Our Birth Story (graphic)

Finally going to update this. Its only been 7 months, and Ember is 6 months old already!

Two weeks before I give birth, Erik gets laid off from his job. The asshole that hired him basically hired him to clean up and organize his warehouse and once Erik was done with that, they laid him off. Can you say, Stress much?

Saturday, November 5th, 2011: We get to the doctors and I am exhausted and just wanting to hear good news. I really wanted to give birth on 11-11-11 and was hoping that she would keep cooking until then and then I would get induced or have a csection on that day. That wasnt exactly what happened. The doctor checks me out and I am partially effaced and not really dilated at all. He decides he wants to induce me that Monday, the 7th. He calls Fountain Valley Hospital to schedule my induction for 5am that Monday. I am freaking out in my head, thinking, WAIT!!! That's way too soon! I still need to deep clean the house and get everything done before she is supposed to come home. Thankfully, the hospital is full up on inductions for that morning, so they push it to November 8th, at 5am, my actual due date.

Tuesday, November 8th, 2011: Bags have been packed for weeks now. Get up at 4am to get there by 5am. We get to the hospital and are put into a room. There are 3 csections and 2 regular births scheduled for that day. Lots of babies happening!

This is me about to get changed into my hospital gown.. Its actually happening!!

They get me set up and on the monitors and check to see if I am having contractions. I am having contractions, and have dilated to 2 cm and didnt know it. I guess even if I had tried to wait until the 11th, she was ready to come now. They get an IV drip in my arm and start the Pitocin. I am great for about 45 mins to an hour. Then I start to feel the contractions. Then they get a little bit worse.

Erik and I before the contractions started in. Happy to finally get to see our daughter!

The only problem at this point, is that there is only one anesthesiologist and 6 pregnant women about to give birth. Either I got my epidural early, at 3 cm, or I might not get it at all. Hmm, I wonder. So I got the epidural. The anesthesiologist was super nice and explained everything. She made Erik leave the room, because I guess most men cant handle seeing a huge needle go in their woman's spine. He left and got a snack. The numbing shots that I got before the epidural needle line was put in, stung so bad, it was almost worse than the childbirth itself. Once they start the Epidural line, I am grand. I cant stand anymore, so they have to put in a catheter. That was very uncomfortable for a while.. (side note: a student doctor did it and I ended up getting a bladder infection so bad that I had to go to the ER weeks later, when I woke up Erik from shaking with a fever of 102.)

At this point, I dont feel anything and I am super exhausted from getting up so early and not being able to sleep the night before. I take a nap for four hours. Erik tried to sleep, but the chair didnt make a good bed, poor guy. I wake up and I am still not feeling anything. So I play on my phone to pass the time. I think my family showed up around then. They couldnt come in though. They had to wait in the waiting room. All of them showed up together, coming from pretty far away. My two best friends also were there. A few hours pass and:

5pm: Doctor comes in to check my progress and I am ready to push. Fully effaced, dilated and crowning. The doctor runs home to get his gym bag, while the nurses move me into a delivery room and help me practice pushing. I start pushing as soon as he gets back. I swear hes only gone for like 5 mins. I push, and push and push and push some more. I push for 1.5 hours and nothing. They can see her head playing peekaboo with my pelvic bone. The nurse says oh my gosh, thats a lot of hair! I get excited, and push harder, but to no avail. The doctor decides to use a vaccuum on her to help her out. In the middle of all this, the epidural has worn off. I think it has something to do with the fact that legs were up in the stirrups for so long, that the blood flow wasnt bring the epidural where it should have been. It registers that I am starting to feel pain, but it isnt that bad and I for some reason think that this is normal. I find out later, that I shouldnt have felt anything. I push and the vacuum does its job and get her head past my pelvic bone. The only problem is that the pain is so severe that I am yelling and in tears. The doctor keeps telling me to push, but when I push it hurts. When I stop pushing it hurts. I am exhausted and kind of just lay there. I scream out "get this fucking baby out of me!!!" the doctor yells at me and tells me that I need to help get her out and push. A couple more pushes and she is finally out. The moment she is out, there is such sweet relief. The pain is gone and I have this beautiful daughter of mine laying in my lap getting cleaned off by nurses. I look down at her and then lay back and cry tears of relief and joy.

Welcome to the world Ember Rose Gray

So relieved!!!

Daddy cuts the cord.

Now the graphic part: I ripped from one end to the other. My doctor swears up and down that if you do not get an episiotomy and you rip, that you will heal better ripping than with an episiotomy. I dont know what kind of crack he is smoking, but either way, I ripped and it sucked. Especially getting the stiches, when I had no more epidural. The only good part about the epidural wearing off, was that I was able to get off the delivery bed and walk to the bathroom and to the bed where they measured and took Ember's birthweight.

Ember Rose Gray. Born November 8th, 2011 at 7:10pm. Weight 7.7lbs and 23 inches long.

Super long and skinny little baby!

It's amazing how much giving birth takes out of a woman.

Before they weighed her and took her measurements, they had us do skin to skin. Fountain Valley Hospital is a big believer in skin to skin bonding, and I very much enjoyed that moment.

Our perfect and new little family.

There is a lot more that happened that day, but I will continue in another blog and tell you about her experience in NICU and when she first met everyone. Then I will post another about all her firsts so far. If you got this far, congrats! You now know probably way more than you wanted to. LOL