As it was happening it was at times scary, stressful, discouraging, tiring, and extremely painful. But then as soon as it was over and I was holding baby Rosalie, one of my first thoughts was "That wasn't so bad, I could do that again!."
Those hormones are powerful haha. Also, I have cute babies and life doesn't get any better than cuddling your very own brand new adorable newborn.
I was very happy to make it to my induction date. I spent my entire pregnancy worrying about preterm labor (because of my history). It is an amazing blessing to make it to full-term and to give my baby the best chance at being healthy. My planner side also really likes having a scheduled date to have everything perfectly ready by.
We checked into the hospital at 5am on September 5th, 2023 after spending the day before, Labor Day (ironic lol), putting the final touches on the nursery and cleaning the house. I was 37 weeks and 3 days pregnant, and it was 9 months to the day of our January 5th embryo transfer. It was also my mom's 60th birthday, and we were hoping to give her the greatest present ever- a birthday twin- by the end of the day.
By 6:30am, I was getting my first dose of Pitocin. I was already 2cm dilated and having contractions on my own, so I felt pretty confident in a pretty fast labor. Magnolia's was relatively fast for being my first full-term baby and an induction (12 hours). I had heard a million stories about second babies being much faster. My own mom barely made it to the hospital in time to have my little sister.
An hour after starting meds, I was having contractions every 5-6 minutes but couldn't really feel them. They gradually got a little more uncomfortable and closer together.
My doctor offered to break my water a few hours later, but I opted to try getting an epidural first. I say 'try,' because I have the worst luck with epidurals. With Magnolia, the first epidural did absolutely nothing and the second (they had to redo it) took the edge off in some areas but did nothing in others. With Christian, the first only worked on one side, but the second made me completely numb. That was why I was willing to try again.
My first epidural was placed at 11:45am. It did nothing. Surprise, surprise. Cue some stress.
My second epidural was placed at 1:15pm. I felt encouraged right away because my legs were slightly tingly- a sign it was working. For the next many hours I could feel the tightness of contractions but only a tiny bit of pain. I was very relieved to get anything! I hadn't been struggling with pain yet but I was afraid for the end.
We had a relaxed few hours reading our books, taking naps, and having a lot of hope that progress was being made and it wouldn't end up being as painful as Magnolia's delivery.
I was checked at 4:30pm... and to my surprise hardly anything had happened. I was only 3cm after being at the hospital for almost 12 hours already.
My doctor came to break my water at 5pm, which we hoped would get things going. Unfortunately, when I was checked again at 7pm I was only 4cm. Progress, but slow progress.
At that point I started feeling stressed and grumpy. It was officially taking longer than Magnolia's labor. I was tired, overheated, and while not in a ton of pain I was uncomfortable. A nurse kept trying to give me annoying pep talks but I didn't want to talk to anyone lol.
You know what else is really annoying about labor? The monitors constantly falling off/ not working. There are monitors for baby's heart rate and for contractions that you have to wear the whole time. They tried the wireless monitor twice but couldn't get a signal because I was in the farthest room.
The traditional monitors were very finicky and continuously stopped working, especially when I would try to change positions to be more comfortable. So I would end up having to lay in uncomfortable positions for long periods of time while nurses came in to try to fix them. I know that being monitored is more important than being able to relax, but it definitely made the day longer and more obnoxious.
By 9pm, contractions started actually hurting instead of just being unpleasant. I was checked again at 10pm and I was 6cm. More progress, but still pretty slow. I pretty much gave up hope for a September 5th baby.
By 11pm, things took a turn from "that really hurts" to "I can't handle how much it hurts." Someone came to dose up the epidural, which I ended up being very thankful for.
I was checked at 11:10 and was completely dilated. David kept nervously asking when the doctor was getting there and I kept telling him to stop talking haha.
People started flooding into the room. David was relieved that the doctor was one of them. I started pushing at 11:17pm and Rosalie Belle Rubino was born at 11:29pm. She made it on her Grandma's birthday after all!
Rosalie was 7.9 pounds and 20.5 inches. Lots of dark hair and an adorable little face.
I was very happy to get to cuddle her and to have gotten the extra pain meds for the aftermath.
The meds hadn't had time to kick in before the delivery, but I ended up having a piece of retained placenta that needed to be manually removed and needed stitches. That process took at least an hour and I'm extremely relieved I didn't have to feel much of that.
The marathon is over! So many months of stress and feeling sick and uncomfortable... and now she's home safely. We love our new tiny baby so much and are thrilled to have two perfect little girls at home.
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