It has taken me quite some time to finally put this experience into words. This is for many reasons, but most importantly because I realize how quickly time passes and I want to spend every minute I can with my sweet girl before reality sets in and I go back to work. However I also know that penning it to paper (or to the more eternal version: the internet) makes this life changing experience not just ours anymore, it is something that everyone has an eye into. I cherished the fact that Oliver & I lived it together, it was just us in that room and something about that is so sacred. I can't say that it should be that way for everyone but for Oliver & I it was exactly the way we wanted it.
So here goes the short version of how our little angel arrived...
My due date was December 19th which came and went without any sign of labor. I went to my OB and she tried to work her magic to get things started, but our girl had no plans of exiting anytime soon! Christmas came and went and she was still not here, which I think was the hardest part. I had envisioned her in the already purchased
Hanna Andersson PJ's snuggled up with us watching Christmas movies- maybe next year!
Oliver & I arrived on Saturday December 26th at 7:30AM for a scheduled induction. We were both anxious and excited, completely unaware of what was to come. They began the induction process at 8:30am with a cervical ripening agent which requires bed rest and fetal monitoring for an hour, followed by 3 hours of just "wait and see". We did this twice, I then started to show signs of progress so we skipped the last dose. Around 6pm I started to feel some mild contractions, I walked the halls and sat on an exercise ball to help through those. Around 11pm the contractions became more painful and frequent, despite only dilating 1 cm more than when we arrived! This was incredibly frustrating! They started pitocin and shortly after an epidural. Around 2:00am the MD attempted to break my water, however Maggie was still in a position that was too high to do so, so we continued to wait. At nearly 4:00am my water broke on its own, but still no progress in terms of dilation. Finally at 8:30 am on Sunday 12/27 the OB on call explained if we still continue to see no progress we will move towards a c-section, but he would give me until 11 am. This decision was made due to the length of time since my water broke, and the fact that they knew Maggie was measuring on the larger side.
Just after 10:00am the nurse came rushing in and noted abnormal heart rate tracings on the monitor (I was really reaching to remember from my nursing school days!) moments after that we were in the OR. I remember crying, not because I was scared, I was incredibly overwhelmed. We had waited so long for her and I was overcome with emotion that soon we would be holding her.
There were some minor complications which prevented me from holding her in the OR, which made that nearly 2 hours feel like an eternity. I felt so helpless when she was crying and wanted nothing more than to console her. Luckily the newly minted Daddy came to the rescue! Oliver held her close to me so I could kiss and snuggle her. Unlike myself, Oliver didn't grow up around babies or have much experience so he was definitely nervous going into parenthood, but those first few moments seeing them together made it ever so clear he was a natural and would be the best Dad to our baby girl.
What came after that was endless snuggles, kisses and happy tears! I can't possibly put into words how blessed we are to have this sweet baby.
I just love this photo of Oliver, I woke up in the middle of the night to see him just staring at his little girl. It makes me tear up every time I look at it- he really is the sweetest Dad ever!
For now we are cherishing every moment with her, but I hope to be back to regular blogging very soon!
As always thank you for reading along and sharing in this journey with me!
XO
