The Ray Family: 2012

Last pregnant picture, 40 weeks 4 days pregnant

This week a dear friend of mine, Sarah gave birth to her son, Luke. I had no idea what a flood of emotions it would bring to me and remind me that just a few short 3.5 months ago, we met our daughter. I don't want to forget a moment of that day so I will attempt to capture the day here....

After 40 weeks of pregnancy, we decided to be induced. Jordan was in favor for an induction the entire time where I really wanted to go into labor on my own. It is difficult to reason with a pregnant woman, chalked full of hormones and when people start asking you at oh 36 weeks if you are ready and you are still pregnant at 40 weeks you begin to lose your mind! I was extremely nervous about being induced. I had heard horror stories about Pitocin (PIT) and I wanted to try to labor as naturally as possible aka go without an epidural as long as I could (some would say again that you cannot reason with a crazy hormonal pregnant woman!)

We arrived at Baylor on February 16, 2012 at 0730 and checked at the front desk. They showed me to my room and we were settled in complete with a gown, fetal heart rate monitor and lots of questions. Right away the nurse noticed that Stella's basal heart rate was low which caused the monitor to alarm incessantly. One thing that can set off a hormonal 40 week crazy pregnant girl who happens to also be a nurse is hide the monitor! I couldn't see it! Of course Dr. Norwood, my OBGYN reassured me that Stella's heart rate had great variability and there is no reason to be concerned. We settled in, started an IV, Dr. Norwood checked my dilation and I was still 2cm, 100% effaced and station -2. Ugh, no progress from my last visit. So pitocin was hung.....but we did talk about taking our time titrating the drug to see how far and long I could go without an epidural! --crazy girl talk!

The pitocin started at 0905, at that time I was already having contractions on my own but could not feel them. Around 1030 I felt my first strong contraction. Around that time Dr. Norwood checked on me and said I was too comfortable (texting) to be in active labor! I started to feel the contractions and recognize them but I could talk my way through them without problems. My doctor checked me mid-morning and no progress then we had an ~~crazy~~ encouraging conversation about going home and not having a baby--everyone in the room freaked out including our parents who had driven from out of state to meet their granddaughter. After that, things were kicked up a notch, the pitocin never really changed from that point on, but my contractions became much more painful. Jordan and Debbie ran to eat lunch while my mom and dad helped me labor. We started to time the contractions (every ten min) and they lasted anywhere form a min to min and a half. From 12 to 2pm, I labored pretty hard, manipulated the bed in the chair position and tried my best to breathe through each contraction. Around 2pm my nurse and I had a ~~heart to heart~~ come to Jesus meeting about the epidural. She wanted to be on the same page, and wanted to know my game plan. I wanted to wait to find out my dilatation but all in all I decided to have the epidural. I felt that I wasn't allowing my body to relax in between contractions--aka letting my body dilate. Within 15 min the anesthesiologist was there aka the candyman (literally walked in and introduced himself that way). Epidural took effect immediately and while my nurse was inserting my foley, she decided to check me and I was 5cm dilated! She said I needed my water broken soon, and Dr. Norwood came in within 5 min to break my water! He checked me and said I was dilated to 8cm!

Ok woah! This is where we all looked at each other perplexed! How I could go from 5cm to 8cm in 5 min was mind boggling--to be honest everything is so surreal from this point on, I am still wrapping my head around it (no kidding!)

Dr. Norwood was excited about my progress and said to relax and that we would have a baby probably around this evening (he told my MIL by 7pm). My instructions were to relax and take a nap now that I had my epidural so that I could get ready to push later that day.

Instead, Stella's heart rate started showing decelerations which can mean a couple of things. My nurse started cycling my BP (I had just had the epidural which can drop my BP which drops blood flow to baby) and they had just broken my water which can place the baby in distress. A resident came in after seeing the monitor outside and this is when Jordan became nervous (the only point all day too).

My nurse decided that my BP was fine, and asked if she could check me one more time. During this period, I had started to feel a little pain in my lower left side (I mentioned this to the nurse but she was WAY more interested in the baby than me). I was fully dilated! The decelerations of Stella's heart rate were head compression or in lay man's terms LET ME OUT!

COULD NOT EVEN WRAP MY HEAD AROUND IT!

SO we started prepping for delivery or I watched everyone run around like crazy....with surgical preps being wheeled in (my mom asked if we were still going to get that nap in....haha!)

Dr. Norwood, bless his heart, arrived back from his clinic, to deliver Stella and after 11 min of pushing we were holding sweet baby girl at 3:28pm.

The whole day was completely surreal, emotional and wonderful! What an amazing day!