Ellie's Arrival!

Welcome to the world Ellie 👶🏻 8/20/2024. Okay, this is going to be a little long, but I want to document my delivery:

The labor experience was surprisingly smooth for Ellie this time.

I started to feel a little bit of cramp-like contractions at 6:30am. We decided to head to the hospital at 8AM. We got to triage and the nurses did a cervix check - I was 4cm dilated by the time we got to the hospital but not in active labor yet. Our triage nurse said that they often ask people to walk for an hour to see if it helps open things up a bit more, but that she wanted to consult with the OB about admitting us a bit early since I was positive for group B strep and needed antibiotics which take 4 hours to complete their course. We got admitted and moved from the triage room to our labor and delivery room and met our nurse.

Our awesome labor and delivery nurse basically told me to not move during this treatment because I have a history of precipitous labor from my last pregnancy¹. They want to make sure that I have time to finish my antibiotics. So, I spent the next 4 hours lying in bed, watching movies and TV shows, eating lunch and drinking my bubble tea while we waited for the antibiotics… this felt like a true vacation 😆

The OB came by to chat with us about halfway through the antibiotics at 1PM. The plan was for me to get my epidural and then for the OB to come and break my water around 3PM, the same time the antibiotics were finishing up. Mike took this chance to go out and get some food before it got busier!

I got my Epidural at 2:45PM and my water got broken at 3:26PM. Things started to move really fast at this point. At 5PM the cervix check showed that I was 10cm; I dilated from 4.5 cm to 10 cm in 2 hours! Time for pushing. I pushed once with the nurse and immediately got stopped because the baby’s head is about to be out with just one push. “Don’t laugh, don’t cough and don’t talk! I’m calling the doctor now!” said the nurse. The OB came in quickly and asked me to start pushing. With only a second push, baby girl was here at 5:32PM!

Once the baby’s shoulders and arms were out, the doctor held my hands under her armpits and told me to pull the baby girl out myself! It might not sound as pleasant as it was but it was a truly amazing experience for me to be able to help delivery my own baby.

The recovery was also a lot easier this time. Somehow I avoided tearing 😳 (It’s potentially the best part of the whole delivery besides pulling out Ellie myself.) The total labor time was 2.5 hrs. We moved to the postpartum wing, spent about 24 hours there waiting for various checks for Ellie and feeding her every 2-3 hours. Maya and Grammy came to visit at the hospital which was also a highlight. We were back home the next day in the afternoon as a family of 4!