{"id":7487,"date":"2011-09-30T09:16:37","date_gmt":"2011-09-30T13:16:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ahealthysliceoflife.com\/2011\/09\/30\/haileys-birth-story-part-2\/"},"modified":"2014-09-15T06:42:49","modified_gmt":"2014-09-15T10:42:49","slug":"haileys-birth-story-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ahealthysliceoflife.com\/haileys-birth-story-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Hailey’s Birth Story: Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

In case you missed it\u2026 Part 1<\/a><\/p>\n

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<\/p>\n

By 4:00pm I was fading fast.\u00a0 I remember feeling incredibly exhausted and did not have any break between the contractions.\u00a0 I felt like I was starting to lose it.\u00a0 When a contraction hit, my body would go limp and I\u2019d fall into David.\u00a0 He\u2019d support my body while my eyes rolled back in my head and my body shook.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t focus on anything.\u00a0 I was walking around the room completely naked and couldn\u2019t have cared less about who saw.\u00a0 I was crying, bleeding and shaking.\u00a0 The doctor came in and took a look at me and offered me an epidural.\u00a0 I had clearly stated at the beginning of the day that I didn\u2019t want to be offered one\u2026 yet, I wasn\u2019t upset when he asked. My lack of progress and increasing pain was enough to win me over.<\/p>\n

A brief second passed before I just knew I wanted the epidural. \u00a0David\u00a0looked at me and asked me if I was sure.\u00a0 I knew what he was thinking.\u00a0 I had talked to him so much about wanting to avoid the epidural and to help me stay strong.\u00a0 I could tell he wasn\u2019t sure if I\u2019d end up regretting my decision, but I assured him through my tears that I was OK with my decision.<\/p>\n

The epidural was put into action and the thought of relief on it\u2019s way gave me hope.\u00a0 Unfortunately I learned the hard way that the doctor doesn\u2019t walk right in and stick it in your back.\u00a0 He had to be called and I had to have fluids.\u00a0 They hooked me up to the IV, and told me it wouldn\u2019t be long.\u00a0 They lied to me<\/em>.\u00a0 And through my pain, I knew they were lying when they said the doctor would be in soon.\u00a0 I knew I had to have 1\/2 a bag of fluids in me, and I saw the rate it was going in.\u00a0 I knew I had a while to go.<\/p>\n

It ended up being another hour of horrible, constant contractions before the anesthesiologist came in.\u00a0 We waited for a contraction to pass before I was asked to sit on the bed and lean over a pillow.\u00a0 The doctor was wonderful.\u00a0 He moved quickly, but explained his every move in detail.\u00a0 People are truthful when they say getting the epidural is no big deal.\u00a0 Not one single part of it was uncomfortable.\u00a0 Soon enough, the epidural was in and the medicine was being administered.<\/p>\n

Instant Relief.<\/em><\/p>\n

My poor, shaking body relaxed and my teeth finally stopped chattering.\u00a0 I think I cried out of pure joy.\u00a0 I was so, so tired.\u00a0 I was worried as soon as I felt relief that I\u2019d feel like a failure, but was surprised when I didn\u2019t feel that way in the slightest.\u00a0 In fact, I knew immediately that I had made the right decision for me.<\/p>\n

\"1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I feel fortunate that the anesthesiologist gave me a perfect epidural.\u00a0 I was able to move my legs on my own the whole time.\u00a0 I never went completely numb.\u00a0 I could roll myself over from side to side without assistance.\u00a0 Of course, I was no longer able to get out of bed, but that was OK with me at that point.<\/p>\n

My decision that I needed the epidural was confirmed when my doctor suggested we put a monitor inside of me to test the strength of the contractions.\u00a0 I was OK with this because it didn\u2019t touch the baby.\u00a0 Once we began monitoring, he said that my contractions weren\u2019t measuring powerful enough to move the baby, so it would have been many, many more hours, which probably would have resulted in a c-section.<\/p>\n

Once the epidural was in, I closed my eyes and rested for a good hour.\u00a0 The body tremors faded away as I relaxed and rested.\u00a0 Also, my contractions began to space out further, coming every 4 minutes or so, rather than 2.<\/p>\n

The doctor came back in and suggested we use some pitocin to move things along since my contractions were spacing out.\u00a0 He said we could start with what he called a \u2018whiff\u2019 of pitocin.\u00a0 Though I saw myself venturing down the path I had hoped to avoid, I agreed.\u00a0 Around 6:00pm or 6:30pm we started the pitocin.\u00a0 The contractions spiked a little in intensity, but weren\u2019t getting much closer together.\u00a0 We watched the monitors over the next hour.<\/p>\n

