Shes finally here!!!

So after a hellish week, baby is finally here!!!

As you know, since about 37 weeks, I have been dealing with high blood pressure. It was borderline to where they take quick action (I has having readings in about the 140/85 area....they take it very very seriously when it gets to 150/90). Well, I ended up getting to the 150/90 mark and so I was referred to the OB. So on Monday Tuesday and Wednesday, I had membrane sweeps and there had been no change. An hour after my sweep on Wednesday, I saw the OB, He looked at all my stuff, then went to do my blood pressure and it was very high. He looked at A and I and said "You need to go to the hospital right now. You are being induced." we were like "Wait what? Like today?" hes like "Yes, right now. Go straight to the hospital. If your blood pressure is this high still, you will start blood pressure medication as well. But you are definitely getting induced today". I said "Ok, well Ill just go home and grab my bag then" and he says "No youre not. You are going right now". 

We left the office and I called the midwife, who said to go get my bag, it was fine (I live 5 min from the hospital). So we went back to my place to drop my car off and grab my bag, and off to the hospital we went. When we got there, they hooked me up to the monitors and listened to baby. She sounded great. My blood pressure had come back down. My midwife came and saw me and after spending a couple hours there, they determined I didnt need induction right now and the OB said ok, but that I was to return at 9:00 the next morning for another NST and BP check. If it was high then, then I was to remain at the hospital for monitoring until the afternoon when they could do the induction. Well...I returned the next day, and my BP was fine and so was baby....so....I was told to come back the next morning at 9:30 and we would go from there (our L&D ward only schedules 3 procedures a day and they already had 2 c-sections and an induction scheduled so they would keep me till after those were done). 

So...I went home...again. I returned the next morning (Friday), totally frustrated by this point. I had just spend 2-3 hours a day at the hospital for the past 4 days with no progress after 3 sweeps and a bunch of monitoring. I was now 2 days before my due date (all the others, except my first born, were born 3-4 days before due date and came on their own) and I was just done. I really dont like intervention and so while I wasnt wanting an induction, I was kinda welcoming it at this point lol. Imagine my delight when I went in, and my nurse whos been monitoring me the past week, comes in and throws a gown at me and says"Put this on! Youre being induced!!! Strict orders from Dr O" (Dr O is the OB). YAY! Finally! I text A and told her that we were finally being induced!!!

My midwife came in and put in the cervadil around 11am Friday morning and I stuck around for an hour for monitoring and then was able to go home and wait it out. And wait it out is what I did. I felt NOTHING for hours and hours. I had a couple cry sessions cause I seriously thought it wasnt working. I was thinking, how is it that this is my 5th one and my body is not showing up for the game here! It should be like "I got this shit!" but no...nothing... Finally, around 8pm I started to feel what I thought could be contractions. At the same time, I wondered if it was just wishful thinking lol I sat on the exercise ball and hoped that would help...they did come on a bit more intense but nothing major. By 11pm I started actually timing them using an app on my phone. Very helpful, cause I was by myself still at this point. At around 1am, I called L&D because I had been having regular contractions every 2-3 minutes apart lasting for a min-a minute and a half. I had already called A & D and Miles and gave them the heads up and they were all making their way to my place. The nurse at the hospital said that everything I was saying indicated I should come in, and that she would call my midwife. So, I called A and D back and told them to meet at the hospital.

We got to the hospital around 2am and it was a total clusterf-k. It was like they had a skeleton crew on or somthing, and there was a new nurse that just didnt know what she was doing (she had just come from another hospital that didnt have an L&D and was changing her specialty. Anyhow, by the time my midwife had arrived, I hadnt been hooked up to monitors yet, and my blood pressure still hadnt been checked (hello, kinda the reason I was induced). They got me all hooked up, my BP was quite high. Midwife checked and I was 5cm with a bulging waters. I guess around 3:30 or so, my water broke (time gets hazy here lol). Contractions had already been coming on hard and on top of one another by this point. There was hardly a break in between. My back was killing me, I was having really bad ligament pain and the new nurse was pissing me off lol. I always feel like Im being really loud but everytime I apologized everyone says "Stop! You are hardly making any noise at all!" A calls me a silent birther lol 

Well, as any birthing woman knows, there is a moment when you know that its time. And that moment arrived. I knew she was coming and told everyone to get ready shes coming soon. Miles had the camera out (as did D) and the midwife gave A some gloves. I started feeling the urge to push and so it began. Her head popped out, and I was told to stop. Cord around neck, so that was removed. I heard A saying "I have my hands on her head Darshan!!!" she sounded so excited. She kinda just hung out there for a minute as I didnt have a contraction now lol Next one finally came and at 3:56am, out popped shoulders and the rest of baby, right into her mommys hands. I looked down and saw her holding her, big smiles on her face. Baby girl was SCREAMING away. She has got a set of lungs on her, thats for sure. 

After this is when things got a little hairy. I had had the shot of oxytocin to help move the placenta out. But, it didnt want to come out. I stopped contracting completely and after 45 minutes of it not being delivered (they consider it retained after 30) the midwife had to call the OB and get him to come in to possibly do a manual removal and I was started on an oxytocin drip. I was scared, but trying very hard not to show it. You could feel the tension in all of us. While we were waiting, I held babe (even before her own daddy hahaha). We were trying to keep things light. I really did not want to end up in the OR under general anesthesia after going through everything already. Thankfully, about an hour and 10 min after she was born, the placenta finally came out. Insert collective sigh of relief!!! But, it was not a nice looking placenta that is for sure. It came out in tact thankfully, but it was small, there was a lot of calcification and there were dead spots on it. It looked shriveled in areas. 5 deliveries and this was the only one that looked like that. Its safe to say, that doing the induction was the best thing for her (and I of course) cause the placenta just wasnt doing its job anymore. 

So after that, I got one little stitch (yay not too bad....thankful for a 6 lb 14 oz baby!) and we just enjoyed the next several hours together until little Hazel came to meet her little sister, around 10:30 am. It was so beautiful to see my two surro babes together, and to see this now family of 4 complete. A's parents brought Hazel and as always, A's dad had the sweetest words to say to me. How one person can bring me to tears just with a couple of words, is amazing. They really are wonderful people. Ugh...Im crying now thinking about it hahaha.

Hazel started to get a little antsy so Grandma and Grandpa took her back home and A & D and baby went to the nursery for bath time and such. I cleaned up a bit and got dressed (well, I got pants on lol) and got my stuff ready and called my dad to come pick me up. They got  back from the nursery and got themselves ready too. We all ended up leaving at the same time...me home to recover, and them home to start their new life as a family of 4. It was really such an amazing day.

I put together a slideshow, just like I did with Hazel but its too big to load right now. Gotta get it on Youtube first. So here are some pictures of little Esme and her birth.

Hazel meeting her little sister

My gorgeous surrobabes and I