Our induction was scheduled for 6am. We got to the hospital two minutes late. I'm never anywhere on time so this was actually impressive. I had been told for the last 38 weeks ''You're never going to make it anywhere on time again once this baby comes!'' Well jokes on you, I'm never anywhere on time anyways.
Everything felt so organized. It didn't feel much like you would expect thanks to television shows and movies where the woman is walking around the mall eating an ice cream cone and her water breaks right while she's at the check out at Nordies and Patrick Dempsey happens to be standing in line behind her so he delivers her baby. Patrick Dempsey didn't deliver my baby. But it was still an incredible birthing experience. And I think everyone's birthing experience is incredible in it's own special way. Induction or all the way, vaginal or c-section...every birth is special.
Anyways, I walked right up to the counter and I said ''Hi. I'm here to have a baby.'' The cute little spanish lady behind the counter said ''Okay, fill out this paper. And this one. And this one. And this one.'' Man, having a baby requires a lot of filling out papers and answering weird questions like ''When's the last time you went number two?''
After filling out all of the paperwork I was taken to the room where I would be during labor, delivery, and recovery. I thought that was really neat, that I would get to stay in one room the entire time. It was cozy. Nothing happened for hours and then around 9am someone came in and checked my cervix. It wasn't even opened yet which meant that for me the next few hours were going to be brutal. In order to open my cervix my doctor inserted a foley bulb catheter. (This happened around 9am) If you ask Google ''What is a foley bulb catheter?'' this is what you will find:
''The use of a Foley Catheter for labor induction is not as common as it once was. The balloon portion of the Foley, used to keep the bladder empty, is inserted, deflated, into the uterus either by having your practitioner visual the cervix as in a speculum exam or with the fingers, feeling that the balloon is between the amniotic sac and the lower uterine segment (bottom of the uterus.) The balloon is then inflated with saline solution and left in place.''
If you ask me what a foley bulb catheter is, I will tell you it is the absolute worst thing known to mankind. It hurts. The goal of using a foley bulb catheter is to cause the cervix to mechanically open. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The worst part was that it had to stay in for 12 hours or until it came out on it's own. Luckily mine came out on it's own before the 12 hours. But it didn't cause much progress (I was only dilated at 2cm) so after it came out, they said ''Huh, weird, let's put another one in it's place!'' That time it worked.
They removed it at 8:30 p.m and I was dilated at 4cm and having painful contractions. They gave me something mild for the pain but it made me feel way better. At around 11p.m they broke my water. It was so weird! It felt like I peed myself. Definitely not an attractive thing to look down and see, either. And once they break your water, it sort of has a mind of it's own so it randomly gushes. *Wind blows* Gushhhhh. I kept being asked ''Do you want to go ahead and get an epidural?'' But I kept saying no because I was so afraid it would slow down labor. I wanted to be progressed just a little bit more.
At about 12:30am they gave me an epidural and inserted a catheter. I was somewhat against an epidural because I didn't want a catheter but I am so glad that I got one. I couldn't feel my contractions (Or my toes) and it was AWESOME. Not to mention I no longer had to get up to go pee. I could just do it right there in bed which is practically every lazy person's dream. Since I will never get to be lazy again, I figured I'd take advantage of the pee-situation. At around 2am I noticed that my stomach felt smaller. Not sure why, but I'm assuming it had something to do with the loss of amniotic fluid. All I could think about was eating tacos. I was starving. I hadn't eaten in over 24 hours at this point.
The epidural wasn't bad at all. I'm used to needles and all that fun stuff, I have Cystic Fibrosis. I was told to sit on the edge of the bed and open my gown. I had to sit up straight and perfect. It was a little scary thinking ''Alright, this could paralyze me. Hope this guy knows what he's doing.'' But it all worked out well and the epidural felt like heaven. I didn't do a ton of research on it, honestly. So I wasn't expecting to have a tiny tubing hanging out of my back. (It was not even noticeable or uncomfortable. It was lovely.) They taped it down so that I could not tug or pull at it while moving around in bed. It felt very secure.
By 8am the next morning I was dilated at 6cm. They started giving me pitocin through an IV to help with the process. Pitocin is a synthetic form of oxytocin used to induce labor.
At 2pm that day my nurse came in and checked my cervix and I was 8cm dilated! I began to get REALLY excited when she told me she could feel Willow's head and could tell there was a little bit of hair on it. I instantly began dreaming about what color hair she would have.
I was then checked again around almost 4pm and was told that I was all ready to go and that whenever I feel like I have to have a bowel movement to call them and let them know because that meant that it was time to push. It was all up to Willow at this point! (Or so I thought.) Because then I felt a lot of pressure in my rectum and I shouted ''GUYS I THINK THIS IS IT. I THINK I FEEL LIKE I HAVE TO POOP.'' So I call my nurse and tell her I think it's time. She comes in and checks my cervix again and says ''Well actually we thought you were 10cm but you're actually 9cm. You can't push yet.''
When I asked why the other nurse thought I was 10cm, she informed me that Willow had a cone head. And I then got on Google and was like ''Great, our child is going to come out looking all wonky.'' They gave me something that took the urge to push away. I was very sad, though. I just wanted to hold her. It didn't take long though for me to reach that last cm. My actual doctor came in around 8pm and said ''Alright, it's time!'' They let me do a practice push and then I did that a little too well so they were like ''OKAY IT'S DEFINITELY TIME.''
So my brother in law and nephews left the hospital room and Ethan and my big sister stayed. Ethan was on my left side and my sister was running around the room with her camera capturing the birth story. It all happened so fast. Ethan was holding one of my legs up and in a bended position because I couldn't fit them on the stirrups. (I am insanely short.) and a nurse was holding the other. I kept yelling across the room to my sister ''You better not be getting any pictures of my vagina!'' I was told to wait until I began to have a contraction and that then I could push. I had one good contraction and I knew it was time to push. I said ''Can I push!?'' and my doctor very coolly said ''Go ahead!'' So I did.
I felt a little pressure while pushing but with that one contraction and three good pushes, the doctor popped up holding Willow. I was in shock. The very first thing I said was ''Oh, she does have a little bit of a cone head.'' and Ethan and I were just laughing. It wasn't until they sat her on my chest that I absolutely melted. At that point it didn't matter if her head was square shaped. She was ours, we made her, she was perfect. She had a cry like a little baby pteradactyl. Ethan looked like he was on cloud 9. They took her off of my chest a little later to weigh her and clean some of the vernix off of her and he ran over to the table she was on and counted her fingers and toes, made sure she had two eyes, two ears, one nose, all of that fun stuff. He was shouting across to me ''She has all of her fingers and toes! She has two ears! She has a nose! She has both of her eyes!'' The nurses must have thought we were insanely weird. We were just over the moon excited.
Seriously, I feel like I had one of the easiest births in the history of easy births. The labor...well that was really rough. But once I had her in my arms it was all worth it. I could have been in labor for a whole year and it still would have been worth it. On April 8th at 8:26pm we had 6lbs and 13 oz of absolute perfection. She was 20 inches long and had RED HAIR just like her daddy. Ethan is so proud and I love him even more for her.
Our little family is perfect.
There was a 50% chance that baby Willow Rose would have Cystic Fibrosis because of me having it and Ethan being a carrier. As you all may know already, the amnio results from when I was 25 weeks pregnant came back that she is Cystic Fibrosis free. :) Also we'd like to report that her cone head has transformed into a normal shaped head. YAY for a CF/cone head free baby!
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