I guess I'll start the story on October 5th. My due date was October 3rd. No matter how much I told myself the baby would certainly be late, just like my other two, it is still disappointing to have your due date come and go and still be hugely pregnant with no signs of that changing anytime soon. Alas, the fifth saw me back at the clinic for my 40+ week appointment. Luckily I was dilated to a three, better than nothing! I knew my doctor was on call that weekend so I assumed I'd be coming in Saturday to be induced. But she was also on call on Friday and the hospitals prefer you don't schedule elective inductions for the weekend so she asked me to come in on Friday instead. Mentally, that loss of a day was a bit of a struggle for me. But we adjusted our plans and it all worked out.
We handed the kids off to my mom Thursday evening and headed home to do some last minute cleaning and prep. We woke up bright and early Friday morning in order to get to the hospital by 7 am. My doctor was supposed to be there around 8 but we didn't end up seeing her until close to 9. Already a slower start than we imagined. I was still at a 3 so she broke my water and went on her way. About 30 minutes later I got up to go to the bathroom. After I got back in bed I started to feel pretty rotten. I was hot and sweaty and nauseous. I started to tell Brennan and it continued to get worse, sounds were seeming far away and my vision was getting weird. He called in the nurse, who then called in several more. They flattened my bed and put a fan on me. It helped for awhile but it started coming back. Then they recommended I lay on my side. Anyway, I guess I vagaled out. For some reason my blood pressure plummeted. It was a horrible feeling and I just kept wondering how on earth I would be able to get through labor and delivery feeling like that. But luckily I didn't have to. One theory is that breaking my water caused the baby to kind of settle on my vena cava, cutting off blood supply, which would explain why laying on my side helped so much. Who knows?
I had progressed from a 3 to a 4 in that half hour or so but after that progress slowed down. It took me from 10:00 am to 3:30 pm to go from a 4 to a 6. It was long, and definitely mentally challenging. I had really kind of convinced myself this labor was likely to be fairly quick like my other ones. But we mostly just kind of hung out. I did my best to rest and Brennan just....well I don't really know what he did haha. The contractions definitely weren't fun but for the most part until at least 2 or so I could breathe through them on my own so I don't think Brennan even knew when I was having one. They were also far enough apart that I had plenty of time to rest in between. Around 2 is when they started to kick up a notch. I would have to concentrate through them and squeeze Brennan's hand. I was definitely leaning toward getting an epidural but the vagal episode had me worried. I knew an epidural could lower your blood pressure and since that had already happened
without an epidural I wasn't sure what to do. Around 3:30 I decided to go ahead an get one. They had to get some extra fluids in me for that so it wasn't until after 4 that the process was started. The epidural seemed to go well and I felt relief pretty quickly. The anesthesiologist was in the room for quite awhile, I guess just making sure things were going okay, and when he came to check in with me before he left I told him it felt like my heart was racing. I wasn't overly concerned about it but it wasn't the best feeling and I just wanted some reassurance that it was normal. Unfortunately that's not what I got. He looked at my monitors and had to ask the nurse if he was seeing my heart rate or the baby's. My heart rate was 161! Still that probably wouldn't have concerned me since I have next to no medical knowledge. But he was clearly quite concerned. He started pushing on my neck and telling me he was pressing on my carotid artery because if it was SVT (whatever the heck that is!) it would knock me out of it. Okay...I was definitely starting to get alarmed at this point. He was speaking with all this medical jargon I couldn't understand and kind of acting like it was an emergency. My poor, sweet nurse, Danielle, tried to reassure me but it was a hard job with this guy in the room. He really was a nice guy but clearly doesn't spend a lot of time in the maternity ward haha. My heart rate continued to fluctuate but apparently I had been running in the 120s all day (thanks childbirth anxiety) so it wasn't as extreme a jump as you might have initially thought. It seemed to go up between contractions not during them, which seems a bit backwards and was almost always accompanied by extremely low blood pressure which they had to give me drugs for a couple of times. Apparently my OB was never really worried about it but wasn't there to say that to me unfortunately! Meanwhile the anesthesiologist ordered an EKG! So some random guy comes in and hooks me up to test my heart. Oh and a lovely little side note, I had heartburn all through labor! So anytime I laid on my back I felt so sick and here I am at the end of labor having to lay on my back for an EKG! Anyway, like I said, a heart rate that high is a rather unpleasant feeling but luckily labor didn't last too much longer. By a little before I six I was complete and by 6 I was feeling the urge to push. 16 minutes later she was here!!
It's just amazing how all that anxiety and dread leading up to childbirth is so worth it and so forgotten as soon as you see that baby.
She was 8 lbs 13 oz! Why do I grow such giants? :) She is already back up to 8 lbs 12 oz. So it didn't take her long to get back to birth weight. She's an eater.
Curly hair! I was so excited when I saw that! Finally! Unfortunately it was short lived. After her bath it was straight. :( But at least she has hair. Way more than our other kids. And I'm still holding onto a tiny bit of hope that it will be curly.
Probably my favorite picture of Emry from the hospital:
These pictures are from when the kids came to see us on Saturday afternoon.
I have three kids?!
I can't even say how happy this picture makes me. I seriously love these people.
The Eskelsens came to see us Sunday morning.
These pictures are from Friday night. My parents said they just couldn't keep the kids away, they were so excited. So they came less than an hour after Emry was born so they wouldn't be too late getting home. They really were so excited and I loved seeing it. I think seeing me looking a little less than myself in a hospital bed made them nervous, especially Tatum. I am so glad they could be with my parents through all of this. I knew they were somewhere they loved with people they love and love them. It made it all less stressful and it allowed Brennan to stay with me and Emry the whole time which is precious time you never get again.
Her first bath Friday night.
More pictures from Saturday's visit. Tatum is going to be such a help! She really does a good job holding her and soothing her.
All dressed and ready to go home. Thanks for the adorable outfit Aunt Mara!
She looks so long! She was 21 inches long, one inch shorter than both of her siblings.
Headed out.
The cutest!!
We made it home and are trying to soak in this baby as much as we can. The kids are adjusting well. They are tired from a weekend of fun with Grandma and Papa but they really are doing well. Emry has been such a good baby so far. The last two nights she has only woken up once to eat overnight!! I hope and pray that is a trend that will continue. But I won't hold my breath. ;)
