Delivery Day!

So, to catch everyone up and how things went down, all the excitement started Friday, July 31. Our doctor decided to strip the membranes that day since Elizabeth had progressed so well. That, along with walking, helped induce some mild contractions. Well, about 2 am Elizabeth woke up feeling a little damp in her underwear. She remembered from our birthing classes that when the water breaks it isn't always a huge gush of fluid, but can be a slow leak. So, Elizabeth called the OB unit at 7:30 am and asked if we should do anything. They didn't think it was anything but they told us to come in anyway. Well, needless to say a test swab confirmed the presence of amniotic fluid and she was admitted at around 8:30!

As of 1 pm Elizabeth had stopped progressing, she stalled at about 4 cm and 90% efaced. The doctor, Dr. Z, decided to finish the job and completely rupture the amniotic sack. That's when the real fun started! Within about ten minutes the painful contraction set in and Elizabeth really started getting uncomfortable. Around 2:30 the pain was significant enough the Elizabeth was ready for some pain medicine. She was originally going to get some IV pain meds, but after being checked Elizabeth was dilated to 7 cm and the nurse mentioned that she might progress too fast after to be able to get the intra-thecal. (Side note: The army hospital we went to only has a few anesthesiologists, and so they rarely do epidurals unless necessary. They do an intra-thecal injection, which is about the same as an epidural only it is an injection instead of a continuous IV. It lasts 2-4 hours and can be repeated if necessary.) In the end, the anesthesiologist didn't get to the hospital and have everything ready for an hour, aout 3:30 pm, so Elizabeth was getting extremely uncomfortable. Just about the time she was ready to get another injection, the doctor decided it was time to star pushing, around 7:45 pm.

Elizabeth did great through the final stretch. She only pushed 45 minutes and out came our baby girl! Autumn's heart-rate was dropping while Elizabeth pushed, and it turned out the chord was around her neck one time. When the doctor saw that, she cut the cord off her neck and pretty much yanked on Autumn's head until she came out. I really thought to myself, "She's going to pull her head off!". Thankfully Autumn was nice and healthy, she got a 9 on all her APGAR scores. I didn't get to cut the cord when she came out since it was around her neck, but I was able to cut the remaining chord that was still attached. She weighed 7 lbs 10.8 oz and was 21 inches long!