Ellie Kay Blake

*DISCLAIMER- If you are pregnant, or thinking about getting pregnant, you should probably skip this birth story and just look at the pictures.

I went in for my 39 week appointment on Wednesday April 24th.  Dr. Kumar checked me and said that I was 80% effaced and dilated to a 2.  I was pretty disappointed.  Not because I was expecting to be any more dilated than that or anything, but because I  was starting to get really stressed about this baby coming right in the middle of Steve's finals week.  Or what seemed to be worse, what if she came a week a late?!  I asked Dr. Kumar at what point would he induce labor and he said that since this was my first baby, he wouldn't induce me until I was 7 or 8 days past my due date.  At that point I started to cry.  I don't know why really.  I guess probably because I lost control of my emotions about 8 months ago at this point.  He told me not to be discouraged and that he thought I would for sure start on my own before I was a week over due.  I asked if he would at least strip my membranes and he said he would but that I shouldn't get excited because for a lot of women, it didn't help them go into labor any sooner.  Thursday morning I woke up and went to the gym for the first time of my entire pregnancy.  I walked on the treadmill for about 25 minutes and I felt pretty dumb the whole time because the other people in there were looking at me like I shouldn't be walking on the treadmill. haha I wanted to say, "Hey it's ok, I'm trying to put myself into labor!" I went home and showered and got ready and then started working on a wreath that I had to make for a service auction that the young women in our ward were doing the next night.  Every time I stood up from working on the wreath to walk to the bathroom, I felt like I had peed my pants a little bit.  This went on all day and I didn't think much about it because well, everyone told me that you loose all control by the time you are 39 weeks prego and have a baby sitting on your bladder.  Steve got home from school and I told him what was going on and he thought maybe my water had broken.  I always thought that when your water breaks it comes out in a big gush, so we figured it couldn't be my water breaking.  I left to go to a relief society activity at the church and while I was there the peeing sensation got worse and worse.  To the point where I was sitting there crossing my legs and didn't dare stand up.  I talked to my friend Jen at the activity who has 2 kids and told her what was going on.  She told me that I should go to the hospital and get checked because that exact thing happened to her with her 2nd baby and it was in fact her water breaking.  So I text Steve and told him that and then headed home.  He had our bags packed and was in full "game time" mode when I got home.  I told him not to get too excited because they would probably just send us home from the hospital because I wasn't having any contractions yet.  We got to the hospital, got admitted, and the nurses came and did a couple of tests on me.  The tests on my amniotic fluid came back positive which meant that it was in fact leaking.  So they told me I would stay the night and then they would start me on pitocin in the morning.

 

Super excited that it was finally time to have a baby!

The nurse came in and started the pitocin around 7AM.  I started having contractions right away, but they didn't really start to get painful until around 9AM thankfully.  I called the nurse and told her I was ready to get my epidural.  The anesthesiologist was in the middle of doing another woman's epidural, so by the time he finally made it to me, I was in A LOT of pain.  I might just be a really big wimp, but those contractions were by far the worst thing I have ever experienced in all of my life.  I got my epidural at 10:30AM and I felt like a completely new woman!

Feeling SO MUCH BETTER after getting my epidural:)  I honestly have no idea how people still have babies without getting an epidural.

After getting the epidural, they turned up my pitocin and I started to dilate really quickly.  I think it was around 2 or 3PM when the nurse checked me and I was fully dilated to a 10.  She told me I was fully dilated, but it felt like the baby's head needed to drop down into my pelvis more before I would be ready to push.  So we just sat and waited for a couple more hours.  Finally around 5PM, the doctor showed up and checked me again.  He said that the baby still hadn't moved down into my pelvis much more, but it was time to start pushing and just get this baby out.  So I started pushing.  I pushed for what seemed like an eternity.  I just kept thinking that the doctor was going to tell me that he could see her head.  Instead, he told me that her head felt like it was turned the wrong way and she STILL wasn't dropping down into my pelvis.  I pushed for another 30 minutes or so before the doctor told me that she still wasn't moving any.  He said that we could try to put the vacuum on her head and just pull her out, or we could do a c-section.  I asked him what he thought was the best thing to do at this point and he said he didn't feel confident going the vacuum route.  He was worried that even if he could get her head turned the right way and out of my pelvis, her shoulders would then get stuck.  So c-section it was.  We decided to do the c-section at 7:30PM.  They had me prepped and in the operating room by 7:45, and at 8:01 Dr. Manjwala pulled Ellie out of my abdomen!

Ellie Kay Blake

4/26/2013

7 lbs 8.5 oz

21 and 1/4 inches long

Seeing Ellie for the first time!  Sadly, I was pretty loopy so I don't remember hearing her cry for the first time or any of the stuff that everybody was saying to me.  But I do remember seeing her perfect little chubby face for the very first time and thinking that she looked just like my baby pictures:)

So happy to finally have her in my arms:)

Meeting Braden and Lauren. 

Kyle and Emily, and Sharolyn LaVoie and Jen Rothlisberger came to see us while we were in the hospital too, but we didn't get any pictures with them.

All ready to go home:)

We were so excited to finally be leaving the hospital on Sunday afternoon after 4 very long days!