Zoey Sophia is here!! (and birth story)

Zoey Sophia Sylvester arrived at 2:35am on June 9th 2010. She weighed in at 7lbs 7oz and was 19.25 inches in length.

In this blog post I am going to tell the story of my labor and her birth. If you don't want to know that much about me please turn around now.

A few notes to be a precurser to the story.

1- On June 1st we were admitted to L&D for labor but released the next morning as labor had stalled.

2- On June 1st I was already dilated to 2-3cm and 70% effaced.

3- Many times it was noted how incredibly low the baby was every time I was check (from June 1st on...) and how she just seemed to keep dropping lower.

4-With Cameron's labor I had gone in not knowing I was in labor, labored for 30+ hours, pushed for almost 2 hours and did not have an epidural.

5-For the few days before June 8th I had been noticing a decrease in her movements.


Tuesday June 8th I was scheduled to come to my doctor's office for a routine NST (Non-stress test) followed by an appointment with the doctor. I went to the NST room and was hooked up to the monitors. I was contracting (like I had been for several weeks) but not enough to be called "labor." The concerning part was that she was failing the heartrate portion of the test. She was not having the right accelerations and wasn't really moving. The nurses tried to "buzz" her awake and when that didn't work, they decided to send me to ultrasound.

In the ultrasound they perfomed a Biophysical profile (a scored test checking for the baby to perform certain criteria to pass) She also failed this test because in the almost 45 minutes we were watching/poking/buzzing her she did not move..... The doctor came in while we were in the ultrasound and said... OK you are going upstairs to L&D, we will watch you and decide what to do from there (basically either induce or c-section.) She did start moving enough to ease their minds a bit, so they decided on induction.

At 6pm the Pitocin was started. We called Mom and she got in the car and drove down from Midland (for the 2nd time in a week) The contractions started to pick up. I was checked and was still dilated the same as the week before, 2-3 cm. The upped the pit every half hour and the contractions started to get more consistant and stronger. I was feeling pretty good. It was painful but I was feeling like I could handle it.

Around 10pm, the nurse came in to check me again and I had dilated to almost a 4. She said she was going to call the doctor and see if he would want to break my water. He came down to check me and we were all surprised as he quicky said "yup" grabbed the stick thing and it was done... As soon as my water was broken, the pain was unbearable. Within 15 minutes I was BEGGING for the epidural. We waited the longest half hour of my life for the anesthesiologist. When he came in, he got the epidural all hooked up and left. After about 15 more minutes the epidural started kicking in....On only my right side... So I was still feeling full strength contractions on my left side. I was told "it will kick in eventually" Uh, not!! After another half hour I demanded they bring the anesthesiologist back in. He came in and I was checked for dilation again, I was only at a 5. The anesthesiologist fixed my epi and gave me another dose.... MAN that was like heaven!!

Once that had kicked in they told me to try and get some rest to prepare to push. We all figured it would be a few hours so Keith layed down on the couch, Mom went down to the car to try and sleep and I turned on my side to doze. Unfortunately the alarm on my BP cuff kept going off every 15 minutes because my BP was low. So a nurse had to come in every 15 minutes to turn it off. Around 2am a nurse came in to turn it off and I asked her if it was normal to feel a lot of pressure "down there" and she said it is and to just breathe through it. Not even 10 minutes later I was yelling at Keith to GET THE NURSE! She came running in and I told her that the pressure was too strong. She had me turn to my back to check me and I was dilated 9.5!!! She asked someone to get the doctor ready. She told me to do a "test push" and see how that would work. Remember how I said how low she was??? Before I could push she checked again and I was already completely dilated. Keith had called Mom down at the car and she RAN up to the room! I did the "test push" and she was crowning!! The nurse told me to STOP! because the doctor wasn't even there yet.

It was SOO hard not to push waiting for the doctor while the baby was crowning! He finally got there and sat down and said OK go for it!! I pushed 2-3 more times and she was mostly out. He said "She is coming! Do you have 1 more push" I told him I had to wait for the next contraction. He said "She is not waiting! Push anyways!!" And she was born at 2:35am and was on my chest with less than 5 minutes of pushing and less than 6 pushes! She didn't even have a conehead because it was sooo fast and she was SOO low.

After she came out she wasn't crying.... I started freaking out because she was purple. Keith cut her cord and they wisked her away while I begged to know if she was OK. She still wasn't crying but they gave her oxygen and she started to pink up. I kept freaking out because she wouldn't cry. I know now that it was just her personality. She just isn't a very cryey baby. In her 2 days here, she has only cried once or twice for a minute.

After she was born they tried to take me to the post-partem room, but my right leg wasn't waking up from the epi... It took quite a long time to get it to work. The nurses started calling it my "bum leg"...

Zoey is such a GREAT baby. She eats wonderfully, snuggles great and sleeps 2-3 hours at a time. I couldn't be happier! Cameron is such a great big brother. He just loves his "baby" Hugging and kissing her! My family is complete and it feels great!