She felt late since big brother was 11 days early but was right on time – water broke about 6am on her due date 2/28/2021! No contractions but we asked our nanny to come at 4pm & got ready. At 12:30 went on a walk and got a couple contractions but nothing really consistent. Then during Davin’s nap, about 2pm we tried acupressure and it immediately worked and contractions started being more intense and started being pretty regular every 5 minutes! I hurried up and showered, finished packing, asked sitter to come at 3:30, and headed out to Vandy! I was 6cm dilated when I got there and contractions were feeling pretty intense; luckily I got laughing gas pretty quick since I already had a negative covid test from 2 days before (otherwise I would have to do a test there and wait for the result to come back). About 90 minutes later at 6pm was I was 9 cm dilated! Exciting, since with Davin I never made it past 8 cm (was stuck there for 12 hours and then ended up with a C-section). But I was having lots of back pain and contractions were super intense (much more so than with Davin, probably because things I dilated so quickly) and even w great support from Ben & Heidi, I decided I wanted an epidural. The epidural was great and even tho I was limited to being on the bed, I was moving positions more than before since contractions had been so intense I hadn’t wanted to change positions at all. By 9pm I was 10cm and got to start pushing… By 1am baby girl’s heart was going down too much with every other contraction, and the OBGYN that oversees my midwives said I got the choice of forceps or C-section. I chose the first and after upping my epidural Nora was born just a couple minutes later! She had a good set of lungs and a trembling lip cry (cute & sad that makes you want to do whatever she wants lol).
So glad she was healthy and perfect and that the epidural worked so well! …especially since I ended with 3 tears – a minor/1st degree tear in the normal perineal area and also tears on both sides from the forceps :-/… It was great to get to hold her right away (vs with Davin I got to see him but then he and Ben left while they finished stitching me up from the C-section). I was still pretty cold & shaky after the birth but not as bad as with Davin’s. They say it is probably from IV fluids and the epidural. I had a little scare several hours later when I tried peeing for the first time post catheter and instead of pee I got tons of blood… so more IV fluids and I got the catheter back in (no laughing gas or epidural this time, so not very pleasant). But it was out and everything was good by Tuesday morning. And Tuesday evening we got to go home!
So glad I had such awesome support from Ben, and our doula Heidi, and a great team at Vandy! And so glad for awesome people watching Davin at home – our nanny of 2 yrs, Sam, came over to stay the 1st night and my cousin Juleen, who lives 30 minutes away, came over with her 4 month old the 2nd night. Thank you thank you!