She's here! Emily's birth story

I can't believe she is finally here.  I'm still in awe. 

On the morning of my due date I woke up very anxious and nervous.  The thought that I could go into labor at any moment consumed me all day.  The day came and went and nothing happened.  Hubby and I spent the entire day at home and all I could do was pace and clean.  The following day was the same except I felt some minor BH contractions in the morning and I thought I was leaking fluid.  They started to pick up at night so I started timing them and they were ten minutes apart.  They were getting more intense and I couldn't sleep through them.  At 2AM exactly I woke up hubby and told him I needed to go to the hospital.  The contractions were five minutes apart, one minute in length and I was getting them consistently for an hour.  This was it!! We packed things up, said goodbye to the girls (fur babies) and headed to the hospital to have our baby girl!

We got to the hospital around 3AM and they checked my progress in triage.  I was still 1.5 cm dilated and 60% effaced but my contractions were pretty strong.  It was hard getting through the pain.  The nurse had me walk for an hour to speed up the progress so we paced the halls while I stopped every five minutes to grab the railings for dear life to get through the pain.  After an hour the nurse checked me again but I hadn't dilated so she helped "stir the pot" during my next contraction and OH MY GOD it hurt so bad I almost blacked out and saw stars.  Then more walking and more monitoring.  At 7:30 AM there was a shift change and my new nurse checked my progress again and it was still the same so she gave me the bad news that I was being sent home.  I was devasted.  How could they send me home when I'm in this much pain telling me I wasn't in labor yet?  She advised I go home, take Tylenol for the pain and do some walking.  We got home around 8:30AM and I pretty much labored at home with the same painful contractions until the next morning.  False alarm!!!

I had a doctors appointment the following morning at 11:00AM.  I was up all night in pain and even though I wanted to go back to the hospital, I was too scared they were going to send me home again.  Hubby and I went to my appointment and after the doctor did an exam, I was dilated to 3cm and obviously in labor so she sent me to the hospital to be admitted.  She also gave me the option of writing me a prescription for Ambien if I wanted to sleep and labor at home for awhile before I went to the hospital but I wanted to go to the hospital right away to have this baby!  YAY!  Since we had the green light we decided to get some lunch, eat at home and say goodbye to our girls once again before we headed to the hospital again for the real deal.

I was admitted at 1:00PM and settled into my labor & delivery suite.  By this point I felt relieved, excited and scared at the same time.  I was really anxious about getting my IV started and had been throughout my entire pregnancy.  I know the actual pain and pushing are what people think about but it's the little things that scare me such as the IV, catheter, episiotomy, etc.  Well, I was right about my IV.  I was poked six times total before they finaly got it.

Crazy bruising!

The nurses checked my progress every hour and things were going smoothly. At 5PM I got my epidural before they started my pitocin. The doctor wanted to help me dilate since I wasn't dilating fast enough. The epidural was THE BEST. It didn't hurt at all and it made everything so much better but I was SO itchy all over.  Then they broke my water around 6PM and discovered it had miconium in it. Baby had done a little pooping. By 8:30PM they had increased my pitocin but I wasn't progressing enough during my active labor phase. At 8:55PM my doctor said a c-section was necessary because I was still only 4cm dilated, 80% effaced, -1 station, baby's heart rate was dropping, there was miconium and she was slightly transversed. Hubby and I had already discussed the option of a c-section and we were both ok with it. I gave the OK and then it was like a scene from ER. Given the circumstances they had to move fast. All of a sudden there was a staff of ten that rushed in from out of nowhere. They rolled me in at 9PM and they literally had Emily out by 9:15PM. They moved so fast that Hubby didn't get in the room until after Emily was already on the table getting cleaned. It was a nerve wrecking experience but as soon as I heard her cry, I cried. The only sucky part was that I was sent straight to recovery afterwards and couldn't really hold/see Emily for three hours. Recovery was scary. My entire body was numb and I couldn't stop shivering.

The recovery from a c-section is rough. ROUGH. Breastfeeding is really difficult for me. I've lost all sense of time. It's just numbers to me now that dictate when Emily has to eat or be changed. An hour nap feels like I've slept for years after being up for two days straight. It's all very overwhelming and crazy but it's also amazing. I'm still in awe.

Emily Han
1/24/12
8lbs, 11oz 22in