A GRAND ARRIVAL

Brooklynn Elizabeth Compton

June 7, 2010

9:32 AM

8 lbs 7 oz 20 in

I’m thinking that Brooklynn has her Dad’s flair for drama!

She sure had to make a grand entrance!

On Sunday the 6th I woke up at 2:20 am to go to the bathroom and my water started leaking. It wasn’t a full break and I wasn’t having contractions, so I went back to bed thinking that contractions would start soon and we would be on our way. But contractions never really started. I awoke for bathroom breaks at 4:45, 5:45, and 6:45 and each time I sat down my water leaked a little bit more. I woke Eric up at 5:00 to tell him what was going on and that I wasn’t sure what we should do. We decided that we would wait and see what was going to happen and if no contractions started by 8:00 we would call the doctor to see what we should do. I thought for sure that if my water was broken that contractions would have already started or would soon be on the way, I was so confused!

I ended up calling the doctor at 7:45 and she said that we should head into the hospital to get checked out. So we brushed our teeth and got in the car wondering if this would be the day our little girl would come. We got to the hospital a little after 8:00 am and just as the front desk was being told we were on our way in. We went into triage and got hooked up to the monitors where we once again heard how happy our baby is and waited for the doctor to come check me out. The doctor finally came in around 10:00 and confirmed that my water had ruptured and that since I wasn’t contracting they were going to induce me, which is definitely not something that I had planned on happening!

When we got into our birthing room and hooked up to everything there the nurse said that she was picking up contractions 2-3 min apart (but I still wasn’t really feeling them) and because of that she wasn’t sure if we would be able to induce. So she called the doctor to see what she said. When the nurse came back she told us that we were being sent out to walk to see if we could get things moving along. So we walked around for about an hour. When we got back the nurse told us that the contractions were still too weak, so we were back on the inducing track. So she hooked me up to the IV and started the Pitocin at about 12:30 and we geared up for the long road ahead of us! I had already been wishing that I had eaten more than one muffin while I was waiting for the doctor to return my call that morning, so now I was hoping the Pitocin would work it’s magic and I would be able to have some dinner…here’s to wishful thinking!!

The Pitocin slowly worked it’s magic. I felt some contractions, but nothing too strong or painful until about 8:30. The doctor checked me sometime around this time and we were only at 3 cm! I couldn’t believe that we had been on Pitocin for 8 hours and I had only dilated 1 cm more than I was at my last appointment! Our next check was going to be around midnight and I was finally realizing that we weren’t going to see our baby girl anytime soon. Now I was REALLY wishing I had eaten something more than a muffin before we headed into the hospital. I was STARVING!!!! The contractions continued to get stronger and more and more painful and I was having a harder and harder time dealing with the pain. My parents had been in and out all day long and they came back around 10:00, just in time to join the fun! At one point my mom was holding my hand and the pain was so bad I told her that I wanted it to go away. It wasn’t long after that I decided that I needed an epidural or there was no way I was going to make it through the night or the delivery. I should probably mention that Eric had been so amazing during this entire process, he held my hand did all that he could to comfort me. He knew that I wanted to try to have Brooklynn without having an epidural, and when I told him that I wanted one he got on the phone right away to call the nurse. Getting the epidural was quite the experience when my contractions were so hard and intense and it was so hard for me to sit still through them. Oh the sweet relief! Once the epidural was in and the medicine kicked in I was out almost immediately.

At Midnight I had dilated to 5 cm! Progress! The nurse had to come in to wake me up every hour to 1 ½ hours so that I could switch sides I was sleeping on and the medicine would distribute properly, but despite that I was able to sleep peacefully and I was so glad not to be feeling the contractions all night long. At some point in the night my blood pressure started dropping and it was not making Brooklynn happy, so the nurse had to come in and give me medicine and she put me on oxygen for awhile. The doctor came back at 4:45 am and we were almost completely dilated she estimated that I would be fully dilated in 1 hour. Sure enough, she came back at 5:45 and informed the nurse that we could start pushing, which we did a little before 6:00. We called my mom once the doctor told us we were going to push and she arrived just a little bit after we had started.

We pushed for 3 hours, which amazingly went by extremely fast, and weren’t really making any progress in getting Brooklynn out. A little before 9:00 the doctor (our second “on-call” doctor since being in the hospital) came in to see how things were going and she wasn’t too happy with the progress, or lack thereof, that had been made. She told us that they generally don’t like to go longer than 3 hours pushing on a first baby as it can cause complications. She gave us two options: she could try to use the vacuum or we could have a c-section. She told us that she was not confident that the vacuum would be successful and she recommended that we go with the cesarean. I definitely wanted to do what was best for Brooklynn, and as much as I didn’t want to I knew that we needed to do the cesarean.

Within 10 minutes we were in the operating room and things were getting going. Brooklynn had pooped during labor, so they also had the NICU nurses in the room to make sure that everything was ok when she came out. I was so glad that Eric was with me the whole time, I couldn’t imagine going through the cesarean without him. Apparently Brooklynn had wedged herself in pretty good while I was pushing because the doctor couldn’t just pull her out. One of the nurses had to push her from below as the doctor was pulling so that they could actually get her out. But at 9:32 am, about 25 hours after we arrived at the hospital, our baby girl was born!

   

Her first cries were the sweetest sounds I have ever heard and I couldn’t wait to see her! It was so hard to not be able to see her right away and I extremely emotional because her birth had not gone in any way how I would have chosen, but every moment was worth it when they brought her over for me to see her. She was so beautiful! And she looked so much like Eric. I couldn’t believe that that perfect little angel was mine.

I can't believe that she is already 1 week old!!