Every half and hour they upped the pitocin by 2 cc. Once they got to 14 cc the contractions were coming on too quickly and right on top of one another. The nurses/doctor thought that perhaps baby was head down but turned face up and that was causing the many contractions. They played around with the pitocin level and finally by 3 pm I was dilated to 3 cm and was officially "in labor". Up until this point I was feeling great. It was a little annoying to have to be in bed, but I wasn't uncomfortable. I watched TV, talked to the nurses and tried to nap. Once I was dilated to a 3, I was pretty miserable. The contractions were hard and coming every 2 minutes or so. I asked for the epidural and got it around 4 pm. I had heard such horror stories about the epidural so I was expecting the worst. In truth, it was no big deal. I felt a prick in my back and then a warm sensation when they hooked up the meds, but that was it! I felt almost instant relief with the epidural. I could still feel everything that was going on I just couldn't feel pain, I could still feel myself contracting, just not the cramping feeling. I think having the epidural caused me to relax which helped speed things up. Within an hour I had dilated to a 6 and my water broke on its own. I was fully dilated to a 10 by 8 pm and my doctor wanted to give me one hour to help baby come down on her own before I started pushing. By 8:30 I felt the urge to push and they let me do a few practice ones before they called the doctor. The doctor was there by 9:00 or so and after a few pushes, baby Savannah was here! It was such a weird sensation and a total out-of-body experience. Since baby was a little large, I experienced a 3rd degree tear (only thing worse, is a 4th degree!) and had to get stitched up for quite a while. When my water broke earlier, there was meconium in the fluid which meant that the NICU nurses would be present for her delivery to make sure baby didn't aspirate any of it. Luckily, she was just fine and took her first clear breath after they suctioned her mouth.
I just watched in awe as they cleaned her up and did all of her testing/measurement, it was hard to believe she was really here and that she was really ours. She weighed in at 8 lbs and 3.6 oz and 20 inches tall! I could not believe that huge of a baby was inside my belly.
We stayed one and a half days in the hospital and came home Wednesday afternoon. The hospital was pretty relaxing and we had a few friends come to visit, which was nice. We are now home and anxiously awaiting my moms flight in a few hours. So far Savannah is an excellent baby. She is big, healthy and happy. We are still working out the kinks of nursing and sleeping patterns, but I am sure we will get it with time. Savannah seems to like to sleep during the day and be awake all night. Even though I am a little sleep deprived, I am just loving this whole experience. It is crazy to have this tiny little person to take care of, but it is easy at the same time because I can't believe how much I love her. We are still not entirely sure who she looks like and can see traits of both of us in her. So far the consensus is that she has Jayson's chubby cheeks and button nose and my eyes and lips. And as far as the hair, we are not sure where she picked that up...
Eating jello while waiting for baby. I had breakfast at 6 am and wasn't able to eat again until after she was born, around 9:15 pm. That was pretty hard, especially for a girl who was used to eating every hour or so :)
A family of 3! I was so proud of Jayson through out the whole day. He was such an excellent coach and didn't get sick or nauseas at the sight of everything.
Sucking fingers
So alert
Getting to know dad
chubby monkey
Coming home!
