Adelheide Grace was born January 4th at 6lb 15oz

24 hours of labor filled with a roller coaster of events we had our beautiful bundle in our arms.

At my weekly Dr.s appt at 37weeks I had elevated BP and was sent to the hospital for monitoring. They found protein in my urine and admitted me for 24 hours to determine how severe the preeclampsia was. It was moderate so they allowed me to go home on bed rest for a week & scheduled an induction for the 4th.

My water ended up breaking on the 3rd at 11:30 am. I had no idea how much fluid that sak can hold! I was going to sit on the ground to stretch out my hips when my water broke, no popping sound but more liquid than my bladder’s been able to hold in 9 months came through my pants. I told my husband who started running around trying to get things together & get the car loaded up while I changed cloths & put on what I thought was a huge pad. We went to my moms (who lives 5 minutes away) to drop off the dogs. By now more fluid had leaked out and my pants were starting to get damp so I grabbed one of her old towels to sit on... by the time I got to the hospital my sweatpants were totally soaked through halfway down my thighs.

I would have preferred to labor at home but with the preeclampsia they wanted to monitor me closely. We tried walking around the hospital & breast pump to help get labor moving along. After 8 hrs my labor wasn’t progressing at a rate they wanted to see so they put me on pitocin. The pain level increased almost immediately.

As things progressed & the pain increased I got in the shower which cut the pain level in half. At about 6am I had made it to the beginning of transition, about 7cm before I asked for the epidural. I knew it was going to take several more hours before my baby girl was going to be here and was done dealing with the pain. The epidural was easy, but I had some BP complications because of the combination of it & my preeclampsia. My BP dropped dangerously low, but the Drs& anesthesiologists did a great job keeping an eye on me & gave me meds to help bring it back up. Hubby & I were able to sleep for a couple hours at this point. When I woke up I was fully dilated but Heidi hadn’t fully descended yet & was OP so we (the doula & I) spent a couple hours getting her to turn. Once we had accomplished that it was time to push! Pushing took 20-30 minutes and my hubby got to help catch! I had a small tear a couple inches long & an abrasion close to my urethra. I definitely credit my minimal tearing to my doula for helping get baby into an ideal position & my fast pushing to all the squats I did and staying active during pregnancy.

I’m going to try to go unmedicated next time. I believe it’s totally doable without the pitocin. Hopefully after this first time my body will know what to do next time & things will go much smoother.

Recovery has been great so far. I was almost as nervous about this stage as the labor & delivery. Day 2 I definitely felt like my down stairs had gotten in a bar fight & had lost. Day 3 I was sore. After that a little cramping with breastfeeding, but honestly a few ibuprofen a day & I completely forget I just birthed a tiny human.

I definitely feel so blessed by God and so proud that he chose me to be Heidi’s momma.