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| Eloise at eight days old :) |
If you are interested in reading a not too graphic but fairly detailed story about her birth, read on! If not, just do a quick scroll through to look at cute pictures of our girl :)
Birth Story
I had a grand and devious "plan" to have our baby girl the weekend before Thanksgiving to force our two families to come to us for the holiday--otherwise, we would be celebrating alone because of the closeness to the due date. Of course I knew that this very specific and mostly joking plan was unlikely to come true (it was nearly two weeks before baby's due date), but I still had a small hope and was doing everything possible to induce labor, haha.The weekend before Thanksgiving had nearly passed, and Dustan and I were laying in bed late on Sunday night chatting, still wide awake. Suddenly, I felt as I had wet my pants just a little... Within a couple seconds, I started to feel a gush of liquid. I immediately hopped out of bed in an attempt to save our mattress and had liquid gushing down my legs. Dustan looked at me shocked and said, "I think your water just broke!" This was at about 11:30 pm on November 19th.
This caught both of us completely off-guard! Having your water break before you go into labor really isn't that common (less than 15 percent of women have their water break first before strong contractions), and I had been just waiting all along for those contractions to start regularly to let me know I was in labor. We were so excited though! No more false labor signs and uncertainty, we were having a baby!
We made a quick phone call to Labor and Delivery at the hospital to make sure that we were supposed to come in immediately (we were) before getting packed up to go. We had already packed most of our stuff we needed for the hospital, but Dustan ran around getting all the last minute items while I sat on the toilet with fluid leaking out of me, haha. Dustan finished quickly and I grabbed a towel to put in my pants and we drove to the hospital, arriving and getting checked in at about midnight.
Because I wasn't in any pain yet and we had already had a hospital tour and preregistered, getting settled into a labor room went very smoothly. I got all dressed into my snazzy hospital gown and I was hooked up to a fetal heart rate monitor. Baby girl was doing great and apparently I was having fairly consistent contractions (about every 6 or 7 minutes, lasting a little less than a minute) though I couldn't feel them yet. Unfortunately, I was only dilated to a 1. But luckily, my nurses told me that when a women's water breaks, they want to have the baby out within 24 hours. So I would be having a baby within the next day! So exciting!!
At this point (now that we were sure we would be having a baby), we called up the moms. Of course they were excited and they made plans to be in Utah within the next couple days. My grand plan had succeeded ;) We called up Dustan's two brothers who live in Provo, and they came to the hospital to help Dustan give me a blessing. Then we send them on their merry way and made sure to let all our family know that we would keep them updated.
But, we still had a long way to go. The nurses checked on me about every two hours to see how I was progressing, while Dustan and I tried to get some sleep (we didn't sleep at all at first, we were too excited). 3:30 am or so rolled around and a nurse checked me--I was then dilated to a 2 and about 80% effaced. Meanwhile, Dustan and I were entertained with some very loud and rambunctious labor screaming from the room next door, haha. This was a nice distraction, since I was starting to feel my contractions at this point. They were very uncomfortable, but not too badly painful yet. It was around this time that I also requested some ice packs be brought in--I was SO hot and the room wasn't cooling down enough for me, haha. I had ice packs on my chest or neck for the majority of labor. I was also given antibiotics for strep B through my IV, and would be given a new bag of antibiotics every four hours until the baby was born. Man, those burned through my arm! Not a fan.
At about 7:30 am, I was again checked, but sadly no progress had been made. I was given a third and final dose of pain killers (for some reason these narcotics became significantly less effective with each dose). At this point, I was given Pitocin through my IV in hopes of helping me progress faster. As I mentioned before, the nurses and doctors wanted baby girl to be born within 24 hours of my water breaking, and I was not making enough progress! I'm not sure if it was the Pitocin or not, but my contractions got closer together and much more painful during the next hour. I threw up again and finally requested the epidural.
Receiving an epidural wasn't my favorite experience, mainly because the contractions were hurting worse with each minute. Luckily, the only thing that actually hurt when receiving the epidural was having the local anesthetic applied. Everything else just felt a little uncomfortable and a little odd. Pretty soon, I was completely numb from my stomach down to my toes and couldn't feel a single thing. I don't know if epidurals are always that strong, but I couldn't feel anything. I couldn't even move my toes. It was the weirdest sensation. I got the epidural around 9:00 am on Monday morning.
Once I had the epidural, I was finally able to get some decent sleep. (The major downside of the epidural I soon realized was now that I wasn't in pain anymore, I became VERY hungry.) Again, a nurse come in to check me around noon, and I had finally made some progress! I had been hoping for more, but being dilated to a 3 and nearly 100% effaced was at least some progress. I keep snoozing and entertaining myself until my next check. Every time I wanted to change positions, a nurse had to come in and help me switch sides.
The next check was at about 2:30 pm. Because my Pitocin had been at the highest dose for a while, I was really hoping that I was at least dilated to a 5 or so. But hallelujah, I was dilated to a 10!! Dustan and I were completely shocked, and SO excited, and a little freaked! The nurse told us that baby girl was still up a little high, so we would wait an hour so that she could drop down before starting to push. A peanut ball was put between my legs, then the nurse returned an hour later and it was time to go!!
