Welcoming a new baby into the world is truly amazing and welcoming every one of my children into the world has been an incredible life changing moment in my life. The difference with Emme is that now we feel so complete. We just keep saying we are all here now, our family is complete and it is an amazing feeling.
So to our sweet Emme's birth day, I was induced this time around and I've never been induced before. It was so convenient haha, and it felt kind of weird. Everything was planned and calm, my mom and Kaytee and Cassie showed up at 6:30am to get the kids out the door to school and to watch the girls and Brock and I packed up our bags and headed to S.L. I kept saying I feel like we are going on a vacation not going to the hospital to have a baby. We arrived at the hospital just after 7:30 and they started getting us checked in. The nurse asked "how many live births have you had?" and I said 4, and she said "no, how many children do you have already at home right now"? And I said "4, this (pointing to my belly) is number 5". She kind of paused with her pen in mid air but recovered quickly and finished filling out my chart. Haha I know it's hard to believe a 29 year old could possibly have 5 children but I am pretty thrilled about being done with my child bearing before the age of 30!
We finally got checked into our room and hooked up to all the monitors and then it was time to sit and wait. I wasnt sure what we were waiting for or how this whole induction thing worked, but I guessed we were waiting for the doctor. I was having contractions about every 8 minutes so I was happy about that. My biggest worry was having to get pitocin, I was hoping to do this un-medicated again, but with it being an induction I wasnt sure how it was going to go. Around 9:45 my doctor came in and checked me, I was dilated to a 5 (woot woot) and my contractions were still a steady 8 minutes apart. I feel like Emme was completely on board with her birthday being July 28th and I like to think she was planning on coming later that day anyway. Because I was having contractions she said she could just break my water and skip the pitocin for now, but if things didnt progress we would have to evaluate. I told her with my last 2 girls once my water was broken they were both born in less then an hour, so lets cross our fingers this goes quick!
My mom arrived shortly after the doctor left and within 10 minutes my contractions were coming on good. They were every 5 minutes and then within an hour they were every 3 minutes and were getting nice and painful. When the nurse came back in she checked me and I was a 7 so she called my doctor to come back. I thought from here I would only have a few minutes and this would be over. My doctor came in and the 2 nurses came in and got everything ready, they checked me again and I was an 8. The contractions started getting deep and painful and were 3 minutes apart. I started getting really hot, and the sweet nursery nurse came over and fanned me the rest of the labor. Seriously I wanted to kiss her she was so amazing to just stand there with a paper fan and fan me for the next 45 minutes..
My doctor just sat there and waited with me through the labor and the one nurse fanned me and the other nurse put pressure on my right knee and Brock put pressure on my left knee (seriously this felt amazing!) through every contraction. At first I thought this is so weird why is everyone just in here watching me, I want to go through this pain by myself without everyone watching but then I just ignored them and breathed through my contractions. The room was very calm, my dr. chatted with my mom and when I wasnt in a contraction I chatted too. I was handling the contractions fine and I thought it was even easier then with Lyla because I was getting a pretty solid 3 minute break between contractions. About 15 minutes later she checked again and said I was a 9 but not quite there yet, and we were still waiting for some cervix to efface. Another 15 minutes and I started feeling some good pressure, pushing was relieving the pain so she checked again and said to give it a few more contractions before we start pushing. At noon she checked again, it had been exactly 2 hours since she broke my water she said I was a full 10 and could start pushing now if I was ready.
With my last 3 babies all I had to do for pushing was push about 2-3 times and there was a baby, it has been by far the easiest part, it was almost a relief to push. This time pushing was by far the worst part, I felt like I was dying. It was like she was stuck inside me and no matter how hard I pushed she wouldnt come all the way out. I couldnt stop pushing, but I was exhausted and couldnt push any longer. And my mind started panicking why is she stuck inside me, with the next contraction I pushed with every ounce of energy and force I had inside me and felt like I was being ripped apart, and finally there was a head. And the rest of her slipped out and she was immediately placed on my belly. The relief I felt is impossible to fully describe, but here's how my thoughts were running through my head... She's here! That was terrible! That was the worst pain of my life! Why did I do that to myself again? She has dark hair! and lots of it and she's covered in cheese! and shes here and its over and I never have to do that again! That hurt so bad, I can't believe I did that to myself again, but its so worth it shes here! Oh my sweet baby is here! Emme was born at 12:11pm hardest 11 minutes of my life! But I was so grateful it was only 11 minutes!
It turns out Emmeline was ready to face the world and decided to come sunny side up. Which is the harder way to deliever a baby, so go me I guess. haha for the last week before she was born I kept saying to people I think shes faced the wrong way, I cant feel a back bone and my back is killing me. And it turns out I was right, although I assumed she would turn before being delieverd, but I guess she didnt have time. After doing some research I think it's pretty lucky that my labor only lasted 2 hours and that pushing only lasted 11 minutes.
They let Brock cut the cord, he's never got to do that before. And they let me hold her and nurse her and do skin to skin with her before taking her to be weighed and measured. I was so grateful for this because little did I know I really wouldnt get to hold her or bond with her or feed her for the next few hours. During this whole time of bonding with my baby, my doctor is getting more and more worried. I hadn't had any more contractions that were needed to deliver my placenta. My Dr. gave me some pitocin, and then gave me some more pitocin but it still wasnt working. At this point it had been about 40 minutes since Emme was born and my dr. was getting pretty worried. She decided she may need to do a manual removal of the placenta but she wanted to see if she could figure out where it was at. She tried twice to find the placenta and it was the most excruciating pain of my life. The nurse had to hold me down and I literally couldnt handle the pain. She said she couldnt find it which led her to believe it was imbedded into my uterus and the only option was an immediate trip to the operating room.
Everything happened so fast after that, within minutes I was being wheeled into the O.R. and the anesthesiologist was giving me a spinal and I was so upset inside and trying so hard not show it. I had just gone through birthing a baby with no medication only to need an epidural as soon as the baby is born. But I was trying so hard to stay calm on the outside even though I was in complete panic inside. I hate losing control and in this situation nothing was in my control. One minute Im holding my beautiful new daughter and the next I'm laying on an operating table with my legs in these insane stirrup thingy's and I cant feel my legs and everyone is in surgical masks and thank heavens at that point they put on my oxygen and gave me some laughing gas and I fell asleep. I woke up as they wheeled me back into the room and it was over.
My Dr. came in to talk to my mom, Brock was in the nursery with the baby, and she said my placenta was embedded deeply into my uterus and it was good they got me back there when they did. I hemorrhaged but they were only mildly concerned about my blood loss and would just keep a close eye on me the next 24 hours. If I hadn't been in a hospital I likely wouldn't have made it, but everything was taken care of, now we just have to watch for infection. Within an hour my body was shaking so bad I felt like I was going to fall out of my bed, the nurse came and took my temperature and sure enough I had a fever of 102.3 Their biggest fear was infection, so they started me on 3 doses of antibiotics and lots of other medications, I couldn't keep track of everything they were pumping into me.
It took until around 6 or 7pm that night before I felt ok. They didnt let me change rooms until 10:30 that night. I've never had a recovery where I felt as bad as this time. I felt so awful, my insided ached in a way I've never felt before. But every hour that passed I felt a little bit better. And my baby was so perfect and so beautiful. She was thriving and doing great and I was so grateful it was me that had complicatons and not her. Brock took such great care of me and Emmeline those first few days while I was recovering and my strength came back pretty quickly which was mandatory since I have 4 other little people to take care of.
Overall it was by far my most eventful birth, but at the end of the day we had a beautiful healthy baby and I was recovering just fine. The other little people got to come and meet their new sister and they were all in love, and I am just so happy that they are all together now. I felt through this whole pregnancy and even more so at the hospital Emme just wanted to be here with her siblings, she was missing them!
Adjusting to 5 hasnt been too much different then 4, having a baby around the house slows down our routine but it's good to slow down and enjoy having a newborn around, it only lasts for a short time. Before I know it she will be running around making me crazy, just like her big brothers and sisters. I love this crazy life of mine, and I wouldn't have in any other way.
