As I write this, I've got a sweet little bundle snuggling on my chest. It's about the best feeling in the world!
And now for the details......
Caroline came into this world one week and one day late. Trying to be patient proved very challenging for me, especially as we moved closer to her due date, then past her due date. It was a few weeks of emotional ups and downs, but finally the doctor gave us the go ahead to set an induction date with the plan to break my water and hope things progressed from there. It probably didn't help that I had been 2 cm and uncomfortable since the beginning of the month.
We went into the hospital early Friday morning at 7 after saying goodbye to the kids and giving them some morning snuggles one last time as a family of four. They hooked me up to a monitor and I was having regular contractions about 8 minutes apart and was starting to feel like the beginning of labor - so I think that even if I hadn't been induced, I probably would have gone into labor anyways that day or the next. After being checked, the doctor broke my water at about 8:30. He said he would come back at 12:00, and at that time give pitocin if I needed it. Thankfully, I did not. My goal was to try to deliver naturally since I had such a great physical recovery with Maggie. I was not beyond getting an epidural if I needed it, but knowing that I could do it, I wanted to really try as hard as I could.
Things progressed quickly after breaking the water, and I had to be monitored every hour for about 20 minutes. Other than that, the nurses allowed us to walk around as much as we wanted. I made one slow lap around the floor, and by that time, contractions definitely picked up. After more monitoring, I stayed in bed and labored there, which was a change from the other two births. (With Henry I walked a lot, ball and used the tub until the epidural and with Maggie I labored mostly through my sleep after the induction and then in the shower). At about 11:00, I was pretty much in full labor, and the nurse wanted to go ahead and check. In talking with her earlier, I mentioned that my induction with Maggie went from 3 cm to baby in 2 hours with medication. Taking that into account, even though I didn't think it would go that fast, she wanted to make sure we didn't miss anything and that they could be prepared. In my mind, I thought I would be lucky to be a 5, trying not to build myself up. Surprisingly, I was at 8 cm! I didn't spend much time at all at each point of labor, everything progressed so quickly. At that point, the room began to bustle as they moved in the carts and called the doctor, telling him that I was going to deliver before noon. The nurse said, "you're sure you want to do this naturally, because I don't think we have time for an epidural." An epidural sounded pretty nice, but knowing there wasn't time helped to push through (literally!)
When they did break the water, there was meconium present, so we knew they would be bringing in the NICU doctors in case of needing to suction out the baby's lungs. They began paging the NICU, who was slow to respond, and sent out an emergency page, which really brought everyone to the room. With NICU there just in time, I was 9 and 10 cm, the doctor told me that I was steering the ship, and that when I wanted to push everyone would wait for me and what I wanted to do. I had one contraction where I felt the urge to push, and on the next contraction started pushing. The baby's heart rate did start to drop, so the doctor looked me directly in the eye and said, "on this next contraction you're going to have the baby so breathe now and put all your energy into pushing." This was so motivating, especially at the hardest point which was waiting between those two contractions. But then, Caroline Marie was born!
We were so excited and surprised to hear she was a girl! Gabe was unwavering in his thought that the baby was a girl, due to a dream he had right after I told him I was pregnant. I however, had gone back and forth about gender at different points of the pregnancy. Although I tended to lean towards boy, this really was the first time I didn't have a solid feeling either way. And even in labor, I thought at the beginning the baby was a boy, and at the end of labor, I thought girl. We couldn't be happier to finally have our second little girl in our arms!
I got to spend almost an hour and a half snuggling Caroline on my chest before having her checked, which was wonderful and much more time than the other two babies. And the room that we were moving into for recovery was being cleaned, so we got to spend almost four hours together in the labor and delivery room, just admiring, loving, nursing, talking and resting with our little girl. I loved having that quiet time together just the three of us, and wish that everyone could have that after birth. But looking back on it, that was the fastest four hours! Everything about having three kids is going to be fast like that though, I know. We love you Caroline Marie and are so proud to welcome you to our family!
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