Labor of *Love*

Well, since I use this blog as somewhat of a journal for me (and I plan to print out certain posts that tell funny stories and such about the girls to put in their baby books)- I decided to do a post about my labor with Ava. As we were having Ava's birthday dinner Saturday evening Steve, my mom, my SIL and I all sat around and talked about the events that took place. Lots of laughs!!!!

So, here ya go........

A little history first. I had a miscarriage before I got pregnant with Isabella, got pregnant very easily with Isabella and had an uncomplicated pregnancy. Tried to grow our family when Isabella was around 9 months but over the course of 2 years had 4 more miscarriages - even more devasting was seeing heartbeats on 3 of them and finding out one pregnancy was a little girl. So, to say I wasn't scared when I was pregnant with Ava was an understatement. I had done lots and lots and lots of testing during all of my losses and I did have some things pop up that were not normal. Treatment protocol was a baby aspirin taken daily - until 36 weeks pregnant, progestorone supplements until 13 weeks of pregnancy and then daily (two times a day) shots of Heparin (blood thinner) in my stomach - given by none other than myself until delivery! So, because of all of this - I had weekly ultrasounds starting at 30 weeks (that was a VERY nice perk). So, at my 39 week appointment - we knew I would be induced if my body was "favorable" for induction (I'll spare everyone what "favorable" meant - LOL). I ended up being *somewhat* favorable but when I voiced my fear to my OB regarding my history of losses and I knew studies showed the chance of a stillbirth increased dramatically after 39 weeks for someone with my conditon - she agreed to induce me.

So, we waited while they scheduled the induction - Steve called my Mom to give her a heads up that we needed her to head over from Indiana (we were living in Ohio at the time) to stay with Isabella while we went to the hospital. After we were told I was going to be induced at 7:00 pm we headed home to finish packing my hospital bag (my appt was at 12:10 and it was around 1:00 pm at this time).

He and I arrive to the hospital - excited to get the show on the road. We get checked in, monitors in place and the Cervadil in place (gel placed on cervix to jump start labor). The gel was placed around 8:00 pm. By 11:00 pm I was having labor pains. Around midnight I asked for a shot of Stadol I think it was called - basically a drug to take the edge off of the contractions (really all it did was make me loopy and not care AFTER the contraction was over that another one was going to start back up in 4 minutes or so). Around 3:00 am I asked for another shot of Stadol because these ole contractions were starting to hurt. I do believe Steve was sleeping during all of this time, except when I would wake him to call the nurse to ask for some drugs for me. LOL

Well, come 4:30 am - I was in some freaking full force pain. Oh, yeah - Steve definetly was sleeping at this point. Also, at this point, my easy going attitude the Stadol had given me had worn off and I curtly beckoned Steve to my bedside so he could "understand" the pain I was experiencing - ie: let me squeeze his hand HARD during each contraction to possibly try and inflict the same amount of pain I was feeling in my abdomen. He really seemed put off by my "friendly" attitude I was displaying but I guess the remaining Stadol flowing through my veins allowed me to not be bothered by it. :) During a VERY, VERY painful and VERY, VERY long contraction I hear paper being rustled. Surely, my caring, compassionate husband wasn't READING was he while i was in intense pain???? Well, surely he was!!! I managed to muster "stop. reading." out of my mouth and then when the contraction finished asked him why he was being so mean to me? He really wasn't grasping the amount of pain I was feeling, despite how hard I squeezed his hand. LOL He proceeded to tell me he was reading the instruction label of the Cervadil to make sure it wasn't causing some adverse reaction. uummmm, hello..........- LABOR -????????????????????

Poor guy. I can look back on it 3 years later and laugh at how ridiculous I was to him at the time, but what did he expect? Finally around 5:30 am or 6:00 am I gave in and asked for an epidural - why I didn't do it sooner I don't know - but after what seemed like an eternity of chit chat between the anesthesiologist (spelling?) and my nurse, relief came.

Once I was pain free - I was made aware of how cold everyone felt the room was. Well, the one pregnant lady in labor felt the 60 degree room was quite nice. The nurse ended up having to wear a jacket when she came into the room, Steve walked around like an old man with a blanket wrapped around him - by this time, Steve (poor guy) knew not to ask to turn the a/c up to make it warmer. I apparently was sucking all the cold air in the building into our room because the rest of the labor rooms were super hot (it was exceptionally hot for Cincinnati - in the upper 90's). **another side note, even though it was around 98 degrees outside, Steve had to ask my mom to bring him jeans and a sweatshirt because it was that cold in the room. ROFL!!!!!!!!!!

So, around 8:00 am Ava decided to give her ole Mommy a scare. Every few contractions her heart rate would drop. You would hear beep, beep, beep (normal heart beeps) go beep.....beep....beep, beep, beep. So, they'd turn me over to one side or the other and she'd straighten up and go back to normal. Around 8:30 am - they began dropping beep............................beep.................................beep..................................beep..........................beep. I promptly had about 6 nurses in my room checking things, forcing oxygen into my face, flopping my beached whale of a self from my left side to my ride side, back to my left side - trying to get Ava to go back to normal heart beats. I instantly started crying and called Steve over and begged him to pray over me and Ava. The nurses *reassured me* (using that term loosely) that the operating room was right across the hall and they'd get her out if necessary. At this point, I was totally oblivious to what was going on around me and they must have just pushed me on their own. By this time my OB was in the room assessing things and she saw the horror and panic on my face and I just begged her to make it all right and don't let me lose Ava too. She told me that Ava was so close to being born that she could pull her out by her ears if I needed her to. LOL God did give me a sense of peace at this time, because I was calm the rest of the time when Ava's heart rate would drop.

A few short minutes later we realized why the heart was in distress - one, as mentioned the other day the cord was wrapped around her neck tightly twice and two, I dialated from a 4-5 to a 10 in a matter of 35-40 minutes. I delivered Ava at 9:15 am (around 7:30 am they told me they thought I would deliver her around 2:00 - 3:00 pm) and she was perfect and healthy as all could be.

Steve and I had always wanted 3 kids at least - but after all the pain of losing my other babies and the scare I had just experienced while delivering Ava - we at that moment I think threw in the towel to have more children. We were indeed - complete finally.