Grace Abigail

Grace was born on January 25, 2013 at 7:26 am.  She came out at a perfect 6lb 14oz, 19in long.  She was immediately adored by her mother, father, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.  Her birth story is fairly uneventful and ordinary, thankfully, but still worth recording. 

My pregnancy was pretty difficult from the beginning.  I was nauseous throughout.  My energy level was so low that I hardly ever lasted later than 9 or 9:30.  I couldn’t brush my teeth and I had horrible heartburn so by the time I was at 38 weeks, I was ready to go.  They had done an US at 36 weeks and she appeared to be a little bit small so the doctor decided that he wanted to have her monitered twice a week.  We started going in for a NST and US on Monday and then an NST and doctor visit on Thursday.  Once we ended up in the hospital for monitoring but of course she was just fine.  At 36 weeks I was 60ish percent effaced and dialated to a 1 so at least I knew I was progressing.  When I hit 39 weeks, the doctor said that I could get induced if I wanted to and I really really wanted to.  The date was set for Thursday, January 24, 2013 at noon.  I spent my last night of being pregnant eating double stuff oreos and morning of induction eating donuts!  At 11:30 am Zach and I packed up the car and headed to the hospital.  We checked in and a nurse took us back to our room to get settled in.  The doctors started me on gel at around 2ish and that got me to 75% effaced and dilated to a 4.  I got a second gel around 5ish and contractions started getting a bit worse.  I was still at about 75% and a 4.  Zach and I sat around watching movies and playing on our phones until around 7 when they started the pitosin.  Once that started, the contractions got much stronger, especially in my back.  They thought that Grace was sunny side up because of my back contractions.  My wonderful nurse, Rachel, came in and started using the peanut ball and moving me around to get her to go face down.  I felt quite a bit better for a while.  Around 9:30 I started getting very uncomfortable and having really hard contractions.  By this time I had a new nurse, Michelle.  She came in and asked if I wanted an epidural.  I did.  I had one about 30 minutes later.  Once that set in I felt so much better.  For the epidural to work its best you need to be moving from side to side and again on your back about every hour.  Michelle came in to move me to my side at around 11:00 and stayed in the room looking at the monitor.  15 minutes later, all of the sudden there were 6 nurses in the room.  Grace’s heart rate had dropped.  They gave me a shot to stop the contractions, turned off the pit and started rolling me from side to side to get her heart rate to go back up.  It finally did but they kept me off the pit for the next few hours to make sure Grace was ok.  They put me back on pitosin around 1:00 am and that’s when the puking started.  Every time they would try to turn me from one side to another my heartburn would act up and I’d throw up.  It was horrible but in the end probably helped move little Grace move down quicker.  The second time I threw up it gave me a horrible cough that wouldn’t go away and I coughed the rest of the night.  Because of the cough, I was on my back for several hours which made the epidural start to wear off.  Not to worry, Michelle had the nurse anesthetist there in no time and I was numb again   My water broke sometime around 1:00 am as well.  I didn’t feel any of this mind you.  I was numb!  From 1:00 am to 5:00 am I tried to sleep, threw up, and got moved every hour.  At 6:00 am Michelle came in to introduce me to Carol, my new nurse.  Carol came back at about 6:30 am to check me and see how I was doing.  She checked me and said, very surprised “Oh, you’re at a 10.”  I could tell because I was starting to feel the contractions through the epidural.  They were hard enough that I was having to breathe through them.  Zach woke up; thankfully he had gotten good sleep.    Carol got everything ready and called the doctor.  She had me do a practice push but in the middle had me stop because Grace was coming out.  The doctor arrived and I started pushing.  3 pushes later and she was here!  My beautiful baby girl was here.  She had her cord wrapped around her neck which is why her heart rate kept dropping when they would put me in certain positions.  She was fine though.  They put her in my arms and I thought she was gorgeous and perfect. 

She’s been the perfect baby.  She doesn’t get really upset and hardly ever cries.  If she needs something, she whines.  She even sleeps through the night.  I put her to bed at around 11:00 pm and she sleeps until 6:30 am.  I feel very lucky.  Zach and I feel so blessed to have her.