Annabelle's Birth!

Well to say that Annabelle's birth wasn't what I expected is a major understatement. I'll tell my version of the story so at least I can remember the crazy week that was her birthday. Sorry if it's a little long.

We headed up to Swedish at 1pm on Monday (Dec 12th) to start on the cervical softening drugs to help get things going. By 10pm and 2 rounds of the meds nothing had happened so they started me on pitocin through my iv to get things going. When my doctor came in at 8am the next morning I had softened a bit but still was at 1.5cm and not really making progress. It was decided to start a foley catheter to try and get my cervix to open up and hopefully progress further. They put it in around 8:30am and when they took it out at 8:30pm we weren't very hopeful since not much else has worked. We were so surprised when the doc discovered that I was 5cm and making good progress!!

It was decided it was a good time to break my water so my doc went ahead. Then they kicked up the pitocin after giving me a little break to take a shower and walk around and the real business started around 10pm. The contractions started out really easy and Jase was able to get some sleep. I woke him up abruptly at 1am with 'I'm getting the epidural!' I had always been most afraid of the epidural out of everything but once the contractions started in full force I couldn't relax which was causing everything to slow down and it just wasn't happening. The nurses got the anaesthesiologist in about 5 minutes and Jase held me up while I was shaking getting the epidural. And it was amazing!!! Seriously, I don't know what I was so worried about. He had it in and me taped up in about 5 minutes with no pain. At that point I was able to get about 4 hours of sleep and let things happen.

My doctor came back around 5am to check my progress and I was still at 5cm. I was stuck. Very frustrated but that's how it is. At this point I started asking all my c section questions because it felt like this baby was never coming out. She came back in around 8pm to check me again before she was off her 24 hour shift (yes...I had been there through her whole shift and then some). Surprise of surprises I was at 9.5cm and almost ready to go!!!!! They had me 'labor down' and relax to 2 hours to let things progress naturally and give me a rest before pushing time. They knew that Annabelle was at a strange side angle but were hoping she would move as the labor progressed.

At 10am on Wednesday it was go time! I was already exhausted but it was time to push. I pushed and pushed and pushed and the doctor came in and basically said 'your uterus is exhausted so you are doing all the work on your own.' I pushed for about 2.5 hours but Annabelle wasn't budging. I was crying from being overwhelmed, exhausted and just done but Jason was amazing and coached me through each push, each decision and each tear. The doctor then gave me the option of going for a c section or trying forceps and/or vacuum first. I figured since I had come this far I had to try everything first. She tried to fit the forceps on but couldn't get a good hold and moved onto the vacuum. She had it all set up but after one suck she wasn't moving. Her angle and my pelvis were never going to push this baby out naturally. It was time for the c section. Once the decision was made I was in the OR and ready to go in about 10 minutes. Annabelle was born at 1:48pm! Looking back it was nothing like I expected but I think it made me about 1000% stronger knowing that every hurdle we just did what we had to do, got through it and I didn't pack my bags and run for the nearest exit. Although I seriously considered it. :) In the end I got the most gorgeous baby girl and had a great experience with Swedish. I went through 9 nurses, 2 doctors, 1 surgeon and 2 anaesthesiologists in the 48 hours of labor and they were all amazing people.