Sophia Morgan was born at 1:34pm on Friday July 27, 2012. She weighed 7lbs 14.5oz and was 19" long. She had (and has) a head full of beautiful black hair.
This pregnancy had been a lot harder on me than my pregnancy with my son. The pelvic pain, insomnia and mood swings made this pregnancy seem a lot longer and harder. I had even had irregular contractions for what seemed like years; one night was bad enough that I roused my husband out of bed and he drove us to Labor & Delivery - and my hospital was 45+ minutes away! So when I went in for my regular appointment at 40 weeks and the doctor asked my thoughts on induction, I half-jokingly replied "Can we do it today?" She smiled and said no, but we could schedule an induction for Friday. SWEET, I thought. I gave her the go ahead and I was able to schedule an 8pm induction for Friday. Today was Wednesday. So I had just a couple more days and my little princess was being evicted!
Thursday I was doing some last minute shopping with my mom and gathering up the last of the things I wanted and needed when the doctor's office called and said they could get me an earlier appointment and did I want it? I discussed it with my husband and we decided to go for it. So we rescheduled for 7:30am on Friday. Holy moly!
So I spent the last few hours of my pregnancy enjoying some quiet time with my husband, son and mother. I was having irregular contractions again, but they'd never been a sign of anything and at my appointment the day before, my doctor had said there was no progression. She even whipped out the ultrasound machine to make sure my girl was head down, since my cervix was so incredibly far back.
I got up to pee about 4-5 times and at 1:30am, my eyes popped open and I shot out of bed, intending to run to the bathroom. I never made it that far. I stood by my bedside and just
gushed. This was the second time I had felt a gush like this during this pregnancy and the first time my water hadn't broken. This time, something felt different. I managed to wake up my husband, get to the bathroom and put on a Depends diaper (so handy for that post partum bleeding, let me tell ya). When I got back, I flipped on the light to clean up and noticed my mucus plug was everywhere. This was the real deal. The contractions were kicking in hard core. It was time.
We managed to get things decently cleaned up, woke up my mother and loaded up our little car. My husband had gotten just enough sleep for it to hurt to be awake so we ran through the Starbucks drive thru for some black coffee....we had a nice long drive ahead of us. We talked and laughed and rolled with the contractions and I tried my best to handle the gross feeling of the gushing with contractions.
We arrived and got checked in by 3am. By 5am, the doctor wanted to go ahead and start me on pitocin. My nurse was in a delivery, so we ended up getting a different nurse who started the pitocin at 6am. At 7am, the shift changed and I ended up with another new nurse. This would make 4 in as many hours. I had wanted to go as natural as possible but I also didn't want to be stuck in a bed all day so I had agreed to the pitocin and when it really hit, I was ready for an epidural! It was placed quickly and my nurse, Kay, informed that if we had waited any later, it might have been hours before I got the epi, as the anesthesiologist was going to be in the OR.
Things were going swell for a few hours. I got a bit of sleep, my husband got some sleep, things were progressing....and then the epi stopped working. Right in the middle of a section of contractions that were non-stop. It was some of the most painful moments of my life. I have no idea how long it lasted, but I know that I nearly broke my husband's hand. I was screaming for dear life and sobbing....When alerted, my doctor actually called for them to give me a shot to STOP my contractions. They managed to get a second epi placed and while I still felt everything, it wasn't as though I was being ripped into shreds.
I started alerting the nurse that I was seriously needing to push around 12:30. At 1, the doctor came in and agreed that it was time to start pushing. I think at this point I was just plain slap happy. So when the nurse called to me "Push like you're really constipated!" I burst out laughing. Which of course made Sophia's head move a little closer. The doctor and the nurse laughed, saying that evidently laughing worked for me. I continued to push and watch as much as I could in the mirror above my head. Towards the end, I again busted out laughing. This time, the doctor looked at the nurse and said, mid push, "did you guys get new badges?" I laughed and then saw the most beautiful sight...my little girl's head of black hair crowning. One more push and she was out!
My darling husband was able to cut her cord and she was quickly checked out and brought back to me. She started nursing immediately and was a champ at it.
Meeting her brother was an incredible experience. He came up to visit with my mom and just thought she was the bees knees.
