Evie's Birth Story Part 2

So, if you  missed part 1 of Evie's birth story, check it out here. So, after arriving at the hospital and getting checked in, we began to realize we were having our sweet baby girl. We began to let family and friends know we were actually doing this, and then we waited.

My contractions were not very strong, so the nurse started pitocin in a higher dosage. I began to progress and when I hit 3.5 cm, we got the epidural. I admit I cried the whole way through it. It was more the fear of the unknown than the actual process, but believe me I was much better after that. Well, until I began to have very strong contractions. Yes, I felt them. This was 3-4 hours after the initial insertion. I googled from my hospital bed, how much do you feel when you have an epidural and finally I called the nurse and expressed my pain. She had the anesthesiologist come back and he told me the epidural had some a little lose, but it would be fine, he just gave me another dose.

So we slowed down the pitocin, put me on another drug to stop contractions, added some more pain meds and then began basically again. 3-4 hours later, the contractions were back and in my back. I had progressed from a 3.5 to an 8 in less than a hour. Evie was sunny side up and her head was pushing into my spine. The pain was worse than anything I ever experienced in my life. I was crying, J was upset and I just wanted it to stop. Finally the charge nurse came in and said I needed another epidural or I would not make it through the pushing.

Ya know pre epidural fail

So, another epidural I got. This one numbed me from the boobs down and finally I had some relief. We upped the pitocin and got the contractions ramped back up. Finally around 5am we began to push. And push I did. It was such a strange feeling to push when you can't feel what you are pushing.

At 7am, the nurse shift changed and I had my original nurse back. My OB came and checked on me, and we decided we needed to get Evie to roll over. This began the marathon of the every changing pushing position. I pushed in every way imaginable to get sweet Evie to roll over. Finally she moved and the real work began.

Sweet girl's head was just not wanting to come out. We could see her sweet head and the color of her hair, but she was just struck. I pushed and pushed. My doctor finally threatened a c-section since she was bigger than I could handle and we were coming up on 20 + hours. And then at 8:24am, and an episiotomy later, Evelyn Ray came into our world. 7lbs 4 oz. 20 inches long.

After that, its kind of a blur. We headed to post partum and haven't slept much since. Sunday morning Evie was taken from me as her billyrubin level was 15, which for 48 hours old, is very severe. She had a bad case of jaundice and needed to have phototherapy. It was scary and J was not there yet, (side note, he spent the night at home each night because at 6'1 he could not fit on the "bed" they have).

Evie was put on mandatory tanning bed duty and force fed every three hours from me and donor milk. I didn't sleep, I was frustrated with trying to feed her and then pump what I could. It was such an emotional roller coaster.

It was such an odd feeling to leave the hospital Sunday to get dinner and leaving her there in the nursery. I stayed another night in the hospital another night so I could feed Evie every three hours.

Finally Monday morning, her levels where down and we got to take our sweet girl home.

And then the real adventure began.