{ a birth story }

last Friday we welcomed our sweet babygirl Zuzu (Susan Olivia) into the world!

Thursday i had been hanging around the house, waiting for my mom and grandma to get there from out of town (oh and i had told them, so many times, that they were coming way too early, the baby wouldn't be there for a week, at least!). i had just decided to go outside and look at the cows (who were very frolicksome that day, in the pretty early-fall weather) when my water broke. not in a movie-way, just a little bit. so i finished fixing my hair and make up, then called my doctor while i packed up the last few things in our hospital bag. just after i texted bryan (who was teaching that day) to come home, my water broke Again (i had no idea that your water doesn't just "break" once!) in a much more movie-type of way, and it happened a third time before we left the house, then again as we pulled up to the hospital, an hour a way.

when i got into my doctor's office, they checked me to make sure my water had indeed broken (at this point i was pretty sure that was just a formality; there was much more gushing to be had, grossly enough), then took me down to labor and delivery right away. since my water had broken, i wasn't allowed to walk around during labor. once they had me all hooked up to monitors, they found out that i was having contractions, but they were so mild that i couldn't feel them, and i was still only 3cm. they started me on pitocin to get my contractions stronger.

i didn't wait too long to get an epidural (mainly because the nurses warned me that it would take about an hour from the time i request one to the time that i actually had relief from one, since there's the inserting it, time for it to kick in, etc etc). i think i would ask for it early again, but next time ask that they put me on as little as possible at first and increase the amount as i needed it; i couldn't feel my contractions at all (yay!) but it lowered my blood pressure too much (i think my lowest was somewhere around 60 / 30 -- about half of what it should be) and made it where i couldn't even sit up without feeling faint. they put me on an oxygen mask, because zuzu's heartrate kept dipping down (we later found out it was most likely because the umbilical cord was around her neck). then for the next 20ish hours, they monitored my progress and made sure that i didn't turn in a direction that stressed the baby (i spent at least 15 of those hours laying still on my right side). oh and no food or drinks during the entire time--just ice chips! i was so hungry!! i had good company though--my mom and grandma, bryan's mom and brother and bryan (of course) stayed the entire night.

the next day (at around 22 hours of labor) they came in to give me the hard news--i had only progressed to 6cm and had not made any progress at all in the past 2 hours. if they didn't see any progress in the next 2, i would have to have a c-section because going much longer would put too much stress on the baby and on my body. so they lowered my epidural a lot to make sure my blood pressure didn't dip down again and they increased the pitocen. i really didn't want a c-section--they have awful recovery times and i was worried it would affect my chances of having our other babies vaginally later). bryan let our friends and church know, and we immediately had people praying for us.

the prayers worked! i progressed the slightest bit--half a centimeter--but the doctor said that was enough to warrant giving me another 2 hours! a little less into that time, i went all the way to 10cm! the delivery was welcome after laying in bed so long! after 26 minutes of pushing i delivered a healthy 7lb 15.2oz, 20 and 3/4long baby girl inyo the world, Susan Olivia.

deliriously happy