Emilia's Birth Story

As I noted in this post, we had a feeling Emilia was going to come right around when her big brother did as I was getting lots of signs of impending labor. Apparently my body is quite punctual and good at making babies - when they are 2 days from being full term, they get kicked out!

The story really begins with my 36 week check up on Thursday, January 29th. Prior to this appointment, I had experienced a few isolated contractions - mostly feeling like menstrual cramps, but some a bit stronger, catching my breath. The doctor did my first cervix check and I was surprised to hear I was already 3cm dilated and about 50% effaced. Although the doctor was quick to point out that this really didn't mean anything - the dilation can start weeks before the baby is born, it was a big wake up call/warning sign to Joe and I that we better finish all final preparations quickly. I made sure to give my work a heads up that it really could be any day now and to make sure all my responsibilities were handed off/understood on Friday. Joe and I worked to wash all the baby clothes and install the car seat.

Saturday, January 31st was the day of my (re-scheduled due to snow) baby sprinkle! Originally it was supposed to be the weekend prior at a Tea House, but with a snow storm on the way, we pushed it back a week and changed to location to the Iron Hill Brewery in Ardmore since the Painted Teacup was not available. This deserves its own blog post, but the important part was that all my family/friends were coming to town that day, and as I was getting ready to attend, I noticed a large amount of "bloody show" (stringy, bloody mucus) while I was in the shower. My heart started racing wondering what it meant (I immediately grabbed my phone to google once I got out of the shower) and started to picture rushing to the hospital in the middle of my sprinkle (or missing it altogether!) I quickly called my mom, who was on her way with my aunt Peggy to the sprinkle, and felt better knowing that whatever happened, I had lots of helpers headed to town!

Luckily I was able to enjoy my sprinkle without going into labor. Sunday, February 1st I felt like I was "on watch" with people constantly checking in to see if anything was happening. It was a bit stressful as it is impossible to know how quickly labor would occur. I ended up calling my OB after hours since the mucus was continuing and I was having contractions, just not rhythmic. He told me to sit tight and call again if the contractions picked up (every 5 min) or if my water broke. My mom decided to stay another few days since she didn't have class until Wednesday, and I was able to relax a bit and just "go with the flow", which allowed me to actually get a restful night of sleep on Sunday night. I had previously mentioned to work that I was planning on working from home on Monday since there was snow in the weather forecast. My next OB checkup was scheduled for Tuesday evening, but I called Monday morning to see if I could get it pushed up to get a cervix check and maybe get an idea of what was going on and if my mom should stay longer or head home. They were able to push my appointment to Monday morning at 11:15am, so the original plan was for my mom and Nolan to come to the office and play in the playroom while I got checked. However, a little bit later, the office called back and said that after consulting with the Dr, they preferred for me instead to head straight to Labor & Delivery just in case. I was a bit surprised, and honestly a little embarrassed to be headed to L&D when I clearly wasn't in active labor, but took their advice. We made a quick pit stop at Nolan's daycare to drop him off just in case, then headed over to Bryn Mawr hospital.

Once at the hospital (Monday 2/2/15 around 11:30am), I was quickly ushered to a delivery room and instructed to put on a hospital gown. They took my vitals and asked a million health questions, hooked me up to a monitor to check fetal heart beat and contractions (stress test) then told me to sit tight until my Dr came in. They didn't want to check my cervix first since it could interfere with testing if ordered. I must have gotten there right during shift changes because it took nearly 2 hours until Dr Dardarian was able to come in (around 2pm). He checked my cervix, which was still around 3cm dilated. They then checked to make sure I wasn't leaking amniotic fluid. I didn't think I was since I didn't have more discharge than normal other than the mucus, but agreed it would be good to check. The first test was the traditional swab that has a "litmus-like" pH colorimetric read out. After trying this test twice, it was deemed inconclusive. Next, they put a sample on a slide for the "Fern test" (apparently amniotic fluid looks like a fern under the microscope). The Dr thought this test looked negative, but wanted to follow up with the "sure fire" test - AmniSure. This involved taking another sample and sending it up to the lab for analysis, which would take an hour. By this time I was completely STARVING (it was around 3pm and I hadn't had lunch before arriving - rookie mistake!) Before the Dr came in, the staff was telling me I couldn't have anything to eat OR drink (not even water), and then told me my urine looked pretty concentrated and that I was dehydrated... well thanks, I'd love to have some water if you'd let me! ;) When I balked at waiting another hour for food for the lab test, the Dr said I could order hospital food and have it sent to the room, which made me happier! At this point, I was feeling really confident that the last test would be negative based on the previous two results, but ordered something filling (Pepperoni Pizza!) just in case it was positive. I was told if the test was negative, we'd be sent up for an ultrasound to check the fluid levels, and if it was positive, we'd have to induce and get the baby out. Talk about a stressful result! This whole time I was communicating everything to Joe, who was at work in Camden, via text. At this point, I told him it would be best for him to just come to the hospital because either way it would be something that I'd want him to be there for (induction or ultrasound).

Well the test didn't take the full hour, in fact, we got the result before my food even arrived. Both Dr Dardarian and I were shocked to hear that the last test was a definite positive - I was leaking fluid. This meant an immediate induction. Wow, talk about a game changer! He told me to go ahead and eat, after that they'd put me back on the stress monitor to get a baseline for 20minutes, then start the pitocin. I immediately called Joe with the news, and we decided to change the game plan. Joe would go pick up Nolan from daycare, call his parents to have them come to our house immediately, and get a ride to the hospital from his brother so that his parents could have his car on hand with Nolan's carseat installed for emergency purposes. Even with all this scrambling, I was very thankful for the timing of everything - there was so much stress in the preceeding weeks of thinking of all the possible scenerios of going into labor and who we would call in each case, etc. This was a near perfect scenerio - my mom was already in town and at the hospital with me, it was still daylight so Joe's parents could drive to our house (they don't like to drive at night), and Luis was working from home that day and could quickly come to the house to drive Joe to the hospital.

Ready to meet my little girl!

So excited! Lets do this!

Happy to have my mom by my side again

Eyes on the goal.

I finished eating my well-earned lunch around 4pm, was monitored for another 20 minutes, then allowed to walk around the floor a bit (I had been in bed for nearly 5 hours at this point!) before coming back to start the pitocin. Luckily I had actually had my Strep B test before coming to L&D this time (unlike last time!) and it was negative, so I didn't need to be administered antibiotics. Joe got to the hospital just as we were about to start the pitocin around 6:30pm. It was started extremely low (level 2) with the nurse coming in every 20min or so to bump it higher. To pass the time, we turned on the TV, watched some college basketball and "Celebrity Apprentice" (one of Joe's favorites!), I texted friends the exciting news, and even pinned on Pinterest with my phone :) I didn't feel much pain until the pitocin level got closer to 10 (around 10pm). We started to see nice timed contractions on the monitor around that time, and left the level around 12 for a good hour or two. Eventually the pain got to be too much - when the nurse came in to check on me around 11:30pm and saw me in tears, she checked my progress and saw I was over 4cm dilated and asked if I wanted the epidural. Since I had such a great experience with it last time, I didn't hesitate. I knew getting one didn't slow my progress last time (if anything it helps me relax which sped up the progress), and I had a good recovery post-delivery. The anesthesiologist came in promptly and was really great - much nicer than the last one! He talked me through the whole process in a very calm and relaxed tone and was super impressed with how still I stayed as we was working on me - he called me "a rock" and said I could teach a course on how to receive an epidural ;) There was no way I was going to move - contraction or not - when someone is sticking a huge needle into my back!

Again, the epidural was amazing and worked rather immediately. Again, it was just the right amount of pain relief - I could still move my legs and feel pressure, but didn't feel the painful contractions. I settled back to relax, they set up Joe and my mom with recliners, shut off the lights and we all tried to sleep for a bit. The nurse turned the pitocin up to level 14 and had the blood pressure cuff go off every 15 minutes. At first I was nervous about the blood pressure because it seemed a bit low, but it was consistent and not dropping (one side effect of the epidural is that it can cause blood pressure to drop). Once I knew it wasn't dropping lower, I drifted in and out of sleep in between blood pressure readings.

Taking advantage of being able to eat popsicles during labor (it's only that and ice chips!) I had grape :)

Around 2am I felt a pop and gush of water - I called the nurse in and she confirmed my water had broke (I was only slightly leaking before). She checked my dilation and said I was around 5cm and fully effaced. I was surprised thinking I'd be farther along by now, but still glad I was progressing. She left the room to get some new supplies to clean up and when she came back I told her I was feeling some strong pressure low. She checked me again and was shocked saying she could feel the babies head right there. She immediately went into hyper speed getting the bed set up for pushing and notifying additional staff. She said she wanted to see how well I could push before bringing the dr in, so once there was another nurse in the room and the bed was set up, she had me try to push. I only pushed for 1 second before she told me to stop immediately and not push again until the dr could get there. By this time, the babies head was crowned ("A head full of dark hair" I was told!) and it was very difficult to not push her out. I could sense the nurse was frustrated that the dr was not in the room yet and she was determined to not deliver the baby alone! Dr shifts had changed and I was now assigned to Dr Craparo, who was not with my practice (apparently my practice splits call duty with Bryn Mawr women's health). She came rushed into the room and I started yelling that the baby was coming out because I could feel my body moving her without me really pushing. She quickly gowned up and told me to push, which I barely had to do at all before the baby slid out and immediately heard the best sound in the world - her loud cries. Emilia Caroline was born at 2:50am on Tuesday, February 3rd.

Emilia's photo debut!

Dr Craparo immediately held Emilia up for everyone to see, and Emilia reached her arms out to me right away, which moved me to the core. They put her right on my chest and cleaned her there. Emilia looked right in my eyes, just like Nolan did, and I was frozen in a trance - I couldn't look away, already falling in love. She looked a lot like her older brother to me, but also different. With Nolan, my first thought was that he looked like my dad. This time my first thought was that she looked like me. Apparently during this time they also delivered my placenta (how did I not notice?!) and the Dr was already stitching me up - only 2 small stitches, a very minor tear this time.

Being held up by Dr Craparo

Reaching out her hands to Mommy

Being put immediately on my chest

No words can describe this moment.

Daddy cutting the cord

Love at first sight

Entranced

Happy and relieved

Our DAUGHTER!

6lbs 9 oz.

Meeting Daddy

I'm calling future daddy's girl!

All bundled up

Thankfully, I did not develop a fever during delivery this time (although I was experiencing very violent shivering from when my water broke through delivery and a lot of itchiness in my upper body due to a opiate in the epidural). Emilia looked perfect with a 1 minute apgar score of 8 and 5 minute score of 9. No NICU needed (hooray!) so this time I was able to spend the hour post-delivery in the room with Emilia, who did an amazing job latching on right away to breast feed, with lots of skin-to-skin contact. Much better than sitting post-birth in the delivery room without a baby like last time!

The nurses all signed the card with Emilia's footprints and sent it to our house!

The similarities of Emilia and Nolan's birth are pretty astounding. In both cases, my due date was on the 26th of the month. Both were instead born on the 3rd of the month at exactly 36 weeks and 5 days gestation. Both were born on Tuesday mornings. Both made the doctors scramble due to their quick and dramatic arrivals! Emilia weighed slightly more than Nolan (6lbs 9 oz as compared to 6lbs even), and Nolan was slightly longer (19.5 inches vs 19in even). Both had dark hair and eyes at birth and latched for breast feeding like pros from the beginning. I love that they are both born on the 3rd - a special day for me since Emily was also born on the 3rd (of September). Such a special bond!

Much more to come... Welcome to the world, Emilia Caroline! You are so loved already!