Hospital Experience Part 1: Lydia is born

In case anyone is unaware, a lot has happened this past week. We have a beautiful new baby girl in our home! Lydia joined our family on Thursday, February 4th at about 3:22 pm. She was 8 lbs 2 oz and 20 inches long.
So, here's the fun labor story for both my records and anyone who would like to read it.


My water broke at about 2:30 in the morning on February 4th. I had just gone to the bathroom and just as I pulled up my pants I sprung a small leak. Slightly annoyed I went back to bed. About 10 minutes later I decided I should go to the bathroom again... just in case. As I stood up, I got the wonderful gush that everyone talks about. I woke David up and we started gathering our remaining hospital stuff. When we got to the hospital, they did a small test on a strip to make sure that my water had truly broken. I passed that with flying colors and they settled me into my delivery room. I was having small contractions at that time, but nothing I couldn't talk through. When one of the doctors checked my cervix, I was only dilated to a 1 and they began to question me if my water truly had broken. That made me doubt myself, but David kept comforting me and telling me that it was okay and that we knew that it really had broken. It was helpful. At about 6 am the doctor decided to start me on some low dose pitocin. I opted to get my epidural started so that I wouldn't have to feel the heavy contractions when they came because the pain was already starting to set in. The epidural was wonderful! Well, all except for the insane itchiness that I experienced. They gave me benadril to help with that, but it caused for a very sleepy labor! Anyways, I slept through a lot of the contractions.
At about 11 am the doctors started to become nervous that Lydia's heart rate was dropping for a little bit after my contractions. They put an internal monitor on her scalp in order to better see what was going on. After watching her for a couple of hours and getting increasingly nervous with my cervix only dilated to a 3, my doctor came into my room with 2 options. Either I go in for a c-section then, or we could wait and see if circumstances changed and probably end up with a c-section anyways. After discussing it further, David and I strongly felt that we needed to wait a little bit longer with the hope that something would change. We set a time of 3 pm and then we would re-evaluate the situation. The doctor then placed a catheter into my uterus in order to add more fluid and relieve some of the pressure on Lydia.
About a half hour later, the pain began to return and the epidural button would no longer release more medicine. The anesthesiologist returned and began to figure out what was going on. Upon solving the problem and relieving my pain, I commented to the nurse that I felt immense pressure in my perineum. Like the baby was going to come right on out. The doctor then checked me and I was fully dilated! It was about 2:30 in the afternoon. They then gave me a small shot of something to briefly stop the contractions so that Lydia could get the rest that she needed before going through the strain of delivery. Then the pushing started! Normally they have you push at least 3 times during each contraction, however, since Lydia's heart rate was dropping so drastically during each push, they only let me push twice before giving her a break. My doctor was very obviously getting more nervous with each push. He ordered a vacuum and told me that he would need to perform an episiotomy in order to get Lydia out of there before anything bad happened. He told me then that a c-section was still not out of his mind. I pushed harder than ever! And, after much cutting and vacuuming, Lydia was born. She had the cord wrapped around her neck, which is why her heart rate had been dropping so much. Luckily, she was healthy right away with an apgar score of 9 and 9! Hooray! We got to hold our little angel for a while before Daddy went with her to the nursery for her first bath and testing.
This whole experience was by far the most beautiful I have ever had! All of the strain and exhaustion from pregnancy and labor came out with those tears just after Lydia was born. She was worth every second of it! She is such a blessing in our home! So innocent and sweet! We love her so much and are excited for our future with her!