Fast forward to Thursday. Nick and I arrived at the hospital at 7 (Thanks to Jordan for staying at our house Wednesday night and watching Wesley and taking him to daycare Thursday). We did admittance stuff for a half hour or an hour before Dr. Beer came. She checked me, and since I was now dilated to an almost 3 and baby's head had moved down, she decided to go ahead and break my water. It was more uncomfortable than I remember it being with Wes. After that, I got my IV and they started my on Pitocin. The contractions were pretty irregular for a while. They started to get a little more uncomfortable and closer around 10:30, so I sent Nick to get himself an early lunch. By 11, they hurt but were 5-7 minutes apart and I could deal with it. Back labor sucks, but with recovery time, I could deal.
Contractions stayed that way for 45 minutes and then by noon, they were pretty much on top of each other at 1 minute long and 1.5 to at most 3 minutes apart, I was ready for an epidural. Of course, the anesthesiologist had just started on another one, so I had to wait. Okay, I figured I could deal with 15- 30 minutes... but it took an hour and I was wiped out by the time he got there.
I was now at a 5 or 6, and he did my epidural right around 1 and I went to sleep until 2:45. I love epidurals. :) My nurse came to wake me because baby's heartbeat was being affected by contractions, which normally means the mom is fully dilated or close. That seemed weird since It took about 6 hours with Wes once I got my epi before it was time to push. I was at an 8, so she said it could be a while. At 3, my new nurse came and they were switching when they decided to check me again at 3:15- I was ready to push at that point, or at least that's what they told me, the epidural was still strong, so I couldn't feel the pressure like last time. Dr. Beer had just finished up in surgery and decided to check on me while she was there, and so it was time to push. I started pushing around 3:20 or shortly after. At 3:34, Norah was born. I think I pushed through 3 or 4 contractions- a far cry from almost two hours of pushing with Wes! I guess people weren't lying when they said labor is shorter and pushing is easier with baby number 2! No need for a vacuum this time, and I didn't tear as an added bonus.
She came out with her hands by her face and the umbilical wrapped loosely around her shoulder. They laid her on my chest and Nick eventually cut the cord. I lost quite a bit of blood and my uterus wasn't contracting down like it was supposed to, so they had to give me some shot in my thigh (no idea what it was, to be honest). They pumped me with extra fluid but I didn't need blood or anything like that. I got the shakes bad (worse that with Wes, I think), so I handed our little unnamed baby to Nick for a while. She was crying loud and quite alert, so once I had delivered the placenta and the doctor and nurses had worked on me a while (I will spare you all the gory details here... thank goodness they left my epidural in and going for all this, though!), I took her back and let her nurse. She latched okay and ate a little, but like her big bro, she had swallowed a lot of amniotic fluid during delivery, so she had to spit that after a little nursing.
I was stuck in bed for about an hour and fifteen minutes after delivery and was dizzy the first time I got up, so I wasn't allowed out of bed without a nurse escort until the next morning even after that, so I had to watch Norah's first bath from bed.
We ended up texting family her stats- 7lbs, 4 oz, 20 inches long.... around 5:15 or so, mostly because I wanted to see Wesley. Of course, they all wanted a name, but we didn't end up naming her until around 4AM.
My mom, Allyssa, and Jordan brought Wesley to meet his sister around 6:30 that night. He knew he was coming to see his baby but was wary of me in the hospital bed at first. He let Nick give him some love though, and he got excited and pointed and said "baby" to Norah lots of times. He eventually decided that my bed wasn't just not scary, but it was also super fun because it had a lot of buttons to play with. ;). We got a family shot before they left, but Nick needed to shave badly and, well, I had just had a baby, so it's probably good we had professional pictures taken yesterday!
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