Ilyana Noel Marzen was born Saturday February 21st 2015 at 6:58pm. She weighed 6 lbs. 5 oz. and measured 19 in. long. She is perfect in every way! Here's her birth story...
Saturday morning I woke up around 7 and was laying in bed thinking about how I felt very overwhelmed with the idea of going to church the next day. If we went, people would be pestering us about when we were going to have this baby, but if we stayed home we would be receiving texts and calls all day asking if we missed because we were in labor! After some prayer and meditation thinking about how God is our protector I drifted back to sleep until around 8 o'clock. Around 8 I felt a small amount of fluid leak out, at first I just figured it was some weird pregnancy thing (there's a lot going on down there when you're 39 weeks pregnant!), but when I got up to go to the bathroom there was a huge gush of fluid! At this point I knew, this was either my water breaking or my bladder had exploded (either way, it was time to go to the hospital). Before rushing off to the bathroom, I turned to Jake and said something along the lines of "Uh, Jake, I think my water just broke.". He woke right up and was very excited (who gets a full night of sleep before going into labor?!). After showering and eating some breakfast we headed off to the hospital. Around 9 o'clock they checked to see if my water had broke and knew right away that it was indeed my water. They checked my cervix at this point and I was dilated to 3.5 cm, 100% effaced, and her head was at 0 station. After they admitted us and set us up in our room they suggested we walk the halls a bit to see if we could get some contractions started (at this point I wasn't feeling any). Around 12:30 I still wasn't feeling much besides the occasional mild contraction and the doctors were planning to re-access around 1 o'clock to decide if I needed pitocin (a drug that brings on strong contractions, which I really didn't want!) so we decided to give our essential oils a try and rubbed some Joy (which has jasmine oil in it) on my stomach and ankles. Within minutes I started feeling mild but consistent contractions! Around 1 o'clock they were glad to see that I was starting to contract, however, if I wasn't progressing (which they thought was likely since the contractions were so mild) they were strongly considering the pitocin. But when they checked me I was already dilated to 5 cm! After getting checked, contractions started to really pick up and become closer together and more painful so I decided to get into the whirlpool bathtub to try to help ease some of the back labor pain. At this point, I really didn't have any sense of time. It seemed to me that only about 10 minutes had passed when in reality it had been closer to about 30-45 minutes before I was telling (begging) Jake to tell a nurse to get me an epidural. The back labor at this point was just too much to handle. I wasn't even aware of when I was having contractions because the back labor was so intense. As Jake went to go call our nurse, I was sitting (writhing) in the bathtub when all of the sudden the whirlpool jets turned on for no reason. I think I was just overwhelmed by the loud noise on top of everything my body was going through and I started yelling at them as I tried to find the button to turn them off! This was the point that I really started to break down emotionally. Around 3:00 I was finally out of the tub, gowned, and back in the hospital bed. As they waited for the anesthesiologist to arrive, they checked my cervix again and I was still at 5 cm, but her head had moved down to +1 station. Finally the anesthesiologist arrived and I was able to get an epidural (thank God I had listened to my nurse that morning and signed the consent forms for the epidural "just in case". There was no way at this point that I could have signed anything.). For those of you who don't know, I HATE needles, so a large needle going into my back was a pretty horrible experience. Before they can put in the actual epidural they have to give you a shot in the back to help numb your back. This was probably the worst part of labor for me. I was already in excruciating pain from the back labor and contractions, the shot was extremely painful, I was thinking about the large needle in my back, and I had the anesthesiologist yelling at me to calm down (You calm down, buddy! You aren't the one in labor with a large needle in your back!)! Finally, I was able to calm down enough that they were able to get the epidural in and the pain started to diminish. Around 4:00, once the epidural had set in, they checked me again and I was at 8 cm. Apparently the relaxation the epidural gave was exactly what my body needed. The plan at this point was to check me again around 6:00 so I watched a movie while Jake finished writing a paper, it was great! Around 5:30 I started to notice some added pressure 'down there' and felt like I wanted to push. A little after 6 the doctor finally came in to check me and confirmed that I was indeed at 10 cm and her head was down far enough that she could probably see it if she cheated. At 6:19 it was time to start pushing! The first 20 minutes or so the pushing wasn't too bad, just some mild discomfort with the pressure down there. After that, the pressure started to get pretty painful so I don't really remember much. According to Jake, Dr. Lyons (the doctor who delivered her, who was spectacular, by the way) got to the room a little after 6:50. I remember opening my eyes long enough to see she was there and seeing that she had a scalpel. which I quickly put out of my mind (Jake said she never actually used it though). After several minutes the pressure was to the point that I felt like I couldn't do it any longer when all of the sudden a push felt REALLY good and they were putting a baby up on my chest! I couldn't believe it! After 39 minutes of pushing, she was finally here! After a minute or two on my chest she was still pretty purple so they took her for a minute to give her a little oxygen (she pinked up right away after that!), clean her up, and check her weight and height. Finally they brought her back and I was able to hold and cuddle my little girl! Even though my labor didn't go exactly according to my plan, I wouldn't change a thing about it (besides things I couldn't control, like the pain, etc)!
Ilyana has been the most perfect baby. She's absolutely beautiful and Jake and I are just so in love with her! I thank God everyday for entrusting us with His beautiful creation!
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment