Week 1: She's PERFECT!!!!

So, Wednesday was supposed to be the big day. My induction was scheduled for 7:30 am and all seemed to be according to plan. However, little Michaela decided that now, 7:30 wasn't soon enough for her.

I started having contractions at 3 am. Within 1 hour they went from being 8 minutes apart to 3 minutes apart. We arrived at the hospital at 6:30 with the contractions a constant 3 minutes apart. The set me up on all of the monitors and began watching my contractions. At that time I was 3 cm dilated. After some difficulty monitoring her heart rate using the external monitors, at 8:30 they broke my water and switched to internal monitors. My contractions progressed normally for about an hour before they started the pitocin. Once they started the pitocin they intensified a bit but didn't become any more frequent. What they did notice however, was that her heart rate seemed to drop with every contraction. At 12:30 after 9 hours of labor I decided to opt for the epidural. I was 5 cm dilated and more or less stuck. They increased the pitocin a bit and at 1:30 I was 5.5-6cm dilated. For the next six hours I stayed at this point without any progression. The doctor and nurses had serious reservations about increasing the pitocin any further because with every contraction her heart rate dropped to a concerning 90 beats per minute. Of course it stabilized after every contraction but in order to make my labor progress the contractions needed to be more frequent and stronger which also meant more frequent drops in her heart rate. At 7:30 pm the doctor thought it necessary to consider a c-section. I hadn't progressed in 6 hours and there was nothing they could do to safely encourage my body to do so. I was terrified but knew that it was what I must do for the safety of my baby girl.

After some preparation at 8:30 they began the surgery. Michaela was born at 8:56pm weighing 7lbs 15oz and was 21 inches long. She had a beautiful head full of curly dark hair I watched from a distance as they cleaned her and stitched me up. They finally finished the surgery at somewhere close to 10 and I was able to hold her at long last. She is absolutely perfect!!

We spent the next 4 days in the hospital and finally returned home on Sunday, May 13th--Mother's Day. Probably the very best Mother's Day gift I could have ever asked for. Trying to adjust to life at home with a new born is a difficult task and quite exhausting but I am happy to do it. Recovering from my surgery is difficult and I'm still in a lot of pain which hopefully will subside soon.