Our Birth Story

It started on April 8th when I was due to go in to be induced. I had been having a lot of problems with extreme swelling. By extreme I mean I could barely walk because my legs and feet were so swollen and I had lost most of the feeling in my hands due to the swelling in my hands and arms. This made it so I had to be laying down with my feet elevated all day every day for the last few weeks of my pregnancy. It was not fun. I was miserable. On top of that I had all the signs of pre-eclampsia; the blurry spotty vision, nausea, headache, etc. The only thing that kept the doctors from acting faster was that my lab tests always came back borderline. So the dr scheduled me to be induced on Easter and in we came. I was so excited to meet my little girl! We started with a dose of Cervadil because I my cervix was a 0-0. I waited and waited with Michael and my mom there to keep me company. I kept waiting for something to happen but nothing did! So they gave me another dose and still nothing. And Another, still nothing. Long story short after the maximum amount of doses I had only progressed to fingertip and about 50% effaced (I found out later they were being generous with that prognosis). They had to send me home. They were sure once I got home and relaxed I'd be back in within a day or two to have the baby. I was devastated. I cried and cried. I was so tired and hormonal and I felt not only let down by the hospital but that I had let down everyone that had expected me to be bringing home a baby. It was a very hard experience.

So I went home and waited. The whole week I had no contractions and I was forced to just lay back and wait. The swelling continued to be really bad and there wasn't much I could do but mope around and wait for Piper to be ready. On Thursday I had a drs appt and I found out I had not progressed anymore at all, and she even said she thought I was more like a 0-0 again. The babies heart rate sounded good, and we had a non-stress test that showed the baby was tired but healthy. She made us an appt to go to the radiology department for an ultrasound to see how the baby was growing. My mom took me on Friday morning and the radiologist found some odd results. She did some extra tests and then let us go home. A few hours later my doctor called and said the babies umbilical cord wasn't giving the baby enough nutrients and she was in danger. I needed to come in right away to be induced again because there was a chance the baby could die.

I freaked out of course and we went right away and tried the Cervadil again. We did three of the five doses before the doctors decided it just wasn't going to work. I was still 0-0 and not having many contractions (and what I did have weren't strong). Because the baby was in danger and my body wasn't cooperating we decided to do a C-section. I was so scared!

It all turned out okay though! Piper Elizabeth was born on April 14th at 10:00am. She was 8 lbs 0 oz and 20 1/2 inches long. The doctor said that even if everything had been perfect with the umbilical cord and with my body we still wouldn't have been able to have her naturally because it turns out my birth canal is extremely narrow. So narrow a baby would never fit through there no matter how hard I tried! It all worked out in the end.

PICTURES!!