Birth Story

As you know, Dorothy Grace entered the world a week ago today. I can't stop looking at her and thinking of how amazing it is that she came from me and David! Sometime in the near future I need to post some of my baby pictures along with some of hers so you can see how she looks like me. But on to more interesting things, like how labor went.

We arrived at the hospital at 7:30 am on Tuesday morning, September 5th. Here I am right after we checked in, sporting my big baby belly.



We waited around for a few hours until the doctors could get in to check me and get things started, so here I am just waiting.




Once I was checked, I was found to be 5 cm dilated and 90% effaced, so they broke my water right then and there, starting the pitocin immediately after. The contractions picked up right away, so I asked for the epidural early. I didn't even have to wait around for the anesthesiologist because it was a slow morning. Unfortunately, he kept having to come in and "dose" me, meaning give me extra meds other than the ones that were already coming through, as I had a large spot in my lower abs that kept hurting. He adjusted the catheter to help with it a bit.



We had a lot of family in the room for the delivery keeping us company throughout the day.



Once it came time to push, the last dose in the epidural had started to wear off, so in the lower part of my abdomen, I could feel TONS of pain. The good part was that when she was crowning I didn't feel the "ring of fire", just the contractions. Good thing, too, because I tore pretty bad. I pushed for 45 minutes, and as soon as her head came out I said, "it's really a baby!" Two more pushes and her shoulders were out, but let me tell you, they were the hardest pushes of the whole process. When she came out (the most incredible feeling ever) and was placed on my chest, it was overwhelming.




She was weighed in at 8 lbs 2 oz and was 19 inches long! All this time wondering if we would have a tiny baby and here she comes out a solid, full-term chub!!



I am a very happy mommy to a very beautiful baby girl! She is all cuddles. Breastfeeding has been a big challenge so far, but using a nipple shield is helping with that. I'll write more about our breastfeeding challenges later. For now I am going to go enjoy this:



And maybe a bit of this: