Lets Get Down To The Nitty Gritty

Ah, the long awaited birth story! Here it goes, ladies:

Olivia was due on March 14 and on March 16 my cervix was still completely "closed" and I wasn't dilated at all. My doctor had told me that if on that week she didn't come, we would induce on Saturday, March 21. So on Thursday, March 19, I saw my doctor and still no progress. He then told me that I would go in the hospital on Friday for two treatments of prostin gel, which helps soften the cervix.

On Friday, March 20, I was called in to the hospital at 5pm and at 11pm to get the prostin gel thing done. By the time I got home from the second treatment it was almost 2am on Saturday and I was hungry but couldn't eat because it was past midnight.
Here I am waiting for the first gel thing. It burned!! The nurse said that proves it was working...
So Saturday March 21 comes. I wake up, shower and we get to the hospital before 8am. They hook me up to the monitors and check me. My cervix is 80% effaced and I am dilated to a 2. Yay! That is great news, I guess the gel really worked!
Here I am at the hospital on Saturday morning:My doctor comes in to check on me and to say he'll be around the entire day and will come by frequently. I LOVE my doctor! He is so sweet! And it made me feel so safe to know that he would be around and would come by often to check things out.

Well, time goes by and at 9:30am my doctor comes in and tells me he's going to break my water to speed things up. That really hurt! They saw that Olivia had had a bowel movement and were going to notify the respiratory team when she was born to make sure she had no infections and stuff. They also decided to give me the epidural then because they were going to up the pitocin to speed things up.

I get the epidural and life is good. At 11am I am still dilated to a 2 but since the epidural is working they decide to put internal monitors to get a more accurate read of my contractions and Olivia's heartbeat. I was happy then cuz the nurse said that Olivia's head was full of hair - she was having difficulty getting the monitor to stick. I tell my mom and Helga to go get some lunch or go to the mall cuz it seems like this will take a while...

Around 12:30pm they check me and I am dilated to a 4 and still 80% effaced. They up the pitocin to its max, 20 units.
Around 1pm I am still a 4 but now 90% effaced.
Around 2:30pm they check me and I am a 5. I call my mom to tell her I am dilating kinda fast.
Around 2:50pm they check me and I am a 8! I call my mom again and tell her to HURRY BACK!
It's 3pm and I am a 9. And I am freaking out! My mom and Helga arrive back in the room.
It's now 3:25pm, I am dilated to a 10, 100% effaced and start to push.
Here is my "push" face. I wasn't pushing, but that's what Helga said I looked like when I was.

A little after I start pushing the nurse tells me to rest for half hour while she calls the doctor to access me. It seems like the concern was to know in what station Olivia was. My doctor comes in at 3:40pm and checks me and Olivia, she is on station +1. So she is engaged but we need to get her to crown... Well it seems that my half hour rest was cut short because right after he checks me he tells me we're gonna start pushing again. My contractions were coming every 2 minutes since 3:30pm and by the monitor, they were strong. I see him and the nurse bring all the stuff they'll need to clean Olivia up when she's born and I get really excited! My nurse tells me her shift ends at 6pm and I'll probably have the baby by then. Yay! Also, all I could think about was FOOD, I was starving! So maybe they'd let me eat something other than ice after she was born. Cmon Olivia, help mommy out here!

Well, I pushed. And pushed. And pushed some more. Every 2 minutes. And she wouldn't go past the first station. The nurse kept telling me "We just need that ONE big push to get her to station 3 and then she'll be closer to come out." I was trying so hard to give that one big push! My doctor came in and out several times, he even checked me way in there to see if Olivia was sunny side up, but she wasn't. At 6pm he tells me "Okay sweetie, here is the deal. Lets try for another hour and if nothing progresses we might need a c-section." He said Olivia's heart beat was starting to slow down and he didn't want to cause her a risk. I started to cry. I was scared of having a c-section for several reasons and I knew I would feel like a failure if I didn't push this baby out! Dang, these wide Brazilian hips gotta be good for something!!

That last hour I really pushed till I had no strength left. After every contration and push I felt like I was going to faint. I was nauseated and needed to breath in that blue bag several times. They also put me on oxygen because Olivia was already getting weak, it seemed. Even when the nurses went outside the room, Trevor and Helga, holding my legs, would keep coaching me and counting while I pushed. By then they had learned how to read the monitors and know when to have me start pushing. Trevor would tell me "Cmon baby, you can do this, you can do this, just keep pushing, she's almost out." And I would cry and tell him "I don't think I can" and he would again tell me "Yes you can, cmon, just one more push" and would start counting. Even my mom learned to count from 1 to 10 in English on that day! They were a great help!

Also, I think the epidural started to wear out by the end of that hour because I started feeling like my body was tearing inside. How do women do that without pain medication? It amazes me. I only felt the real contractions for the last 20 minutes and I seriously wanted to die. I don't remember much of what I would do during the pain, I think they thought I was psycho cuz I might have screamed and stuff... The nurse told me that if I pushed it would feel better, so that's what I kept doing.

Anyway, my doctor comes in around 7pm with another doctor who would help him with the c-section and is also skilled with the forceps. They access me while I push and Olivia is still on station +1, too high for the forceps and her heart beat is down. They then tell me they'll notify the operating room, get all kinds of papers for me and Trevor to sign, alien clothes for him to wear and tell me to rest while the anesthesiologyst comes to prep me. That's when I felt the most pain I have EVER felt in my life! I had to wait for the pitocin to wear out and the anesthesy to kick in, and it took maybe 10 minutes of surviving strong contractions till I realized I wasn't going to die of pain.
Here is Trevor in his alien suit ready to go with me to the c-section room.
And my mom and Trevor after Trevor gave me a blessing. I wasn't too happy about the c-section as you can see, but my mom was happy it was going to be over soon.

At 7:23pm we enter the operating room.
At 7:47pm Olivia was born. My doctor had to go in with his hand and grab her head out of the birth canal and bring it back up. She had major cone head, he he he
Here she is right after they ripped her out of mommy's belly, with eyes wide open to discover the world:
The anesthesiologyst stayed behind me the whole time explaining to me what was going on and what I should be feeling. At one point he said he saw her hand but they had to put it back in till the got her out entirely. Because of the epidural and who knows what else, i was shaking uncontrolably. Icould barely talk, my mouth was shaking so much, but I remember asking the guy behind me for some more blankets, asking if the baby was really a girl, and asking my doctor if I would still be able to wear a bikini with that cut. He said laughing "yes sweetie, you will still wear your bikini." I love my doctor's laugh! Then I think I told him I loved him cuz I remember him saying he loved me too. And then when he was closing me up or whatever it is they do after they get the baby out, I started feeling some pulling and I think I could feel the staples and I told him I didn't love him anymore. He said "Is that because I am hurting you?", I said yes and he said "Sorry sweetie, it's almost over."

Well by then Trevor is long gone with Olivia and the nurse to the place where they clean her up. He showed her to me before they left and she was SO CUTE, all wrapped like a burrito!! :)
Here is Trevor watching his baby girl get all ready.
After the doctors were gone the nurses told me I had to roll over my belly to get to the other bed. I tried but the pain was just too much. I told them to find another way to get me to the other bed and I guess they did. They took me back to the labor room and nobody is there. It felt really lonely. I guess it was the first time I realized the attention was now on Olivia and not on me anymore ;) It was about 8pm. Until 9:30pm a nurse came in every half hour to apply preasure on my cut, I guess to get excess blood and gas out. All I know is it hurt like h... She tells me that usually they have a nurse do that every hour for a few hours after the c-section but my body was reacting so good that they wouldn't do it anymore. THANK YOU!!

They take me to my room before 10pm and I am reunited with my mom. Trevor and Helga are with Olivia. I was so tired, and still kinda high from all the medication, feeling swollen, STARVING, sore from all the shaking my body was doing earlier and I couldn't control.

My mother/father/sister-in-law came in to visit once Olivia came in the room. She was so peaceful asleep. What a cutie! Trevor then told us that the respiratory team started taking her to the NICU because her breathing was really erratic but on their way up there her breathing started getting normal and it stayed normal for long enough that they brought her back to mother-baby. Those doctors said they could not explain what happened, it was like a miracle. I *know* it was the blessing that Trevor gave me and Olivia which promised that she would be a healthy baby and we were going to be ok after the c-section :)

Here is daddy changing Olivia's first disgusting poopy diaper. It was that stuff that looks like a black looggie, and there was a LOT of it! How can all that come out of such a tiny little girl? Ew!

So there you go! I will post more about the hospital later. I haven't been posting more just out of lazyness, I am resting tons and enjoying my mom's presence and help. It'll be so hard when she leaves... :( So I have to enjoy every minute of her being here!

In the end, I am glad Olivia and I made it safely. I have to thank my doctor too, James Woodmansee, I simply L-O-V-E the guy! He's been amazing and I fully trust my life in his hands!

PS-- thank you all for the comments and visits, I will do my best to visit each one of your blogs soon :)