Elizabeth Bailey Mars was born 7/13/09 at 7:27 AM. She's 20.5" 8lbs 11 oz. Such a cute little chunker. Ellie has her Mom's nose and her Dad's butt chin. She was wide awake after she was born and looked at everyone and everything in site with her big blue baby eyes. We love her so much! Read on if you care for more gory delivery details.
We were scheduled to get induced on Sunday the 13th due to my high blood pressure, though I was somewhat leary about not waiting for nature to take it's course. I started to get excited on the Saturday before the induction because I was having regular and uncomfortable contractions. We were having "last meal" at Logans and were about to see a movie. Dinner was great despite having a very odd waitress who was very obsessed with the fact that I was pregant and kept asking me weird questions like "was this planned?" All through dinner, the contractions continued so we decided to walk around the mall a little while to see if they would go away. They didn't and I had a few very strong and painful ones (YES!) We ended up skipping the movie to go home, relax, and wait to see what the contractions would do while watching the Tigers play. Sadly they spaced apart, but then they came back at 3:30 AM in the middle of the night/morning on Sunday. They were somewhat painful, but I wasn't convinced it was time yet. I was looking forward to the morning to relax, sleep, and wait for the scheduled induction that evening. The next morning they got more regular and slightly more intense, so we called the on-call doctor around noon. I even showered, shaved, made up my face, and straightened my hair. The doctor called back and said to come on into the hospital, but we ended up getting sent home because I hadn't progressed enough (I was still at a measly 1 cm). When the nurse in triage checked me, she did something that was a ton more painful than normal (all you ladies who have been checked in this situation know it isn't comfortable to begin with) and said "there, maybe that will help things along." Ouch. I already felt different on the drive home. As soon as we got home (about 4 pm), the contractions REALLY intesified. 4 to 6 minutes apart and very painful. Nothing I did changed the pattern or offered any relief except for standing in the warm shower, which I did twice during the waiting period. I had to wait it out 4.5 more hours until we could go back to the hospital for my scheduled induction. I wish they would have just kept me there! I couldn't stand it any longer and we left a half hour early. I thought surely it would be epidural time.
When we arrived at the hospital at 8:00, I still wasn't very far along (only 2 cm). I couldn't believe all that pain with not much going on. The nurse gave me some Ambian and said I had to wait until "a good 4" for an epidural. Not the answer I was looking for! The Ambian did nothing to help me relax or sleep and I started throwing up during the contractions. I was given Stadol. This shut me up and knocked me out very fast, but I still woke up for every contraction so I was just in and out of this awful drunken state. I got checked some time later and was about 3 cm. Still too early for the epidural. The nurse gave me another round of the Stadol. By this time we were approaching 1 am. 24 hours since I first starting having these contractions and 10 hours since they were regular and painfully intense. This was not the experience I imagined. The nurse told me she would check on me in another hour. Time passed slowly and the F-bombs were picking up. I made Scott get her 45 minutes later and I was ready to offer her ANYTHING to give me my epidural. She checked me and I was a "good 5" so she called the anestesiologist. It took the mean guy over 45 minutes to arrive and set everything up. I vaguely remember some new faces being in the room and trying to help me hold it together. This by far was the worst period where I felt no relief inbetween contractions. They were coming so fast and furious and my body didn't have time to recover in-between. By the time he was finished setting up for the epi, I was already at "a good 8 cm." Finally, relief! It was close to 3:30 am and I got to take a little nap. The nurse checked me an hour later and I was already good to go (10 cm) but they were going to try to have me "hold her in" so that my doctor could deliver instead of the oncall doc. I thought this was a little strange, but my pain was gone so I didn't care. My water broke around 6 (I briefly thought the baby shot out but I was wrong) and my doctor arrived a little after 7:00. Only 4 rounds of pushing and she was born at 7:27. It was great, but no rush to repeat the process anytime soon!
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