She's Here!

Our little baby Sienna arrived on July 11 at 3:50 am.

She was 7lbs and 19 inches and perfectly healthy!

And now for a little bit of behind the scenes...

Labor last time: 30 hours

Labor this time: 9 hours

Pushing last time: 2 hours

Pushing this time: 30 minutes

As you know, I was doing almost everything in my power to get her out! 4 days overdue and I decided to step it up a notch with ELECTRIC acupuncture.  The Doc stuck needles in the induction points of my feet, hooked it up by mini jumper cables to an electric source and let me pulse for about 25 minutes.  A short hour following this appointment, I went to the NKOTBSB concert, expecting that a combination of the loud music and nostalgia would knock her out of there.  

The next day, I felt no closer to victory, so I forced the family on a nature walk by our house.  I felt contractions (albeit of the Braxton Hicks variety) which slowed me down significantly, but weren't much different than what I had been feeling.

On Sunday, I decided to keep the attempts alive and loosely followed my mom's advice to get an enema, by substituting Lacy Le Beau's Dieter's Tea.  I figured that stimulation of that area of any variety would get the same effect ;)  

Since we got a new elliptical machine recently, I hopped on that for about 20 minutes, and in the afternoon decided that I would NOT nap, but rather walk around my favorite Green Lake.  On this walk, a lady took one look at me and said, "OH, you Poor Thing!" I smiled and let her know that I hoped it would work! She responded that it had for her.  

We got home at 6 or so that evening and all sat around the table for some dinner.  It was then that a very light sensation starting from my back crept around to my uterus area. Like a very light period cramp. I let this go on for about 5 minutes before announcing to my husband that it COULD be it, most likely wasn't, but FYI.  I put our son to bed that night with great hope that it would be a goodbye of sorts while I took a vacation in the hospital.  

At 9pm it was obvious that this was the beginning of labor, so I called my mom, told her not to hurry because I was sure it would take forever, but to come on over eventually.  She - part of the birth team - and my dad - the babysitter - arrived onto the scene at 11pm.  By now my husband and I were in the thick of our Hypnobirthing relaxation exercises and ... get this... it was working! I was staying ahead of my pain, focusing on our exercises (which suddenly weren't so cheesy) and picturing a smooth delivery.  

My mom arrived and commenced the light touch massage, which helped tremendously, as did palming a comb.  I gripped that sucker, to the point that I may still have marks, with each contraction.  

At 1am I was starting to lose the battle to the pain. Around now I asked Brian to STOP reading the relaxation and it was all I could do to get in a position that didn't have me asking for morphine.  I called the Doctor on-call to realize that though it wasn't MY doctor, it was the same one who gave birth to Colby! What are the chances? Oh, about 1/7. 

We bumped our way along the freeway, and ran up to Triage.  They checked me out and I was 4 cm. An hour later I was still waiting for the epidural and was up to 6cm.  They popped that beautiful sucker in my back and by then it was about 2:15a.  They stated that it was a good thing I wasn't any later since I was progressing so fast.  I never thought I would hear THAT and really, truly do not know how I would have done it without the pain meds!  The doctor checked me out, solved a few dilemmas (meconium in my water which broke while we waited for the epidural, and baby's heart rate dropping with each contraction) and said, "Have a nice nap, we'll see you when it's time to push!"  

At about 3:15 I felt "the urge".  I warned the nurses about the Dieter's Tea and let them know that I really wasn't sure which urge it was. They asked me to do a test push and assured me that she was about 30 minutes of pushing away.  

I pushed and pushed and suddenly they asked me to stop while we waited for the Doctor to arrive! Just 2 contractions went by and she was there, geared herself up and thanks to the perfect level of epidural, I could feel every second of the crowning/exit.  (In the end I appreciated that this made the pushing more efficient, but at the time it really 'bummed' me out.)

They whisked her away to the team of 8 that was waiting to take care of the meconium issue, and soon after she was placed on my chest.  

And now, after one week of taking it VERY easy while I healed, here we are!

 I have no fear that it won't take as long as last time and I'm guessing that I'll have to work to lose the last 10 lbs, but hey - looking at my sweet baby and I know it's all worth it!  Cliche, perhaps, but that's what a few hormones will do for you :)