The nurse had me pushing 3 times with every contraction, pushing for 10 seconds each. Pushing is pretty difficult when you can barely feel anything in the lower half of your body. Thankfully the epidural had worn off just slightly since I received it--I was able to feel some pressure (especially on my right side), but still no pain. When I pushed, sometimes I could tell it was more effective than other times. But because I couldn't feel much, I couldn't always replicate the effective pushing. When we started, I couldn't even tell when I was having contractions. I just relied on my nurse and Dustan to tell me when I was having one based on my chart. My wonderful OB Dr. Emma Miller came in every once and a while to check how I was doing.
I pushed for about two hours. When I was actively pushing, Dustan could see just the top of our little girl's head (and her hair!!). But I had reached that point within the first hour, and hadn't made any progress since. At about the two hour mark, Dr. Miller came in to talk to Dustan and I. I had been noticing the nurse's and my doctor's worried looks and though Dustan was very encouraging, I could tell that something was a little off with the situation. My doctor informed us that our baby had made progress at the beginning, but her head was currently stuck at my pelvis and hadn't moved or made an progress in about an hour. Baby girl wasn't in any distress (her heart rate still looked great), but obviously we couldn't stay in that position much longer. Dr. Miller said that we really needed to consider getting a C-section. But because baby girl wasn't in distress, I could continue to try pushing for just a little longer, about 30 minutes, and see if I was able to make any progress. But if nothing changed, we would need to have a C-section to get our baby out safely.
This caught me completely off guard and frankly just scared me. I knew that C-sections were fairly common and that there was nothing wrong with getting one, but I hadn't even considered that I might need one. The idea of being cut open really scared me and I knew that there shouldn't be any reason why I would need one, so I hadn't mentally prepared for the possibility. It just freaked me out. We told Dr. Miller that I would continue to try pushing for a just little longer.
So that's what I did. I pushed even harder than I knew I was capable of beforehand. And I prayed, a lot. I think I was praying nearly non-stop until we had our sweet baby girl. After about 20 minutes more of pushing after talking with Dr. Miller, our current nurse was switched out with a new one. Dustan and I really think that this nurse helped to make all the difference. Melissa was more proactive and encouraging (the other nurse had been very kind, but was so exhausted from her shift that she wasn't very helpful and was nearly falling asleep between contractions). Soon I had made progress. Not much at all, but enough that I would continue pushing a little longer to see if the progress continued.
And it did! I ended up pushing for nearly another two hours before our girl was born. The progress was slow going, but baby was still safe so we continued. I threw up towards the end (apparently this was actually a good thing? haha) and was so exhausted that I was dizzy, shaky, and experiencing tunnel vision. The epidural really started to wear off the last hour. The contractions were really painful, but helped me understand better how to push. The end was all sort of a blur.
Finally, our baby girl was born, at 7:07 pm on Monday, November 20. Dustan cut the cord (and blood squirted all over his arm in the process, haha), then the nurses wrapped her in a towed and placed her on my chest as nurses crowded around and vigorously rubbed her down. Her strong cries were one of the most wonderful sounds I've heard. After they had cleared her throat and wiped her down for a while, they very briefly took her to weigh and measure her before once again placing her on my chest.
It was then, looking at our beautiful girl, that we officially decided to name her Eloise Elizabeth. We were so happy to finally have our girl with us, and we just loved her SO much. We didn't stop staring at her for hours. We couldn't believe how instantly we just adored this little human of ours.
After some quality skin to skin time and breastfeeding (and after I was stitched up--one little tear and one episiotomy), Eloise was bathed a little better. She screamed through most of it, until the nurse started cleaning and brushing her hair, which she loved, haha. I wish I could have seen it, but I was stranded on the hospital bed, still gaining feeling in my legs from my epidural. Dustan followed her around religiously those first couple days as she was tested and checked. He didn't want to let her out of his sight. Below is a picture of the "New Parents Feast" the hospital made for Dustan and I after Eloise was born, haha. It was actually quite good!
We stayed in the hospital just a couple days before heading home. We really appreciated our families traveling to Provo to visit our little family--and for staying and spoiling us on Thanksgiving :) The following pictures are with Eloise's wonderful grandmas!
We really love our Eloise so much, it is unbelievable. Sometimes Dustan and I will just look at each other and say "We have a BABY?!" or "She is the most beautiful baby EVER." We can't believe Heavenly Father trusted us with this little human, she is just the best thing. I'm so happy to be doing this whole parenting thing with the best husband, to the cutest babe :)
Dustan here: I don't know if I have ever experienced so many emotions in a four hour stretch as when Ellen was pushing up to when Eloise was born. Admiration for how amazing and strong my wonderful wife was being, nervousness as I realized Ellen might be needing a C-section, excitement as Eloise started making progress, and complete tearful, breaking down joy and love as I heard Eloise's first cries. I've never been more proud of anyone in my life than I was of Ellen in that moment. She showed incredible strength, determination and love. Oh how I love Ellen and our little Eloise. This was truly an amazing experience and one I will never forget.
