Eliza’s Birth: Finally Here

Part 4

[continued from part 3]

It was 7:00 and time for a shift change, so I said goodbye to my first nurse and met my new nurse. At first I wasn’t sure whether I would like her. She seemed a little tough and not as personable as the first one. But as the evening went on, she grew on me and I ended up liking her a lot. I’ve been blessed in my L&D nurses.

My contractions weren’t peaking at a high enough intensity for me to progress, so it was time to start Pitocin. I’m familiar with the “cascade of interventions,” but I knew the medicine was needed at this point, especially because of the presence of meconium. I asked the nurse to tell me each time she upped the Pitocin, and I was glad I did because she upped it frequently and I wouldn’t have even realized it. I felt in tune with what was happening.

My epidural had never blocked my pain completely, and once the augmentation began I could feel some very painful twinges. For the next hour or two the nurse was in the room almost constantly.

Then Eliza’s heart rate began dropping noticeably with each contraction, and I knew what could end up happening – baby in distress and a dreaded C-section. No one had mentioned this yet, but this situation was hard on the baby and couldn’t go on for long. I asked A.J. to pray for us and it was a very calm, sacred moment in the midst of my labor.

A few minutes later, the nurse returned to check my progress, and uttered the best phrase ever: “You’re complete.”

Hallelujah! I was so happy. It was time to get this baby out. My remaining concern was the intense nausea I was experiencing. I’d barely eaten in the past day, and in spite of Zofran I’d already thrown up a few times. I threw up while pushing with Christian and I was praying that I wouldn’t this time. It makes pushing so much harder.

My midwife came in for delivery, along with one of my doctors who was observing. There were also a few NICU nurses who would be checking Eliza immediately because she’d passed meconium (the same thing that happened when Christian was born).

Pushing was so quick it was almost anticlimactic! I didn’t throw up, and after a few contractions they could already see her head, and A.J. was telling me how close I was. Less than 15 minutes later, she was here!

She was born at 8:22 pm after 20 hours of labor, with a head of dark hair and the cutest cry, weighing 7lb. 15oz., and 20.5 inches long. What a gift from God. I’m so grateful for His protection, and especially for the way things ended after getting tense for a little while.

[concluded in part 5]