I had been having contractions on and off (hard and soft) since October 14th. So I really thought that Sunday was going to be the day. (We had tried nipple stimulation to see if that would help and it would bring on hard contractions for about an hour and then they would fade away. We did that a couple times a day.)
On Wednesday morning (Oct 22nd) at 1:30 AM Sydney woke up saying she peed her bed. So I got up and took care of her and the bed and left Jake sleeping. Before going back to sleep I went to use the bathroom and felt a rush of fluid come out (similar to what I thought happened on Sunday) so I thought maybe just maybe my water had broken. But it was 2:30 AM and I didn't want to wake anyone up to only get a negative result, and I was still tired. So after laying in bed for an hour debating I decided that if my water really had broken I would wake to contractions and know I was in labor. Well I woke up at 7:30 AM when Sydney woke up and thought I should probably tell Jake my suspicion.
So at 8:45 AM we went to the hospital with Sydney in tow to have them check. Once we got into triage it didn't take long for my nurse to determine that yes my water had broken.Well at that point we let our parents know we were having a baby. And my parents headed on down. Grandpa Harvey came and picked up Sydney from the hospital so that he and Grandma could babysit for us while we were delivering.
AT 10:15 AM I got admitted into the delivery room and since I was having almost no contractions at that point they started me on pitocin. I was also told that I was Group B Strep positive (which they had to give me two doses of antibiotics before the baby was born so she didn't get it). By 10:45 AM I was hooked up to my IV.
My contractions were happening but they weren't really painful. I could still talk through them.
At about 11:30 AM my parents came into the room and we chatted a bit before they headed out to do some errands while waiting for me to go into hard labor.
At 12:45ish Dr England (my OBGYN) came to check up on me. We talked and he asked if I wanted him to check to see how dilated I was and I said yes. So he checked me and said that there was a fourth membrane there (meaning my amniotic sac hadn't completely popped...it had a slow leak). So at 1:10 he got some instruments and went up there and popped it. And It hurt some (but was definitely uncomfortable) but as soon as he did it a lot of fluid came rushing out all over the bed and me. It felt like I had just birthed a mini lake. About 5 minutes after he did that the contractions really started coming hard and fast and I told Jake I wanted the epidural right then and there.
It took them about 40 minutes before I got my epidural during which every contraction I had I gripped Jakes hand as hard as I could and just consentrated on breathing through them because they hurt. God bless those women that do it naturally. at 2:00 PM I got my epidural. The anethesiologist was a little abrupt, and put me in a very uncomfortable position to get the epidural in because it made breathing through the contractions almost impossible without moving. Which you don't want to move during an epidural at all. So I basically was in the butterfly stretch position on my bed, looking down at my feet and squeezing Jakes had with all that I had in me while trying not to move (which is a lot harder than you'd think with a needle being stuck in you while having painful contractions.) They had to decrease the pitocin to help lessen the contractions so that I wouldn't have as many to breathe through while getting the epidural. I was also given a drug that made me a little dizzy and light headed. After the epidural was over I got back on pitocin. It took an hour for the epidural to become effective. I was lying on my left side first so that side was numb but I could still feel the contractions on my right side, so I had to rollover and lay on my right side for awhile so that side would become numb as well.
At 5:00 PM my nurse came in and checked on me and said I was ready to start pushing. She called Dr England and said it was time. (normally you have to do "practice" pushes that way by the time the dr gets there he doesn't have to be there for very long). With Elizabeth my Nurse had me put my feet up in the stirrups and get ready to push. She looked down and had me put my feet down. Elizabeths head was sitting right at the entrance and if I pushed she would come. Well apparently Dr England had left for the day because it was past 5 PM. So he had to drive all the way back. At 5:21 I started pushing. I pushed 5 times and Elizabeth was born at 5:22 PM. (An hour and 21 minutes after Sydney (4:01) was). Jake said he watched the whole thing of Elizabeth coming out.
After Jake cut her cord she was put right on my, and they cleaned her off while she was on my chest.
Elizabeth Marie Craig. Weight-7 lbs 4 oz. Height-19.5 inches long. Born at 5:22 PM on Wed Oct 22, 2014. I was 37 Weeks and 3 days along.
My mother ended up staying for the birth. I also had my photographer, Heather, there to photograph the birth story.
Mom left right after Elizabeth was born to go get Sydney from Grandma Harvey. I expected her to be an hour. That way Heather could photograph the girls meeting. But Mom had to wait for Sarah, and they ended up eating. And didn't come back for two hours. So I had told Heather to go home long before Sydney got there. I was a little sad. But Sydney was so excited to meet Elizabeth. She wanted to hold her the whole time.
Later they moved me into the Mother and Baby wing of the hospital for recovery. They ended up pushing my bed through the hallway into the other wing. Sydney sat on the bed with me and the baby.
Sydney stayed with my mom Wed-Friday Nights.
We we're planning on leaving the Hospital on Thursday evening around 7 pm. They did all the tests and filled out all the paperwork. Elizabeth got her heal poked and they discovered her bilirubin levels were really high. At 24 hrs old she was at 14.2 on the scale (which means high risk). So we had to stay and she had to be put under lights. She had to wear this eye cover so that the lights didn't hurt her eyes.
They did a test and found out that Elizabeth was Coombs positive. That meant that somewhere along the way my blood got mixed with hers. And because her blood cells were trying to destroy mine that added extra bilirubin to her system. At 36 hrs old her bili level was 12.9. at 48 hrs old her levels were 11.2. So because her levels were going down they let us go home and ordered lights for us. So at 9:30 at night we had a light table delivered with the instructions that she was to be on them all the time except to eat. But of course she cried so we would hold her and take her off them. The light table was small enough that we had it on the kitchen table and would move the kitchen table into our bedroom at night.
(The general rule is that the older the baby is their system can handle it. So even though some of the levels were high they weren't critical because of how old she was). So we went to the doctor on Saturday the 25th (her pediatrician was open on saturdays) for her 3 day old visit. She got her bili levels tested and they were 12.3.
On Monday 10/27 her levels were 14.5. They went back up. On Tuesday 10/28 the levels were 17.8. At this point we new we had to keep her on the table. So we did. Even when she cried. On Wed 10/29 they tested her levels and said that because they had lowered, we were to leave her on the lights for 24 hrs and the off for 24 hrs then come back in to see if her body has handling the bilirubin like it was supposed to. On 10/31 she was tested and she weighed 6 lbs 15 oz and her levels were 13.5. We were done with lights.
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