Steve and Chelsea: Molly's Birth Story

Well, as noticed our sweet little Molly was unexpectedly early! I went in for my weekly check up on Tuesday, November 1st. My Doctor did a physical check and I was 90% effaced and dilated to a 2. He pulled out his phone and said, "Well, let's do this on Thursday." I looked at him a little confused, and then he told me that the Hospital would call me Wednesday night to schedule my inducement. I honestly didn't think I would be induced with this pregnancy, but it's what the Doctor wanted. So the following day I anxiously waited by the phone to see when we would be called in. The Nurse informed me that they would actually call in the morning and let us know when to come in. That was THE longest night ever. We hardly got any sleep because we were frantically trying to get the house ready and knowing we were going to meet our little girl left us sleepless.
Friday, November 3rd at 5:15 am the Nurse called and asked if we were ready to have our baby. We got up, said good bye to Daisy and headed to the Hospital. Once we got there we were put in our room, and the Nurse came right in to get me hooked up to the Pitocin. Before we left for the Hospital, I had a small bowl of cereal so that I wouldn't get hungry for a while. As the Nurse was asking me questions about my pregnancy and our birth plan I got this overwhelming feeling and threw up. There went my breakfast. The ONLY food I was allowed to have that day. The Nurse said that in her 20 years of working, she had never seen anyone throw up BEFORE the IV had been placed. Lucky me :). After about an hour, a Resident came in and broke my water so that my contractions could get stronger. They honestly weren't that bad, and I had to hold off on getting the epidural for a while as the Anesthesiologist was doing back to back c-sections. I'm glad I got the epidural when I did because I couldn't relax or take a nap, mostly due to extreme hunger pains. The epidural is AWESOME and you'd be silly not to get one. Bless the man that invented it :)
Well, I wasn't progressing much with my dilation and stayed at a 3 for several hours. I had been on the highest dose of pitocin for so long that they had to take me off it for a few hours to give my uterus a break. Because I was off the pitocin they were able to give me some clear liquids. Yay! By this time it was like 8pm. I had jello and chicken broth, which was amazing. I had been living off of flavored ice chips all day long! Lime is hands down the best. Anyway, they came back in and put me back on the pitocin and shortly after I threw up what I had just eaten. Lovely. They said that they were going to give the pitocin a while to kick back in and check on me at 2:00am. Well, around 1:00 I had been feeling some pressure and called the Nurse. They checked me and I was dilated to a 9! Hallelujah!!! They gave me another hour to progress and at 2:00 I was dilated to a 10! It was go time! We did a practice push while we waited for my Doctor to arrive, and I started actually pushing at 2:30. When they could see the top of her head they said that she had lots of dark hair! Steve and I were both bald, so this was pretty exciting to hear! One hour later at 3:32 our sweet little Molly was born! Pushing was a breeze and felt like I had only been doing it for a short while. I had some amazing Nurses that helped pass the time :)
Earlier that day the Doctor had asked who wanted to cut the cord. The whole birthing process made Steve pretty sick, so I said if I was up to it I would do it. I was so exhausted after 20 hours of labor that I passed. The nurse was about to cut it when Steve stood up and said he'd like to do it. It made me so happy, and we're both glad he had that experience.
When they placed her in my arms it was love at first sight. She was perfect, and I couldn't take my eyes off her. Giving birth is one of THE most amazing experiences EVER. It was amazing.
They took her away to get cleaned up and I honestly didn't realize that I was delivering my placenta and getting stitched up. (I tore to a level 2. Sorry, TMI.)
20 hours of labor was definitely exhausting, but SO worth it!