The Birth Story

I will do my best to make this as short and sweet as possible, but it was a LONG day!

Darren & I arrived at Edwards Hospital in Naperville at 7am on Sunday morning. I was only 1 of 2 scheduled inductions that day and no one else was in labor at the time, so we more or less had a full staff to only share with one other person. By 7:30 am I was in my gown, IV inserted and the Pitocin was administered. The nurse checked me and I was 1 centimeter dilated and 80% effaced (no different than my doctor visit on Tuesday).

We just hung in the room, trying to wait patiently for the Pitocin to start working. Dr. Bromberger came in to check on me and encouraged me to get out of bed and start roaming the halls to try to get things moving along. I was excited to hear that, because laying in a hospital bed, is NOT my idea of fun.

The Pitocin drip was started at "2" and then every 15-30 minutes it was increased by 2. After a few hours it was at its maximum of 20. The machine was showing I was having regular contractions, but nothing that I could feel. Our nurse Lynn, hung out with us a lot of the time, as we were her only patient. After hours went by and NOTHING had happened, she called the doctor to see what we should do next. The doctor decided do decrease the drip back down to 10 and work it back up to 20.

I kept roaming the halls, doing everything I possibly could to get the ball rolling, but nothing was working. I was checked again, I was still 1 centimeter dilated and now I was only 60% effaced... who aside me goes backwards in progress??? Lynn went to call the doctor to see what to do next. She came in to tell us what Dr. B said and to give us time to think about what to do. We had 3 options, sit there and keep doing what we were doing, come back on Thursday to try again, or have a c-section at some point that evening.

Darren and I discussed all the options and really didn't know what to do. Dr. Bromberger called to talk to me around 7pm to explain things more clearly to me and to make a final decision. First thing I asked was, what would SHE do, and of course, she couldn't answer that for me, because there were pros and cons to both. Finally she broke it down for me... she explained that she had a feeling, in the end, no matter what I choose it would be a c-section. Reason being, the baby's head was all the way down, pushing on my cervix and in turn causing it to swell (the reason for why I went from 80% to 60%), her thoughts were that my pelvis bone was the cause. She didn't know for sure, hence why she gave me the two other options. She put it like this... "we can wait and try again and she what happens, but I don't want you needing a c-section and looking back and saying why didn't we just do this on Sunday". That was all she needed to say - c-section it is!

While Dr. Bromberger was heading to the hospital, Darren went home to let the dogs out and I packed up the room. At 9pm we walked down to the operating room. The rest was quick and easy! 9pm I got a spinal and catheter, 9:11pm they announced that they were making the cut, 9:15pm Brooke was born! If I had only known it was going to be that quick and easy, I would have begged for a c-section right off the bat! By 9:45pm I was in recovery and by 11pm I was checked into my room in the Mother Baby Unit. Talk about quick and easy!!!