The Nitty Gritty :)

Some of you have been asking, so here are the details of Emma's birth... it's not too graphic, but you might not care to read :)

I had been bleeding most of the week and my contractions had gotten worse. I was getting shots of terbutaline about every 18-24 hours to help “calm” my uterus and it had been working. I’d been having some major back pain from being in the bed all the time and it was making my contractions that much worse. Friday my mom came down and I was able to shower and go outside. Sitting up helped a bit, but by the afternoon I was going downhill again. One of my nurses came to give me a massage and that felt wonderful.
At about 3 my contractions were killing me so I asked for a shot and they gave me one, it worked for a little while and by 4:30 I was really having to bite my tongue to keep from screaming. I called the nurses in again and one of my doctors was also right there so she decided to do an ultrasound to see what my cervix was doing. I guess there wasn’t any length to it and so she did an internal and I was 8 cm dilated, At this point I completely freaked out. I hadn’t really expected to go into labor and I wasn’t at all prepared for it. I called Jamie, who was in Vegas, and told him that I was in labor. I also called my parents and told them to get to the hospital as soon as possible (they live about an hour away). I was then wheeled over to L&D. When we got there my doctor asked if I wanted an epidural. I had been hoping (months ago) for a natural childbirth, but I was so scared and had been fighting these contractions for so long that I didn’t even know how to “embrace” them and work with them, so I decided to get one. The anesthesiologist came to administer iit and it wasn’t as bad as I had feared it would be. At this point the weekend doctor was on duty so she came in the room (I was lucky that it was my 2 favorite doctors that day) and I was checked again. I was 10cm and ready to go. The epidural helped calm me to the point that I could actually think, I wasn’t able to feel anything, which after days of pain was kind of nice.
My parents made it down and I spoke to Jamie at 6:15, he had gotten on the first flight out of Vegas and was on his way home, I told him we would try to wait as long as possible, but the baby’s heart rate was dipping with each contraction and so I didn’t know how long they would let me. At about 6:30 I started pushing. I was so lucky to have a great doctor and some of my favorite nurses in the room with me (along with my mom) because I really had NO idea what I was doing. With my first push my water broke ALL over the doctor. OMG, I felt so bad, since there had been so much bleeding she was a mess. But she took it in stride and went and changed after that contraction was over. Because of the epidural my contractions were between 7-10 minutes apart, so I had time to rest. After about 45 minutes of pushing, Emma was born at 7:43pm weighing 2 lbs, 12 oz and was 15.5” long. The NICU team had been in the room and they worked on her a little before letting me hold her once and then they took her.
For a 29.5 weeker, Emma is doing quite well. She only spent the first 12hours on oxygen before moving to room air. She is having trouble with her bilirubin (causes jaundice) and will be under the bili lights probably until the end of the week. She did start eating yesterday, but they’ve stopped that since her tummy is too upset from all the blood that was in my amniotic fluid. I’ve been pumping and feel pretty good physically, I think the 6 weeks of bed rest had more of an impact than the labor did, though I’m definitely still sore and I imagine I will be for a while. Emotionally, it’s a little harder. Leaving the hospital was incredibly hard, and although I know Emma is in great hands, it’s hard not being able to pick her up whenever she cries or provide her basic needs for her. They tell us to expect her to come home around her due date (end of May) but the doctor mentioned something about 7 weeks the other day, which would be the beginning of May :)