Taylor Elizabeth Jones was welcomed into our family on April 9, 2013 at 10:54 PM weighing 7 lbs 9 oz and 20 inches long! We are so in love with this sweet baby and thank God everyday for this little miracle :)
Now for the "fun" part...her birth story:
On Monday, April 8th, I went to my almost 40 week appointment. Still 1 cm dilated, about 70-80% effaced. The doctor and I discussed options and decided that if I did not go into labor on my own, we would schedule an induction for Friday, April 12th with a cervadil procedure Thursday evening. I really wanted to go into labor naturally but was ecstatic that the end was in sight and this would be the week that we would meet our little girl! On the way home from my appointment, I felt some fluid in my underwear and onto my dress. After much discussion with my mom and Joseph, I called my doctor and she advised me to head to the hospital to check if the liquid was in fact amniotic fluid. I really did not think it could be that so when the nurse returned to my room and said "you're here to stay", I was a little shocked. I immediately called Joseph to tell him the good news and he left work, ran by the house to get our bags, and met me at the hospital! Mom also quickly packed up her things and headed for the beach. It was quite surreal that this was actually happening. I never felt anymore fluid and I wasn't dilating anymore so the nurses advised me to get up and walk around. We had fun visiting with our parents and walking through the hospital...
We both got a good night's sleep even though we were very anxious about what Tuesday would be like. At 6:00 AM, they started me on pitocin to kick start labor and the doctor broke the rest of my water. They decided that Monday I must have had a top leak but the baby's head was probably blocking the rest of my water from breaking. Once pitocin started and my water broke, I could definitely begin to feel contractions. I could feel them very strongly in my back, which was not pleasant. However, I must say I was very calm during them and just had to breathe through each one. Mom and Joseph had fun watching the monitor to see the intensity of each contraction . At 10:30, I received my first epidural ;) It did hurt when he put it in because he said it was a small space. Almost immediatly my entire left side went numb...not so much for my right side. I could especially feel the contractions in my right thigh and back. The nurse had me turn on my right side to see if the medicine would find its way over but no luck so the anesthesiologist was called back in for epidural #2. He said this happens in about 1 in 50 patients so I guess I was one of the lucky ones :) Thankfully, #2 did not hurt much and it worked! Feeling nice and numb, I slept most of the afternoon Tuesday as we all played the waiting game. Mckenzie got to the beach around lunchtime and was able to get some work done while we waited but I was so glad to have her there! Finally, after about 14 hours of labor/waiting, the doctor checked me and said I was ready to push!! After watching the monitors of other women having babies all day...it appeared that once you started pushing it wasn't long until your baby arrived. Well, every person there that day had their baby before ours was ready to make her debut...2 1/2 hours of pushing and she finally arrived. They cranked up my pitocin which didn't seem to do a whole lot and said I was pushing great but baby just wasn't moving down enough. When the doctor came into the room, she looked unhappy with the progress and said she was only going to give us a few tries to get this baby out or we would have to "call it". The
last thing I wanted was to go through labor for this long and then have a c-section. The doctor knew I really did not want a c-section but had the OR prepped for me anyhow. She decided that we would try the vacuum to help assist Baby on her way out. When the vacuum popped off of Baby's head about 3 times, the doctor seemed a little worried and like natural delivery may not happen. Finally, one last time trying to push with the vacuum and an episiotomy, Taylor Elizabeth entered this world!! However, it was not like they had explained...no immediate skin to skin with Mom...they immediately took her to the side where the nursery staff was set up. She was not crying, which made me panic and we all started crying :( Finally, I heard a little cry and Joseph went over to spend some time with her before they brought to me. After the doctor gave me
many stitches, I was able to hold my sweet baby girl and she was beautiful!! *Later Mom would tell me that her little face was blue when she came out and Joseph was quite worried about the severeity of her cone head called cappit. Thankfully, that subsided very quickly and she looked great with a hat on :) She also had a boo boo on her head from where the vacuum had popped off multiple times. Regardless, our little girl was here and we could not be more excited, emotional, thankful, etc. Thanks be to God!!!
