Lillian's Birth Story

February 1st was just another day, despite the fact that I had an 8pm check-in time for the hospital.  We ate dinner kinda early and rushed because we needed to drop the kids off at two separate houses, one on the other side of town. 

We actually got to the hospital half an hour early.  The nurses at the front desk of The Birth Place hesitated, not sure what to do with us.  Fortunately we were led back to a delivery room where I proceeded to get UNcomfortable.  Seriously, can't a woman keep her underwear for once!!  About a hundred questions later the nurse finally started my first dose of Penicillin.  Oh man, it burned!  She was nice enough to turn it down just a little for me.  I ended up getting four doses before Lily was born.

Taken right about 10PM.  I wasn't happy about the strong BH contractions I was having.

I'd like to say I got a nice relaxing night of sleep, but that would be a huge lie!!  I had gone in with contractions just like I had been having every night.  They were strong, but not painful and lasted until about 2 or 3am and were 3-5 minutes apart.  They said I was slightly dehydrated so they were pumping me full of IV fluids.  Of course that meant I had to pee constantly!  They started me on Pitocin at 5am.  They broke my water at about 8am.  They were taking the Pitocin slow since I was hoping for another med free labor and delivery.  Finally around noon or so the contractions started getting stronger and more painful.  At that point I was still considering getting up to pee so often as the worst part.  Soon after they got very strong though.  By 1pm, and 7 centimeters dilated, I was pretty uncomfortable.  I even tried a yoga ball for a little while since my back was hurting pretty bad.  That didn't last long.  At 2pm I called for the nurse and decided to get an epidural.  It was so hard to admit defeat and ask for pain control.  I was at 9cm, but just didn't think I could make it another hour plus calmly.  I know from experience that once the pain makes me cry I have a harder time dealing.  Crying is when my pain hits the "10" level.

A little while after they broke my water.  Still pretty happy and not in very much pain!

The anesthesiologist came in and I sat up and scooted to the side of the bed to get in position for the epidural.  I was So SCARED!!  I don't like letting someone mess with my spine that way, which is why I have always gone natural.  Well wouldn't you know that as soon as I sat up there she "dropped".  I don't recall feeling that with my other kids.  Getting the epidural was way faster and easier than I expected.  As soon as I lay back down I felt the urge to push.  Again, OF COURSE!  Before a third contraction hit Miss Lillian Fae entered the world!

About the time she was born, 2:22pm, my feet and calves were nice and tingly.  I consider her to have been born naturally.  I needed 1 stitch and was nice and numb by the time they took care of that!  LOL!!  They never even hooked the epidural up to the pump.  With my history of fast labors, and very little pushing time, they knew it wasn't going to be necessary.

Lily had to have her blood sugar checked for her first 12 hours, but she passed each time!  We stayed the standard 2 days in the hospital before we were released.  I think we were ALL ready to go home and be together as a family of five.