Around 8:00pm the nurse checked me.\u00a0 I was 6 cm and at a 0 station.\u00a0 Progress, yes, but not much.\u00a0 At this point I began to think I was going to have to have a c-section.\u00a0 Instead of fretting, I was ready to accept whatever needed to be done to get the baby out safely.<\/p>\n

David\u00a0went to inform our families of the progress, and mentioned they may want to leave and get something to eat, since we probably still had a long night ahead.<\/p>\n

Well, while David\u00a0was in the waiting room talking to our families, the doctor came in and wanted to check me himself. BAM<\/strong>! I was at 9cm and +1 station.\u00a0 It was music to my ears!\u00a0 He said that we were going to have a baby really soon, and my heart started racing. Where was David?!<\/p>\n

The doctor stayed in my room to watch the monitors because Baby D\u2019s heart rate was experiencing some decels after each contraction.\u00a0 It would go back up, but the doctor wasn\u2019t liking the way it was looking.<\/p>\n

Again, where was David?!<\/p>\n

Finally (after probably only 5 minutes, which felt like forever to me), David\u00a0was back in the room and I\u2019m sure my wide eyes let him know immediately that there was something going on.\u00a0 The doctor filled him in as he became increasingly uncomfortable with the heart rate decelerations.\u00a0 Then things started happening quickly!<\/p>\n

David\u00a0barely got a text out to our families saying \u2018update to the update- don\u2019t leave!\u2019 before our room was full of nurses that began breaking down the bed.\u00a0 The doctor informed me that the decels were too much for him to sit and watch, so we needed to have this baby.\u00a0 They turned my pitocin off and things got crazy.<\/p>\n

The bed was broken down and I was given an oxygen mask to help maximize the oxygen to the baby.\u00a0 At this point, I thought I\u2019d be nervous, but I was so excited! Finally, we were going to get to meet our little one.\u00a0 I was up to 10 cm dilated and set up to push.\u00a0 The doctor was serious about the baby coming out soon\u2026 so much so that he put an emergency c-section on hold and made the anesthesiologist wait outside the room in the hall because if I couldn\u2019t get this baby out, my emergency would supersede the other one.<\/p>\n

At this point, I was so grateful I had the epidural for two reasons.<\/p>\n

#1- if I didn\u2019t get the epidural I would not have had that hour to relax and regain my energy, and I don\u2019t think I would have had the strength to push<\/p>\n

#2- I knew I was going to tear.\u00a0 This baby was going to have to come out quickly, which I knew from my reading often leads to tearing.<\/p>\n

We waited on a contraction, and when it hit, I was told to push, so push I did! I took a big breath and bared down with everything I had.\u00a0 I knew I had to get this baby out.\u00a0 I knew I was going to tear. I didn\u2019t care.<\/p>\n

It felt like an eternity between contractions, and the doctor had them turn my pitocin back on.\u00a0 It worked, and after about 15 minutes and 4 contractions with 3 pushes each\u2026<\/p>\n

our baby girl was here!<\/p>\n

\"2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I stared in disbelief when I saw her come out.\u00a0 It was the most amazing feeling of my life and immediately I had tears welling up.<\/p>\n

She had the cord wrapped tightly around her neck one time, which explained the heart decels, and she came out sunny-side up.\u00a0 She had stayed posterior after all.\u00a0 I held my breath until I heard her cry, which didn\u2019t take long at all.<\/p>\n

As I had specified, they put her on my chest immediately and there we finally were\u2026 looking down at our little miracle.\u00a0 She was born at 8:49pm and was 19 inches long.\u00a0 She arrived wide-eyed, alert, had a head full of dark hair and was the most beautiful baby I\u2019d ever seen.\u00a0 I clumsily got her to latch, though I\u2019m sure I didn\u2019t do it correctly.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t matter right then- we were in awe.<\/p>\n

David\u00a0cut the cord when we were ready and we both stared down at our daughter, who was staring right back at us. Incredible.<\/p>\n

The nurse told us to let her know when we were ready for her to be cleaned off and weighed.\u00a0 It was so nice that they didn\u2019t rush us.\u00a0 After about 15 minutes, I handed her off and watched as she was cleaned up and placed on the scale.\u00a0 7 pounds 1.6 ounces.<\/p>\n

\"3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My beautiful little peanut.<\/p>\n

\"4\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t wait to get my hands back on her and invite our family in.\u00a0 Soon enough, that\u2019s what we were doing.<\/p>\n

Everyone walked in and I think my eyes filled up again with tears as I announced to them that SHE<\/em> was here\u2026<\/p>\n

Hailey Ann Dixon is here.<\/p>\n

\"6\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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