Hey all!
If you’ve seen on social media, I gave birth to my beautiful daughter on December 18, 2019! It was a great day and I wanted to share that story with you all today!
For my third child, I decided on doing a scheduled induction. I chose this because I LOVE the option to be able to know which day I will give birth, so I can coordinate my life. I also know my body, and I know my body does not go into labor on it’s own. So I was going to be induced anyway. So why not choose my daughters birthday! We chose the 18th because it was 1 week before Christmas, and still gave us time before Kyle and I’s anniversary (20th) and time before Christmas break started for my older kids. It was a great day to have a baby!
We had to be at the hospital early AM on the 18th, so we woke up at 5:30am to get everything packed up, get the older kids ready for school, and make sure my mother in law got to our house ok. It was an early morning but we were excited to get going. We were running off little sleep, but the adrenaline of the day kept us going! We said goodbye to our older kids before they were off to school, our dog and Kyle’s mom, and we were off to the hospital.
We live about 5 minutes from the hospital, which was so nice. It was an easy decision to deliver there because of convenience, but also because it has a great reputation! My doctor also has her practice there, so it made everything super convenient and easy for us. And if there were any issues with my older kids, my husband could easily come and go. And we didn’t have the pressure of him having to sleep overnight in the room, which was so nice (most of the time it’s not comfortable for the husbands to sleep in the rooms, we’ve found from our past experiences!).
Once we got the the hospital, we went right up to the L&D floor, got checked in, and got to our room. It was a very fast process to get started on the Pitocin. I got changed into my sexy hospital gown, I signed some papers, got my IV, and we were off! I wasn’t nervous at all because this was my 3rd induction (this one was elective because I didn’t want to go past my due date like I have before). I was just ready to get labor going so I could meet my daughter! In my past inductions, I was in labor for 8-9 hours before giving birth, so we were ready for that stretch of time. We were hoping to have delivered by dinner so we could have our older kids come to the hospital to meet her.
As the day went on, I kept having to get up to pee because of the IV fluids being pumped through me with the Pitocin. My husband had to help me every 45 minutes or so unhook my monitors and help me to the bathroom. It was really annoying to have to keep getting up for that reason, but it had to be done. After a few hours, I was checked to see how far I had dilated, and I was still at 2-3 cm and the baby wasn’t dropping. It was definitely frustrating news to get, but we were just hoping things would progress as the day went on.
Around 2pm, I was checked again by my doctor, because they wanted to break my water. As I was being checked, I was still sitting at 2 cm and the baby hadn’t dropped yet. Because she was sitting so high, they couldn’t break my water yet, so I had to sit around and wait some more. We decided to break out some cheesy Christmas movies to pass the time. I had a feeling we were in for a long night, so we got settled and kissed our dream of a dinner time baby goodbye.
At about 5pm, I decided that my contractions were getting too intense. I knew that if I wasn’t able to relax, I wouldn’t dilate. So I decided to get an epidural so I could relax, take a nap, and hopefully dilate a lot faster. The nurse anesetist came in, introduced herself and got started on my epidural. I’ve had previous epidurals, so I knew what to expect, but it was very different this time around. It was such a painful procedure and it is so hard for me to even talk about it without cringing. After numbing the area, she inserted the small tube into my spine, but it wasn’t totally straight. So she had to keep wiggling and repositioning it to try to get it in the right spot. I could feel stinging pain in my hip instead of having my abdomen numb. I had to sit hunched over my pillow for a good 30 minutes while she kept repositioning and stabbing me with a new needle. My L&D nurse even held my hand because she knew how much pain I was experiencing. My husband said he had to turn away because he couldn’t watch, it was so bad. Finally, after what felt like forever, the epidural was placed successfully and I wasn’t feeling my contractions anymore.
More hours kept passing, and we went way past dinner. I got checked again around 7pm and still was sitting at 2cm. I was starting to feel super anxious because I didn’t understand why my body was being so stubborn. I didn’t want to be in labor all night because I had already been in labor all day. So it was a very anxious moment, and hard for me to settle down. I tried to distract myself by watching TV and napping, but all I could think about was how hungry I was and how badly I wanted my body to dilate.
Around 9pm I was checked again and still was sitting at 2cm. At this point, my doctor decided to go ahead and break my water because I was in labor for so long and wasn’t progressing at all. So she broke my water and I braced myself for some intense contractions for the rest of the night. Thankfully I had my epidural, but I was so exhausted and hungry at this point, I just wanted it to be over.
About 45 minutes later, I started to feel some really intense contractions. My epidural had started to wear off and I was in pain. I called my nurse and she came to re-dose me, but I still felt the contractions really intensely. The nurse asked me if I was feeling like I needed to push, but I said no because I thought I had a lot longer to dilate before I was ready to push. I let it go about 15 more minutes and I decided that I DID feel like I needed to push. She checked me and I was already at 8cm! I was almost there and ready to give birth.
About another hour passed and I was feeling all of my contractions. I was also feeling my baby drop and stretch me. I was feeling literally everything, and I was scared. I started to cry because I was tired, hungry, sick and ready to be done. My husband gave me a big hug and told me it would be ok. I was checked around 10:50 and I was 10 cm and the baby was starting to crown. My doctor quickly came in and had to get her gear on SUPER fast, because the baby was coming even without me pushing! I was ready to give birth and ready to meet my daughter!
At 11:02 pm, Nellie Ann Richardson was officially born. She came quickly after just a few pushes, and was finally a part of our family! She immediately snuggled up to me and was so calm and happy. She did take a big gulp of amniotic fluid, so she had to be suctioned as she was being weighed, but other than that, everything has been perfect.
We love our sweet Nellie and she has been a great baby. Her siblings love her to pieces and we love our all day and night cuddles. She loves to be held by her mom, she loves nursing and she loves being sung to by her siblings. We love being a family of 5 and we are so happy to finally have Nellie here!
I hope you enjoyed our birth story! Stay tuned for our birth vlog!
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