Life Adventures of The Riches: Chloe's Arrival....

As the end of my pregnancy neared I became more and more anxious to meet our little girl. I wished I could just meet her already. The days went by and I had no signs of labor starting on it's own anytime soon. I knew that our little girl would be stubborn...a fault/blessing my mother often said that I had as a child. At my 40 week appointment after waiting over an hour at the doctors office (they had lost my paperwork and so kept calling in people who had arrived after me), and then being told that I was still only 1cm dilated, but 50% effaced I was ready to set the date for an induction. The doctors office we went to does not like to let there patients go past the 41 weeks mark, and even though I had fully intended to go completely natural I could tell that my body needed an extra push to get started. And so in the end of my appointment we set the date for the induction, I would be exactly 41 weeks and it allowed her an extra week to change her mind and come on her own.

We were to go into the hospital at 12:00am Thursday, February 7th, so Wednesday at midnight, to start the induction. We would be starting with Cervidil, which is a gel that sits in the cervix for 12 hours to ripen it and make it more ready for labor. We arrived at the hospital a few minutes before midnight and were entirely confused and anxious, but knew things would work out as they should. By the time all the paperwork and vitals were checked it was 1am Thursday morning. The Cervidil was inserted at 1:18am and I was still only 1 cm dilated. The doctor had ordered two doses of Cervidil and so I expected that I would be sitting in that hospital bed for at least 12 hours before Pitocin was started. Within an hour I started feeling really strong contractions. At 4:40am I felt a pop and then a gush. I looked at Brian and said "I think my water just broke." We paged the nurses and my nurse eventually came in. She doubted me, she thought I had just peed myself. (This nurse actually did/said a few things that night that annoyed me, but I'll try to focus on the more positive things. I loved the nurse came on for the day shift and was there to help me through delivery.) She got the test strips to test the fluid, but couldn't tell and continued to tell me that I had peed myself (I had no problem with controlling my bladder through the entire pregnancy, so I was 90% sure it was my water that had broke). Finally after being gone for about 10 minutes...maybe longer, she came back with clean bedding, and as she was changing the bedding she said, "Oh that definitely smells like your water broke." She then came back with fluids to hook up to my IV to make sure I would stay hydrated. Since my contractions were coming regularly and strongly on there own they did not start the pitocin.

Around 6ish the pain of the contractions really became too much for me. I had really wanted to avoid the epidural, but I knew I had hit a brick wall. I was becoming delirious from the pain, nothing would help to relieve it. And so I asked for the epidural. The nurse told me she would get it ordered, but that I would need to wait for the bag of fluids to reach a certain point before I could have it done. At 7:30am the anesthesiologist finally came. It was so hard to get into position and hold still while it was being inserted, prior to the epidural I was shivering and shaking uncontrollably. The nurse, Brian, and the anesthesiologist were all impressed with how still I actually was while it was being inserted. I went to a happy place and just focused on hugging the pillow they handed me.

At 10am they started the lowest dose of Pitocin because my contractions had slowed to 5 minutes apart. I didn't care at that point because with the epidural I couldn't feel the contractions anymore, so it didn't matter to me if the Pitocin made the contractions stronger. The epidural was amazing, it got rid of the horrible back labor I had been feeling. I was no longer out of control.

At 1:00pm they moved me to a larger room, the one in which I would be delivering in. It was so much better than the one I had started out in. Poor Brian had to sleep on the floor because there had not been a bed in the first room. After they got me settled into the new room they placed an internal monitor on Chloe, and did a check on my cervix. The nurse looked at me and said lets do a couple practice pushes. I asked her how fair I was, and to my surprise she proceeded to tell me that I was 9.5cm and +1 station. HOLY COW! I could not believe that I had already progressed that far. Dr Johnson came in a few minutes later and said that we would start pushing at 2:00pm, allowing Chloe time to descend further in the birthing canal.

2:00pm I start pushing. Unfortunately the epidural was still pretty strong and so I couldn't feel what I was doing. My pushing was effective only some of the time. But after 1hour 33minutes of pushing I was finally able to get to hold our little Chloe Sophia Riches. She was born February 7, 2013 at 3:33pm, weighing 7lbs 11oz, and measured 21 inches long. She was so beautiful and perfect, emotions overcame both Brian and I as soon as she was out.

All in all everything went very quickly, and smoothly. Chloe did swallow some fluids on her way out, and so while the doctor was stitching me up Chloe was having to have the fluid removed. It feels so amazing to hold our little girl. I love her. Here are some images taken during/after delivery: