As the end of my pregnancy approached, we knew I would need to be induced. Because Melia's delivery was so fast, my doctor, Julie, didn't want to risk me dilating at home and delivering a baby in the car. We scheduled my induction for May 2, 2016. Scott and I were thrilled to have a definite date to look forward to, but of course also hoped that I would go into labor naturally. I had way more contractions and labor signs than I did with Melia, but didn't get to a point where I ever felt I needed to go to the hospital. My last three regular checkups with Julie were pretty ideal. Everything looked and sounded fine EXCEPT I was measuring small. Like, three weeks small. When I was 36 weeks, I measured at 33.5 weeks. At 37 weeks I measured at 34 weeks and at 38 weeks, I measured at 35 weeks. Julie actually sent me to the hospital after one appointment to get a non-stress test to make sure baby was getting the proper oxygen she needed from the placenta and that I had enough fluid in the amniotic sac. Everything looked fine on paper so they sent me home to wait another week before induction.
The weekend before our induction date was pretty ideal. Scott and my anniversary was April 28th and we were able to go to dinner while Dallin watched Melia. It was a fun night, a peaceful night, and a great way to take time away for ourselves before our family changed again. Because we were instructed to call the hospital by 8:00am Monday morning if we hadn't heard from them, we planned to stay up late Friday and Saturday night so we could (hopefully) sleep better Sunday night to be ready by 6:00am in case the hospital called. It was a lot of fun, that's for sure. Friday night Scott and I just watched some shows together and called it in when we were a little more than tired. In the morning, we prepped Melia for a park date with her Mama and Papa and after she woke up from her nap, we headed to Discovery Park. Melia had so much fun and I am so grateful that we decided to have this little family date before baby sister came. Melia had an absolute blast. She showed me all the places that she liked to play at the park and went down the slides a dozen times. The swings, which Melia has never really been that interested in, caught her eye because other kids were swinging. She enjoyed the swings way more today than she has ever enjoyed them in her life. After our trip to the park, we ran a little errand, grabbed an early dinner and went to the Puppy Barn. Although it was very crowded at the Puppy Barn, Melia loved seeing all the baby pups. She got so excited every time I was able to find one to pick up (which was like three dogs because it was that crowded and people were literally hoarding the pups...) She got a little nervous when we asked if she wanted to pet them, but some of the dogs didn't even give her the option to hesitate before they got up and licked her! She had so much fun on Saturday, and despite being tired, Scott and I were really pretty energetic.
Saturday night, Dallin joined us and brought soda and doughnuts. We watched some shows (Survivor!) and then Dallin and Scott played some video games. I retired around 1:30am, because heaven knows I really don't do well with that much lack of sleep. That plus we had 9:00am church the next morning. Scott came to bed atound 3:00am. The plan worked and we were definitely tired. Tired, but not grumpy. Church was pretty great, honestly. We sat with my neighbors and Melia loved that. She has never been so good at church. Melia ignored Scott and I completely during Sacrament and just played and talked with Peggy the entire meeting. It was very cute to watch and it was nice to see that she's opening up to people. Everyone at church commented on how they were surprised to see us at church and asked when we were going in. The surprise only got greater when we told them, "In the morning!" It was fun to talk to everyone about it and it was nice hearing everyone support and prayers and well wishes for us. When we got home, we got Melia ready for her nap and prepared for our home teachers to come visit. Melia was very quiet so we had thought she fell asleep, but she never did. After the home teachers left, we tried to put her back down for her nap and Scott and I did some planning. I got a phone call from the hospital telling me that they would have a room waiting for us at 6:00am and to call them in the morning when we left. We got very nervously excited because now we knew exactly when we needed to leave and be there! Not long after the call, we went up for dinner with my parents. Melia was so good while we were eating and we had thought she'd finally fallen asleep, but once again found that she didn't. Poor girly sat in her bed for a couple hours, quiet and content as can be, just awake and waiting for Mama or Papa to come get her. By this point, it was almost 4:00 I think so we got her out of her bed and just hung out in the front room. She was really cheerful and honestly, I think she was just too excited to sleep. We had been telling her all week that baby sister was coming on Monday, the day after "church day" and she was always happy to hear the news.
The goal at the end of the day was to get to bed when Melia went to bed. We were pretty close. Melia goes to bed at 8;00pm (and she actually fell asleep very quickly this time) and we got to bed by like 9:30pm. I took a bath and shaved (yes, I shaved my legs at 39 weeks pregnant and did a dang good job) and Scott finished up the little bit of cleaning we had left to do. I took some Tylenol Pm and we retired. Around 1:30am, Melia woke up and Scott and I never went back to sleep. I mean, not fully. It came and went in short spurts of sleep, but we never got a complete sleep cycle after Melia woke up. Scott actually ended up getting out of bed, showering and packing his stuff up at 2:00am. He played a game and read for about an hour and finally at 3:30am, I still hadn't fallen back asleep, I called him into the bed to help me try and at least get one last hour of sleep before our alarm went off at 4:40am. Scott never did fall back asleep, but I did for about 45 minutes. Not very much sleep for the night before a long labor. We were just too excited and honestly, it ended up being ok.
We left the house at the very last minute we had planned for and brought our monitor upstairs for my parents to get Melia when she woke. I ate a bowl of granola on the way to the hospital and that would be the last thing I ate until 12 hours later. We got to the hospital right on time and, having been very well warned, had to wait for two hours because the hospital had just updated their entire computer system over the weekend. Today was the first day of it up and running. Lucky us. So finally, at 8:15am, after many trips back and forth from my nurse asking for help with the computer, I got all hooked and my Pitocin was started. I was feeling pretty good and the nurse, as well as my doctor, Julie were optimistic about the labor going quickly. They both estimated an early afternoon delivery. At 9:20am, Julie came into the room to break my water! WHAT? That was so soon, I thought, but I knew it would definitely help speed things up. So they broke my water, which was not a very enjoyable feeling, and I continued to labor away. I was dilated to a 3cm at this point and hoped that this would help. Around 10:00am, I asked the anesthesiologist to come in to get my epidural. I asked a few questions and he explained very well how it could work so it fit my needs perfectly. Around 10:30am, the epidural was completed and I had my first dose pumped. I asked to be started off low and slow with the dosage because I wanted to be able to feel everything still. It worked exactly how I wanted it to and I was very pleased. Any time I felt I needed more, I just pushed a little green button. I let the first dose be the only dose for several hours. The contractions were definitely coming, but they weren't enough to justify more medication.
Around 12:30pm, Dallin came over to the hospital (after a very difficult time finding the place) to have lunch with Scott. Scott kept asking if that was ok since I couldn't eat. I just had to chuckle to myself. Of course it is ok, he needs to eat regardless of whether or not I could. Silly husband. So he and Dal went down to the cafeteria to eat and they were gone for about an hour. It didn't matter much because not long after Scott went down, Heather, our photographer (and an old friend from high school!) came into the room. I was so glad to have found her because the few pictures we have from Melia's birth are so, so precious to us. Heather just kind of hung out and worked on some wedding pictures from the previous week and we chatted. Scott and Dallin came back into the room around 1:30pm and I was still at 3cm. I started to get discouraged. I knew that the moment I got to about a 5cm, I would fly through the rest of the dilation process and baby sister would be here. But it was taking SO LONG!
My pitocin dosage kept getting amped up every few hours and my contractions were getting much stronger. They just got stuck at 2 minutes apart and wouldn't get any closer. I was very happy to have Scott, Dallin and Heather all in the room with me. I had three people to talk to and help keep me entertained and my mind away from the disappointment of not progressing. FINALLY around 3:15pm, I got checked again and was at 5.5cm! Woohoo! I knew that from there it would be fast. I told Scott to update the families. My nurse left and Heather and I were talking, I told Scott to turn the TV off and suddenly, as a contraction hit, I felt like I needed to push. I thought to myself, "Oh geez, that was weird. Maybe it's just that I didn't get to go to the bathroom before the epidural went in." I was so worried about pooping while I was pushing that I legitimately thought that the pressure I was feeling was just...poop. Then, very soon after, another contraction and the same urge to push. "Oh no. It's been like 10 minutes since my nurse was in..." I kept glancing at the clock as the contractions came. I hit my epidural button. Another contraction. "Oh my gosh. I think this is it...maybe I should say something." After that thought, I vocalized that I was feeling a lot of pressure, really to everyone in a general statement. I told them that I think I might need to call my nurse in to check me because I thought I was fully dilated and ready to push. So I did. It was 3:30pm when she came back in. ONLY 15 MINUTES LATER! I was fully dilated! "I WAS RIGHT!!" I shouted after she told us I was ready and everyone laughed. Dallin left the room sometime between me exclaiming my correctness and Julie showing up. My nurse called Julie and I just started dying. I mean, those contractions were long, hard and close together. After what seemed like for.ev.er. Julie came in. It was 4:05pm. I probably told the nurse a dozen times, "She needs to come now, because something is happening. I'm not going to make it. Is she on her way?"
When Julie came in, I told her that this was going to be fast and that I needed to push. She told me to wait through one more contraction so she could get dressed. Ok, ok, I supposed that's reasonable. I started pushing. The first push seemed really hard, for some reason. My back wasn't supported enough, I couldn't get my elbows behind me well enough. I pushed anyway, pretty well. Scott and Julie told me they could see her head. This was also the only time I noticed Heather was still there, clicking away with her camera. When the second contraction came along, I tried to get my arms behind me better and pushed again. Scott had grabbed the mirror so I could see her being born. I watched and pushed as best I could; it was definitely motivating to be able to see her. She was close. Her head was right there. I could see her. The third contraction came and I was much better supported by my elbows this time. She moved down a lot with this push, I could feel the difference. She was there, right there, mostly out. One more, that's all I needed. The contraction came and I pushed and she came. She was here!! I could see her little head, her face, her ears! Oh she was beautiful. I had to push just a little more to get her shoulders out, but she came with very little effort.
"Oh my word! She is beautiful! She is easily over 8 pounds." Julie said. I was crying, Scott was crying. Ellie Renee Christensen was born May 2, 2016 at 4:16pm, she weighed 8 pounds 15 ounces and is 20 inches long.
It took awhile for me to be able to hold her. They had to get her all cleaned out from the gunk. But that was ok. Julie had to clean me up too. I asked if I had any rips and to everyone's surprised, I didn't. I felt great, I just loved watching Scott follow her around everywhere. It took a long time to get things rolling, but once I got to hold her, really hold her, it was perfect. We did skin to skin and starting nursing. She had a hard time deciding if she wanted to latch or not, but once she did, she was strong and had a great latch. As she was finishing eating, my family arrived. My mom asked if they could come in. I said yes and she came in followed by a very excited looking Melia. Ellie was in her cart ready to go down for her bath. Melia started walking towards me, but was obviously looking for her baby sister. She turned and saw her in her cart and immediately turned towards her. I laughed and cried at her adorableness. Melia was saying, "There's my sister. That's my sister." as she was picked up to peek over at her. I couldn't help but tear up as my heart was filled at the love Melia has for Ellie.
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| Photo Cred: Calluna Bella Photography |
I am so in love with my girlies. They are both so beautiful and I am so blessed to call them mine. Ellie has been a dream of a newborn. She eats like a champ, sleeps like a bear and I get to call her all mine. I'm so excited for this new addition and to watch Ellie and Melia grow together. It will be hard, but it will be so worth it. I know there will be days that I will feel I just can't do it anymore, but through their love, I will be able to Keep Moving Forward
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