Cora's Birth Story
The story starts out really Last Saturday September 7th. I was just one day past due and was feeling like I was going to be pregnant forever. We spent the day in the pool because I think it was 90 some degrees outside and I was at this point swollen like a balloon. I had zero contractions that day and had no thought that she would come out any time soon.
I started getting a headache that afternoon and had taken Tylenol. The reason this wasimportant was because for the last four weeks my blood pressure had been borderline with protein in my urine and I was supposed to be watching headaches that lasted longer than a couple hours that did not go away with Tylenol. Anyhow, Luke and I went to a movie by ourselves and I was pretty miserable the entire time. When we got home around
10:30 I told Luke I was headed straight to bed. I probably only slept a hour because my migraine was so bad. Around three o clock I was so miserable from my head pain that I start worrying about why it had not gone away and I decided to call the on call advisory nurse. After a twenty minute phone call she advised that I come in to get checked out.
I walked downstairs and woke Luke up to tell him how sorry I was but we were needing to head to the hospital to get monitored but we were more than likely not staying and would be returning home later that day . We arrived at Carle around
4:30 and they hooked me up and had me pee in a cup. It was determined a couple hours later that it was in my best interest to stay and have our baby bc the risk of preeclampsia just kept increasing. I was so thrilled to be able to stay.
Around six thirty am they came in to start my iv and give me some Demerol and nausea medicine for my headache. I was so dehydrated that it took two hours seven pricks and four nurses to finely get a iv started. It ended up way up in my arm and was really really painful.
Around this time i finely decide its time to call my mom Kim and let her know that they would be inducing me but because I had not progressed at all from my appointment it could be a 18 to 36 hour process. The nurses were basically telling me that I was probably not going to deliver
until Monday. In the meantime Erica got to the hospital they started my pit and I spent until about noon slightly uncomfortable from the contractions but mostly more miserable with my migraine.
Around twelve thirty the contractions picked up and really started to hurt. It felt like a combination of a vice grip around your waist, stabbing pain in the vagina and broken back. They started coming every three minutes and after awhile I was ready for an epidural.
Mr. wonderful came around
two o'clock and I started feeling so much better. However after a little while I realized the epidural did not take all the way because I could still feel a lot on my right side.
At four o'clock the midwife came in checked my and I had gone from a three to a nine and so she broke my water. The anestologist came back in and fixed my epidural and and the plan was to start pushing around
6pm. I was to rest up until then.
Long story short I pushed for two hours and forty minutes. Cora was sunny side up and sort of crooked. It was the hardest thing I had ever done. There were times when I thought I would not have been able to continue and she was not going to come out. Thankfully I had an incredible
Support system. Cora was born at 8:40 pm on September 8th weighing 8lbs 4oz and was 20.5 inches long.
Seeing her for the first time was one of the best moments of my life. Watching my husband hold her for the first time was magical. We are so incredibly blessed and madly in love with this tiny girl. It has now been nine days and she has truly changed our life for the better.
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