A bit more of the story...

I thought I would write a bit more of the story for you all since I've got some down time at the moment (Olive is at the nursery)....

Some of you already knew that I was past my due date and being monitored for amniotic fluid levels as they've been borderline low for the past month or more. Even though low, they were still stable, so there was no medical reason to justify induction until this past Thursday when her heart rate was pretty erratic. They thought that she might be squishing her cord a bit, and if we waited, we'd have to have even more monitoring.

We decided to induce Friday night. Even though I was ready to be done being prego, I wasn't thrilled with induction as I would have rather let my body do its thing. However, with the additional montitoring needed, I knew I would have been a nervous wreck over the weekend, so we went for it.

The plan was to give a drug called Cervadil that is just a pill put near your cervix. It dissolves and gets you one, ready for the patocin or two, kicks you into labor. More commonly you still need patocin. Joe and I went in to the hospital around 10:30 pm and started with the Cervadil. They gave me an ambien, and I was out most of the night, and out of it for a bit in the morning too. I started having harder (hurtier) contractions around 5am. I was able to get up, shower, and we were waiting for my Midwife to show up around 9am to start the patocin. Another midwife friend came over around 8:30 and helped me with some pretty gnarly contractions that were coming quick. The nurse checked me and I was dialated to a 9! We were all surprised and my friend told me that it would be over soon. I asked her if it would be 5 hours soon or an hour soon. She said the hour soon!

Only once did I say I wasn't sure if I'd be able to so this without an epidural, but my friend said, just get through this one and we'll talk about it. We never talked about it... My midwife came and we started pushing. Then, another Midwife friend came and with the help of Joe (who was an amazing partner the whole time), and my regular Midwife, I pushed for about half an hour and the baby came right out!

My parents and Jana were at the hospital and were able to meet Olivia right away and we've had a couple visits throughout the day. I'm glad I was able to hold off on the epidural, as I don't have any pain and I've been able to walk around. Olive didn't want to nurse right away and we found out that she had swallowed some of the amniotic fluid junk and therefore wasn't feeling like eating. They eventually cleaned out her belly and now she is one hungry gal. Overall it was a great experience and we are all happy and healthy!