Ella's Birth Story

One last bump picture

We arrived at the hospital at 5:55, were admitted quickly, and then headed to our room. I changed into the lovely hospital gown and they quickly began having me sign paperwork on their fancy little tablet. I had two nurses checking me in because one was being trained for labor and delivery (Laura and Shanda). The trainee complimented how awesome my veins are as she went to put in my IV and then messed it up the first time which left me with a huge swollen forearm that remained bruised and tender for another week. The experienced nurse then did the IV on the inside of my arm and started fluids.

As if it was an ode to my entire pregnancy I started to get super light headed and a bit nauseous during this IV process because my blood pressure dropped way low. Laura began fanning me to hopefully help and after probably a solid 15 minutes my color began to return and my blood pressure leveled back to normal. By 6:30 they started me on pitocin and checked me to find out that I was dilated to about a 4. Contractions started soon after and were definitely uncomfortable, but the machine wasn't really picking them up so the nurses kept coming in to adjust the monitors.

At 9 my midwife, Natalie Taylor, came in to check on me and see where we were at. She checked me and said that I was still at a 4. At this point I was a bit disappointed because the contractions hadn't done much yet. She broke my water (Which feels so gross by the way. I had my epidural with Hudson before they broke my water, so I didn't know how it felt.) Thankfully, they paged the anesthesiologist just after my water was broken, so I didn't have to deal with the stronger contractions for too terribly long before getting my epidural.

My epidural hurt way more than I remembered it hurting when I was in labor with Hudson.. Although it was done by the same guy (Bo). It worked quickly, and I was happy to not be feeling the pain anymore. This time I could feel the pressure of the contractions which with Hudson I felt absolutely nothing. They had me propped to lean on my left side to keep the epidural even or something like that. By 10 I was dilated to a 5 and about 70% effaced, and I found out that Laura was off at 12 so the hope was to have the baby before she got off work. Unfortunately these hopes were quickly dashed when by 11:15 there were no signs that I was nearing time to push and closer to 12 I was introduced to a new nurse who would be taking over Laura's place and continuing to train Shanda.

The new nurse and Shanda came in and rotated me to my right side sometime around 12:15. After they left I quickly began to feel light headed again. I tried to sleep it off hoping it would go away. By about 12:40 I accepted that it wasn't going to go away, and I paged the nurses to help me rotate back to my left side. I almost immediately started to feel better once I switched sides. While they were updating my chart on the computer I all of a sudden felt a pain low down. I ignored it at first, but knowing that I didn't want my epidural to wear off I figured it was best that I mentioned it to them when it happened again since they were standing right there anyway. Since it had been a while they decided to check me before doing anything else about it. Much to everyone's surprise Shanda said that she didn't feel any cervix anymore only baby's head. It was time to push!

They immediately called my midwife and spoke to the anesthesiologist since I had felt some pain. While waiting for my midwife to get there Bo came in and administered some more drugs which left me feeling nothing- not even pressure. More nurses came into the room for the baby as we waited for my midwife to arrive. (Rosemark is maybe 3 minutes from the hospital, but she said that she had 3 patients who all needed something before she could leave.)

Once my midwife got there it was immediately go time. Because I could no longer feel my contractions at all she told me when to push. I started pushing at about 1, possibly a minute or two after, and after 3 sets of 3 pushes little Ella entered the world at 1:08 PM. The love was instant as she was placed on me. She took a few seconds before she let out her first cry, but she was absolutely perfect. They took her away to wipe her off and weigh her and as they had her on the other side of the room I couldn't help but ask if she really was a girl (I was so worried the whole pregnancy that she was going to come out a boy even after 3 ultrasounds that all said girl). Everyone laughed as they said yes and brought her back to me.

My midwife finished her job and I was ecstatic to hear that there weren't any problems. The delivery went better than what I could have imagined and it made me like my midwife more than I already did. It seemed like hardly any time passed at all before Taylor and I were left alone with our sweet girl to wait for the numbness to wear off so we could switch rooms. My nurses changed again as the two nurses I had during the delivery went to go help someone else deliver. I now had a BYU-I student and another nurse who had both helped with Ella after she was born.

My sister, Rebekah, watched Hudson for us and they were the first to come visit. Hudson was very intrigued with Ella. He kept standing on her bassinet to peek in at her when she was in it. He didn't want to hold her very much, but he did always want to be near her. Hudson quickly claimed the rocking chair as his and loved running around the hospital room. Taylor's family stopped by a little while later to meet Ella.

Almost immediately after giving birth I got a terrible headache. I asked for some tylenol, but it never seemed to help. I later got motrin and that didn't help either. The only thing that helped was laying down flat. I continued to have this headache the whole time we were in the hospital and put myself on "bed rest" once we got home because doing anything but laying down hurt my head too much. I was prescribed motrin and caffeine pills before leaving the hospital which are both things that are supposed to relieve spinal headaches. Neither of these things helped at all. I realized on Wednesday that I needed to do some research because sitting up to feed Ella was more than I could handle. It didn't take long to realize I had a spinal headache. Around 2 I called my doctor's office to talk with them and by 3 Taylor and I were back in the hospital for an epidural blood patch while Rebekah watched both kids. I learned that spinal headaches happen in less than 1% of epidurals, and that there was a 97% chance that the blood patch would fix it. They did the epidural again (it sucked just as much as the first time), a nurse put an IV in my arm to draw my blood, handed it to the anesthesiologist, he injected it into the epidural, he took the needle out, and then I had to lay there and not move for an hour while a bag of fluids was given to me. It was the most boring hour ever as I couldn't really play on my phone because the IV was in my right arm, so I couldn't bend it, and I couldn't watch TV because I couldn't lift my head at all since I had to be flat. After the hour was up Taylor and I were sent to walk the halls for close to 10 minutes. After the 10 minutes were up I talked with the nurse again and much to my dismay the blood patch didn't completely work. She said that they could do it again and that should definitely fix it, but I didn't want to go through the pain of getting an epidural again. Thankfully, the blood patch coupled with motrin and the caffeine pills gave me enough relief to be able to function again and enjoy my new baby which I felt like I hadn't previously fully been able to do. My headache has gotten progressively better, and now I only get one occasionally which could be for any number of reasons besides what happened.

Some comparisons because I can't help myself..

Life with Ella is better than I ever dreamed it would be. My recovery from childbirth is better than I knew it could be after having a rough time after Hudson was born (other than the headache issue). I can't believe how much more I can do this time without any pain compared to after he was born. Taylor has been back at work and we are all doing our best to adjust to this huge change in our lives. There is no doubt in my mind that this little girl was truly meant to be with our family at this time.