~ Gator Mommy ~: Baby update

I haven't posted a baby update on here yet, so while I am sitting here watching the debates (GO MCCAIN!!), and since today is Anna's official due date, I figured I'd go ahead and do it now.

At my 38-week OB visit last Monday, I was discouraged to find that there had been absolutely no cervical change and that Anna had actually moved back up into the uterus. She was a neg. 1 station in July, a neg. 2 in August, and nearly a neg. 3 on Monday. Wrong way, Anna! (If you are unaware of what a station is, see the image HERE.)

I had talked to my OB the week before and had been told that at 39 weeks she would allow an elective induction. She kept her promise and scheduled the induction for Friday the 19th. I stayed up on Thursday night, getting some last minute things done. I went to bed around midnight, but didn't sleep very well. I was tired and strangely achey. I was up at 5 a.m. and at the hospital at 5:55 a.m. I was admitted to LDPP and waited on my doctor. Lo and behold when my OB checked me before giving the order for a Pitocin drip, we were completely effaced, 3 centimenters dilated, and the baby had dropped down to between a neg 1 to a 0 station. YAY! So, who knows ... I might have gome into labor on Friday anyway.

The Pitocin drip was started at 9 a.m. on the dot. I contractions were bearable at first, but I ended up getting Nubain and Phenergan around 10 a.m. (by Bella none-the-less!), and an epidural around 11 a.m. We were completely dilated less than 5 hours after the induction was started. Little Anna made her arrival at 3:04 p.m. Her 14" head was hung under the pelvic bone, so I pushed for over an hour. My OB was making arrangements to send me to the O.R. for a c-section when Anna literally tore her way out.

Bella was there during the entire labor and delivery. We were lucky that we had the same LDPP nurse the entire time and that she was the same one that we saw back in July. (Nurse Karen took Bella under her wing that afternoon, showing her what she was doing and even letting Bella give me the shot of Celestone.) This go 'round, Karen made sure that Bella had a scrub nurse hat and mask to match her personalize scrubs, and even let her push the Nubain/Phenergan combo into the I.V. line and then flush the line with saline. Bella even got to cut Anna's umbilical cord!

When asked later if she was "grossed out" or "scared," Bella stated that, "It wasn't gross or scary. It was fantastic!" She later said that the birth wasn't gross despite the blood and that Anna's purplish color "was beautiful" and that she looked "like a purple flower" when she was being born.

She is a very protective and loving sister. We'll see what happens when Anna starts taking her toys!

There are some photos below. (The images are clickable thumbnails.)

Pushing Nubain and Phenergan into my IV line