (I could feel every bit of this part because the epidural wasn't working at 100%) her heartrate dropped to undetectable. The doctor snatched her out with the vacuum and they got her back to normal very quickly.

As he is stitching up my small episiotomy, I start bleeding like crazy. It took 30 minutes and a ton of stitches for them to fix whatever was bleeding inside of me (again, all of which I could feel) but they finally did get it stitched up. Then the nurse dropped the bag with all the bloody stuff, placenta, and whatever else on the floor and it busted open and got on everything! It was so gross, poor DH almost passed out. But, we got our sweet little 6lb13oz Rayleigh Marie out of it and it was all worth it.