The Birth Story...

Evelyn Grace Smart
Born 11/11/11 at 1:58PM
7lbs 2 oz 19 inches


Here I go...Kylie is asleep, I'm not feeding Evie for a while so I finally have time to write this all out before I forget.

Friday, Nov. 11 was my first official day off bed rest, being 37 weeks preggo. It never dawned on me that the date was 11/11/11. I admit, I had cheated a little with the bed rest thing and had done a few small errands that week...my thinking was that it would be hard to get out once the baby arrived so I wanted to be able to do a few things before she came. I had my weekly Dr appt at 10:30. I must have had some intuition that baby could have been born that day because I brought my hospital bag with me to the doctors just in case. I asked the doctor if she would consider inducing before 40 weeks because I was fearful of how big this baby was getting...she said potentially at 39 weeks but not before then. I explained that it was hard not knowing if she was coming any day or a few more weeks out. She reexplained that I go to the hospital when contractions are 5 minutes apart for 2 hours. I had experienced some regular Braxton Hicks but nothing like that so I figured I still had a few days/ week left. She offered to check if I was dialated just so I would know where I was at and I told her that would make me feel better. After checking, she looked at me and said "Go across the street (to the hospital). Are you trying to have this baby in the elevator? You're 7cm!" I found this shocking because other than the Braxton Hicks I hadn't experienced any pain or regular contractions. I asked her if I could go home so my husband could pick me up and we could drive to the hospital in 1 car. She agreed but said I couldn't wait long and she would meet me at the hospital. On the way home I quickly called Matt. He was on a conference call and was about to leave to go surfing...thank goodness he wasn't in the water when I called! He rushed home. Kylie was at Mom's Morning Out at church. I called Sheri and she said Tim could pick Ky up and they could watch her until Matt's parents got into town. Thank goodness for them and their ability to watch Kylie at the drop of a hat. So nice to know she was in good hands. Matt came home and we went straight to the hospital. I had to make a few phone calls- canceling a dr. appt for Ky, canceling with a friend who was supposed to come over, etc. I got checked into the hospital at noon. They hooked me up to the IV, monitored my contractions- which I was clearly having based on what the machine was showing us but my pain level was at a 0 or 1, I seriously felt almost nothing. My Dr. came at 1:00 and broke my water. Once she did that the contractions started to hurt a lot more. I decided to go ahead and get an epidural because I was concerned about the pushing. (In hindsight, I wish I had gotten the epidural before she broke my water.) The epidural really isn't bad but it's just so uncomfortable to have to sit a certain way when going through a contraction. I was getting ready to be able to relax a little before the baby came when I just started feeling a lot of uncomfortableness and pressure like I needed to start pushing. I kept telling my nurse, nothing should hurt anymore, I got the epidural....but things progressed and kept hurting. My nurse (who was amazing btw) checked me and said baby was there, I was fully dialated and ready to have her. She quickly called my dr to come racing back and called in an emergency dr too incase my dr couldn't make it....it felt like eternity for a dr to get there even though it was probably only 10 minutes. The emergency dr came in right before my dr came and I started pushing right away. It was excruciating and I kept saying I needed a break but the emergency dr was yelling in my ear to keep pushing and get the baby out. I guess the epidural hadn't had time to kick in yet. Baby's heart rate dropped and it became more urgent to get her out. Thankfully I only had to push for 5 minutes and she was born at 1:58PM, less than 2 hours from arriving at the hospital. I have no idea how women can push for a long time with no epidural- I applaud them.
I got to hold my beautiful new bundle and was shocked to find out she only weighed 7lbs 2 oz as I thought she would be over 8 lbs for sure (as that's how the ultrasound machines were measuring her). They took her blood sugar level and it was low so they gave her to me for a few more minutes to hold and then took her to the newborn nursery to stabilize her blood sugar. They had to gavage (tube feed) her with some formula and she got better in a few hours. At the same time her breathing rate was fast so they were measuring that every hour. We kept having to wait until it came down on its own so she didn't get wheeled into our recovery room until 7:30AM the next morning. I did go several times during the night though to hold her and nurse her. They thought that bathing her would increase her breathing rate so she didn't get a bath until 10PM, poor girl. Once she had the bath she looked much better.
During the rest of our stay in the hospital they were checking her bilirubin levels. They were in the normal range but a little on the high side so we took her to the pediatrician the first 2 days we were home with her. On the second trip the dr asked us to take Evie back to the hospital to get the foot prick to remeasure her bilirubin. The dr called me that evening (Tues) and said I needed to take little Evie back to the hospital for her to go under the lights. As soon as I got off the phone I started crying. I knew she would be alright but the thought of having to go back to the hospital was just too much, this was supposed to be my normal experience with having a baby since Kylie certainly was not. Bilirubin is caused by having an excess of red blood cells and it has to be treated because it can lead to brain damage if not. Evie was checked into the pediatrics dept at the hospital Tues at 6:15PM and we stayed for 24 hours. Thankfully I was able to stay in the room with her. In hindsight it was not that big of a deal but difficult nonetheless.
She's been doing well at home today. We'll go back to the pediatrician tomorrow to get her weighed again but so far she's doing great and is the perfect addition to our family!