On Wednesday, July 4th our baby girl was born at 4:04 in the afternoon. Her name is Olivia Hazel Madore and she was 6 pounds, 13 ounces and 20 inches long. And this is her story.
On Tuesday, July 3rd I knew that I was not feeling as good as I had been during the day, but figured that working hard was catching up with me. Came home and decided that cereal was about all I could handle for dinner and Paul knew that was never going to be enough for him, so he called his mom and they went to the Outback for dinner. After the dinner of champions, I went into the bedroom to relax and try and get some rest. At about 8:30 I felt like I needed to use the restroom, so I started to get up and then felt this gush of fluid come out and for a moment thought I had peed my pants. I went to the bathroom, and at that point I knew that it was my water breaking. Not wanting to freak out and just assume I was right, I found the number for Labor and Delivery at Kaiser and called to confirm what to do next. The nurse on the line asked me a bunch of questions and said that we should head over to the hospital to get checked out. Well too bad Paul was still not home... So I called hime and of course he was driving and put me on speaker, so I knew that his mom could hear what I was about to say. I asked when he was going to be home and he said that he was 10 to 15 away, and then asked why. When I said that I think that my water broke, he sort of freaked and said he would be here in 10.
After a frantic couple of moments at home gathering all of our stuff, we headed to the hospital. Checked into the labor and delivery triage and they quickly got me into a room so that we could figure out where I was at. After a quick check, it was established that my water had in fact broken. Fun fact, my water did not break all at once but continued to break pretty much for the next couple of hours... So you can imagine the feeling of liquid just leaking out of you with no way of stopping. The mid-wife wanted to wait to examine me so as not to risk infection with too many exams just to find out where I was at. I was then moved to our delivery room and we were told that the mid-wife would be in by soon. Well soon turned into hours later. She was hit with multiple deliveries all at once, so we just hung out and waited on family to arrive. I was starting to get contractions, but nothing too bad so I was feeling pretty good about where we were at in this process.
And then the mid-wife arrived and once she had time to assess where I was at, she was not thrilled. I was at 2cm and 50% effaced, not quite the progress we were all hoping for after six hours. So she said the best thing to do is start the petosin. I was dead set against this route but I did not want to argue with someone who knows better than I and since my water had broken, I knew that there was only so much time before other complications become an issue. So we started the petosin and the contractions started quick, too quick. I began to have such intense contractions/pain in my back that I thought I was going to die. They were on top of each other and all in my back. The nurse came in and said that they should only be 2-3 minutes apart, not every other minute. And then the baby's heartbeat dropped and about 5 people came rushing in, and starting pressing on things, giving me oxygen and working to get her back on track. Whatever they tried was not working and they decided that the baby was under too much stress so they gave me a shot to stop my contractions. This seemed to do the trick, but then once the shot wore off, they started up the potosin again and the contractions started again and they were just as intense. I knew there was no way I would be able to manage this pain for too long and decided to get an epidural. All of this was the exact opposite of our birth plan, something I had wanted to stick to no matter what.
The epidural was administered and almost immediately things became manageable and I felt so much better. I was checked and I had gone from 2cm to 4cm, so we were making some progress. We were able to get some rest, which helped alot and when the mid-wife came back hours later I had gone from 4cm to 8cm, almost 9cm and fully effaced, so they were happy about that. The nurse said that we should be able to look at pushing in about 30 minutes. But then 30 minutes turned into an hour, because they did not like her position, and then another 30 minutes. After about an hour and a half of waiting, the nurse said we could start pushing. And so we did. And we did some more and we really were not making the progress that was needed, but we were progressing. The midwife showed up and took a look and said that we should start pushing some more. So we did and at some point a ton of people came rushing in again, and once again they threw the oxygen on my and starting looking at machines and throwing out medical terms that meant nothing to me, except that something was not right. Another shot to stop my contractions was administered and I was told that the baby was under too much stress again and that we needed to get her to relax before we progressed.
Once we ready to push again, the epideral was all but worn off so I was starting to feel the contractions again. It helped with regards to pushing, to be able to really feel what I was doing, but they were tough to manage. After what was about a total of an hour and a half to two hours of pushing the midwife called in the doctor to take a look at where the baby was at. We pushed some more while they were figuring out what to do next. From what they could tell my pelvis had an arch that was not allowing her to come down and she would need about 4 more cm's of space to get out. The doctor said that we had some options, we could try pushing and it might take an hour with no guarantees where we might end up. OR we could do a c-section, which is what the doctor was recommending. I took one look at Paul and said let's do it. At no point in this process was my birth plan going to interfere with the health or safety of my child. All I want is for our baby to be okay, so whatever they have to do to accomplish that we will do. Don't get me wrong I was crying the whole time we were talking about this, but I knew it was the right thing to do.
They wheeled me into the OR and took Paul to another room to get him dressed. I was still experiencing contractions the whole time that I was waiting to get set up for surgery. I have to say that was the most alone I had felt in so very long. I was just sitting on the table in such pain, with complete strangers all around me ignoring my pain and more or less me. And then Paul was still not in there, which was absolutely unnerving. The anastesiologist (sp?) came in and starting working miracles and within minutes I was not feeling the contractions anymore and they started moving to start surgery. I started to panic, it seemed like they were going to start and Paul was still not in the room. I asked if he was coming and they assured me they would call him in just a bit. Soon enough he was called in and arrived by my side. Seeing him made me feel so much better and just knowing that we were doing this together made it seem like it was going to be okay.
They began the surgery and I could feel pressure from where they were working, but no pain. The anastesiologist was talking to me the whole time, making sure I knew what to expect and what was going on. And then it happened, they pulled out our little one and within moments we heard her cry. At that moment all was forgotten, all the pain, the mishaps and turns in the road and all that mattered was Olivia. Paul and I shared a very emotional moment and waited to see our baby girl. Paul was able to cut the cord and see his lady for the first time, which was amazing. And then they brought her to me and put her up against my face and for a moment I knew all was well. They moved Paul and Olivia to the recovery room and started to work on closing me up. They gave me something for the pain that would make me pretty sleepy and moved me into recovery. I found Paul sitting in the room with Olivia, looking more in love than I have ever seen him. It was beautiful and I was so glad that he was able to have that moment with her. I was too nervous about all the drugs in my system and being able to really hold onto to her, that I did not get to hold her till we were in our actual room. And when that moment finally happened... well there are no words.
I know that there are other details that I will never be able to remember, and some that I will never forget but there is one thing that I will say, I have never done anything more amazing in my entire life. She is beautiful and perfect in every way and I don't know what we did before she got here. My life will forever be changed. For the better!
