Holland's Birth

After much stress about when baby Holland was going to make her appearance and who was going to watch my other two kiddos while we spent the day in the hospital, we scheduled an induction date.  My mom and dad drove down the night before so that they could stay with Pres and Noah while we labored. 

Thursday morning we headed to the hospital.  We were there at 7:00 am.  They got me all registered and ready to go.  I was dilated to a 3 when I got there.  At 8:00 I had my IV in and was hooked up to the pitocin.  I didn't start feeling contractions until 9:00 though.  I was having issues with the monitors most of the day.  My contractions weren't showing up on the monitors so the nurse was adjusting them constantly and then finally decided to switch it out.  Wayne and I watched a lot of TV and I was starving the whole time and was only able to drink water and eat ice chips. I knew I should have had a better breakfast.

My OB came in at 12:00 to break my water and when she checked me I was still at a 3:(  I was so bummed out.  We knew it was going to be a long day.  At 2:00 I was dilate to a 5.  Finally a little progress. I was having a hard time with when to get the epidural.  Because my labor was slow I wanted to wait to get the epidural because I was afraid it would prolong the process but I was also getting sick of having contractions 1 minute apart.  At 3:30 I got my epidural.  This is when things went a little crazy.

 My blood pressure started dropping after I got the epidural.  I was starting to feel very sick and light headed and things were a little blurry.  Next thing I knew I heard the bell at the nurses station and I knew it was for me.  Nurses ran into the room and were all stressed out.  They gave me oxygen and then we saw that my blood pressure was 55/36.  I remember looking at Wayne and thinking I was for sure headed to the OR for a c-section or I was going to die.  The anesthetist came back in the room turned down my epidural and had me switch sides.  I started feeling better and my blood pressure went back up.  While this craziness was going on my IV infiltrated apparently because the vein wasn't a good one to begin with and they had pumped crazy fluids into me while my blood pressure was low. So I had a giant bump on my wrist and they had to take out the IV:(

3 different nurses and 4 IV attempts later the anethetist was able to put an IV into the crease of my arm.  It was not the most comfortable thing during labor but at least they didn't have to poke me anymore.  After I had recovered a little from this and was feeling better another bell rang at the nurses station and I knew it was for my sweet baby.  I had been watching her heart rate climb and when the nurses ran into the room I saw that it had dropped to 33 on the monitor.  My nurse hurried and had me turn completely on my side and checked me.  I was at an 8.  Holland had made a quick descend into the birth canal which caused her heart rate to drop dramatically.  I was trying really hard to be calm but once again I thought I was headed to the OR and I was stressing about Holland.  Her heart rate recovered and for the next couple hours things were pretty normal. 

At about 8:45 my doctor came in to check me and I was fully dilated.  YAY!!!! I was so relieved.  I was hoping that after all the chaos I would only have to push a few times and sure enough 4 contractions later baby Holland was born.

We are so grateful that after all the issues I was still able to have a vaginal delivery and that baby Holland made it here safe:)