Labor & Delivery

I figure I better write this down so I don't forget the details for little Elise! At 38 weeks pregnant I was definitely more than ready to have this baby. I felt gigantic and every day was just exhausting. Every mom knows you just have to suck it up and power through the last month of pregnancy (and hope that you'll forget it later :). I also wanted as much time as possible with Elise since I go back to work on Sept. 2nd. My doctor is amazing and said that she could sweep my membranes on Wednesday, July 9th (they can start doing this at 38 weeks and I would be 39 weeks on Friday). Since I was almost 2cm dilated she said that there was over a 50 percent chance that this would jump start labor for me in the next 48 hours. I was so overly optimistic and super excited planning everything around delivering on Thursday. Confident that if I drank castor oil that night as well, we had this thing on lockdown and the baby would be born the following day, June 10th (a perfect number too)! The membrane sweep went really well, painful but totally worth it. I told Luke to get everything done at the office so that he could take Thursday & Friday off. That night I drank 4 tsps of castor oil and, to my amazement, nothing happened. This had worked like clockwork with Ella but not until I was just 2 days shy of my due date. Thank goodness that my doctor scheduled an induction for Sunday, July 13th just in case the membrane sweep didn't work. At least I had a back up plan :). On Friday I got a call from my doctor's office saying that my doctor had a family emergency and had to fly to Ohio immediately so that she wouldn't be the doctor delivering me if I wanted to keep my induction on Sunday. As disappointed as I was, I didn't want to change the date for anything. They also told me to call in before I came to make sure there was a bed available for me since they had had so many deliveries the past couple of days. I was scheduled for 4am so I called at 3:30am and they said to come on in. My mom was amazing & drove over to watch Ella for us so we could head to the hospital. I loved the fact that I could shower, put make-up on, and even curl my hair. Luke and I were able to have such a relaxing drive to Hoag telling jokes and laughing the whole way. It's quite different when you're actually in labor and just trying to breathe through contractions. This was the way to do things!!

As soon as we entered the Labor & Delivery floor, the nurse told us that the "celebrity" suite had opened up so we had the best view on the floor. Luke was so excited and started unpacking immediately only to be reminded that we don't stay in this room for long, only until the baby is born, lol! We were actually in the room at 5am and it was probably around 7am before they had me hooked up to all of the machines and the pitocin. The first nurse we had was young and super sweet but couldn't get the IV in me to save her life. We were so relieved when the shift change happened and we got a nurse with over 20 years experience who did everything perfectly. She gave us a whole speech about how honored she was to be a part of our birthing experience, I was in love with her immediately. She was also very passionate about making my experience as "natural" as possible if I was interested in doing so. She started explaining that I could be unplugged from the machines if I needed to talk a walk around the hall and encouraged me to get out of bed showing me how to labor on the bouncy ball. I'm sure I gave her the most confused look ever because here I was being induced and desperate to be medicated ASAP, and she was offering me alternatives to push back the epidural as long as possible. That being said, I'm a total hypocrite because the second I tried the bouncy ball, you could not get me off. That bouncy ball was my saving grace and helped me labor for as long as possible.

The contractions came on strong for about 2 hours (probably between 9-11am-ish) and since there were so many other deliveries at the time, we were pretty much left alone to labor by ourselves which made for such a relaxing experience (at least as relaxing as labor can be). It was so pleasant to have just my hubby holding my hands as the contractions came and went every two minutes.When the nurse finally decided to check me I was just barely 4cm but they gave me the option to have the epidural immediately because the other women in labor were asking for the anesthesiologist too. Apparently you have first option if it's your second child. I felt kind of guilty getting it first since the gal next door was more dilated but my baby ended up coming 5 hours before hers, phew! Once I got the epidural I felt like a whole new woman!!! My mom dropped off Ella with my sister and joined me at the hospital shortly after. The nurse had told me that with a second baby you could have 3-4 hours or 1 hour left, it's just really hard to tell and everybody is so different. A short time later (around 12:30pm), I could start to feel the contractions again and they told me that I was at 6cm. They increased the epidural and left the room again. About 30 minutes after that, my dad and Sherry had just walked in and the pain started coming again. They could tell how uncomfortable I was and I finally told Luke to get a nurse in here because something wasn't right. I didn't remember feeling the contractions this intensely with Ella. Luke's first attempt to find a nurse was unsuccessful and finally I told him he needed to grab a nurse whether they were busy or not. He hadn't even made it to the door to our room before 3 nurses entered pushing the delivery equipment in. Our newest nurse (apparently my experienced nurse had to go next door to help with the hypnotherapy birth) told me I was going to start pushing soon. I asked her how she could tell without checking me (it hadn't even been 45 minutes since I was 6cm)! She told me to look at my monitor and sure enough the contractions were coming like crazy. They told everyone to leave the room and when they checked me the nurse said, "Oh geez, just don't push or do anything! The head is right there!" They paged the doctor over the intercom and told her she needed to come immediately (followed by some kind of code language).

I could feel my eyes well up with tears because I felt like it happened too fast. I was totally overcome with emotion. The doctor ran in and saw my face and was extremely comforting. She assured me the timing was right and was confident the baby would be out in one push. She instructed me that as soon as I felt the next contraction we were going to push for 10 seconds, take a breath, and repeat 2 more times. When we hit 10 on the first push, she asked me to hold it for 5 more seconds. I heard my mom crying immediately so I knew that something must be happening. I swear I could feel Luke's heart beating outside of his chest. For some reason, I have to keep my eyes closed and asked if the baby was out. When the doctor told me to look, she had Elise in her hands and they immediately gave her to me. Even though this wasn't my first time, you forget how absolutely magical and breathtaking the experience is of seeing your child for the first time (especially after 10 months of having them grow inside of you). There truly are no words! When Ella was born, Luke was so shaken up that he didn't really move right after so this time he made sure to take a deep breath and smother the baby and I with kisses, lol! The coolest part was that as soon as I was holding Elise she independently inched her way down to my breast and latched (total National Geographic style). So amazing!

Shortly after her birth the doctor ran some blood tests and we found out that we had ABO incompatibility (I have type O blood and Luke & Elise are type B) which means that the mother can make antibodies against her baby's blood type. These antibodies can cross the placenta and can break down the baby's red blood cells after she is born, leading to jaundice and anemia. Even though Elise was not showing any signs of either of these at the moment, they wanted to continually check her. Sure enough, the morning of Day 2 in the hospital, Elise's bilirubin levels were increasing so they had us stay and she got phototherapy at the hospital for 8 hours before we could take her home. Just heartbreaking seeing your baby wear the eye-cover and laying under the lights, but we were lucky to take her home shortly after. We came home with a phototherapy light as well and went to the doctor the following morning to get her levels checked again. Her levels were still rising but slowing down so we knew we needed another 24 hours with the light. It was at that appointment that the doctor noticed that Elise had a hip click and referred us immediately to a pediatric orthopedic specialist. Of course I was in tears but grateful to have Luke and my mom with me. Luke had to rush back to work but my mom and drove immediately to Mission Viejo to see the doctor. He did confirm that she has a hip click but that it wasn't popping in and out of the socket, it was just rubbing against the bone which can be common in newborns depending on how they were situated in the womb. Hopefully it will correct itself and she will just grow out of it. As of now, we are just extra careful with her and avoiding swaddling.

Through every sleepless night, we just can't believe how blessed we are with our two healthy and happy little girls. I really don't know how we got so lucky! Elise, you are everything we could have dreamed of and we love you more than we ever thought humanly possible!