Elliott's Birth Story

ScarlettDahlia · January 2014

I finally found the time to bust out my laptop and type out Elliott's birth story.

We got to the hospital on 12/29. At first, they told us they didn't have any rooms (wtf?), so we sat in the lobby for about ten minutes. After the nurse realized they weren't starting me on pitocin, she got us set up in a triage room and inserted the cervidil at around 9:30. I wasn't dilated at all and cervix was hard and closed.Slept pretty well and we were moved to a L&D room at around 8am. The nurse checks me and I'm barely a fingertip dilated. She calls the doctor and doctor orders cytotec. After 6 hours of that, we're dilated to a 1! But still high and hard. So another cytotec was placed. The doctor comes in after 6 hours and checks and she can stretch me to a 2, so they decide to start the pitocin.

Contractions started to kick in pretty soon thereafter and I got basically no sleep on Monday night. It didn't help that DS was moving all around and the nurse kept having to come in to readjust the monitor. The doctor gets in at 6am Tuesday to check me and I'm still dilated to a stretchy 1. She decides to insert a Foley bulb. After the insertion, the doctor called me a rock star since I didn't really make a sound or flinch at insertion. Yea, about 10 minutes later, the combination of the contractions and the bulb had me writhing. DH told me that I don't need to try tough it out, that I need to be able to get some rest before LO gets here. So I rang the nurse and asked for the epidural. I finally was able to sleep during the day on Tuesday.

At 1pm, another doctor came to check me. The Foley bulb had slipped past my cervix! I was dilated to a stretchy 4, but cervix was still high (really thin, though). So we were basically just waiting for DS to drop to get the party started. The nurse had me sit straight up for a little while. DH had gone to get dinner at the cafeteria with MIL. While they were out, I got ridiculously lightheaded and shaky. So I called the nurse and she laid the bed back down and got me a cold compress for my head. She decided to check me and he dropped! She left the room and DH and MIL came back.

At around 6:15, she comes in and wants to check again because she noticed some decelerations on the monitor. He had gotten a lot lower and she decided that she wanted me to push to see how I did. We asked MIL to leave and the nurse had me give 2 sets of 3 pushes. His head was right there. So she left and called the doctor. It was snowing something fierce out and the nurse was worried that the doctor wouldn't get there in time. After talking to the doctor, the nurse had me push a few more times.

At around 7:10, the doctor walked in the room. They had me push and as LO's head crowned, she said "we have a cord!" And I had no idea what that meant. She was counting for me to start pushing again and then said "Wait! Another cord!" LO had the cord wrapped around his neck twice! A few more pushes and Elliott Raymond was born at 7:22 pm on December 31. He's a tiny guy ... 5 lbs 8 oz and 18 inches long.

We were set to be discharged on Wednesday, but my blood pressure spiked. So they kept us overnight for more observation. We ended up heading for home on Thursday afternoon. He's such a content little guy. We are absolutely in love with him. DH was supposed to go back to work Monday, but decided to take the week off to spend more time with us at home. It's been great having him here and seeing him with DS. He used to be so terrified of babies, but he's like an old pro now.

Here are a couple pictures of him, from the day we brought him home and his one week picture with his blocks.