Clearly I'm waaaay behind, but I thought I'd post a blog to tell Riley's delivery story:
I went in on Thurs, Dec 31st for a regular prenatal visit, and when I was given an ultrasound my amniotic fluid levels were low so the doctor looked at me and said "I think it's a good day to have a baby. I'm going to send you over to the hospital." She told me I could go home and pack my bags and eat lunch, and I needed to check in to the hospital in a couple of hours. I was slightly in shock although I knew induction was a possibility b/c of previous ultrasounds. I called Kelly to prepare him, and then I drove home to get ready.
Kel and I arrived at Cleveland Regional around 4 pm on Thursday and I was given a room and began the induction of Cervadil around 4pm. I was to keep Cervadil in for the evening and then start on Pitocin on Friday morning. I was started on Pit at 8am and the dosage was increased every 30 minutes until the maximum dosage of 20 which I reached at noon. The monitor indicated that I was having very regular contractions, but I wasn't feeling them at all and by noon I still hadn't dilated at all. The doctor came in and told me that if I hadn't changed by 3:30 they were just going to shut everything off and start all over (cervadil at night, pitocin on sat morning)...and sure enough, that's what happened.
I restarted Pitocin on Saturday morning and had reached maximum dosage by 10 am. The doctor came in at 10:30 to check me and said that I had dilated from 1 to 2 (I came in the hospital at 1cm), and that I wasn't making the progress that they would expect. He offered to break my water in an attempt to get labor going. I figured he might as well b/c I was getting frustrated w/ the fact that I wasn't feeling any contractions (I seriously had the thought, " am I the only woman in America who is immune to pitocin?"). So, at 10:30 he broke my water and everything went into fast forward. I immediately started feeling incredibly painful contractions and felt like I was going to throw up. I didn't want to be a wimp so I waited till 11:30, but then called the nurse to tell her that I needed something for pain b/c I was dying. She suggested that I try a half-dose of IV pain medicine to see if that would take the edge off of my pain. That just made me feel dizzy and light-headed so I asked for an epidural around 11:45. The epidural didn't arrive until 12:30 and by this point I was feeling a lot of pressure. As I was laying down to get the epidural I kept telling the nurse that I felt like I needed to start pushing, but she kept telling me that it wasn't time. When the epidural was in, she checked me and I was 9 cm so she had to frantically call for the doctor to get ready to deliver Riley. The epidural never had time to take effect b/c baby Riley was out in 3 pushes. She was born at 12:57 pm on Saturday Jan 2nd. She was 6 lbs, 8 ounces and 19.5 inches long.
We stayed at the hospital until Monday, and then Kelly and I were able to take our precious little girl home.
