grace victoria

Gracie has arrived! My lack of recent blogging is, as some have suspected, for this reason. We went into the hospital on Saturday morning at my mother's insistance to find that I was still only dilated to 3 cm. I thought I was going to be sent home, just like I had with Abbie. Instead, the doctor who was covering for my physician took a look at my history and decided that she didn't want to risk sending me home and having to make a mad dash back in the middle of the night. Plus, she wanted to make sure that I got at least two doses of antibiotics in my system because I'm positive for GBS, so to our surprise she decided to keep us and get the show on the road. They started giving me the first dose of penicillin around noon, which needed to be done before they would start on pitocin. The IV penicillin absolutely killed my arm, the nurse was so sweet and just kept apologizing for the pain! After the first dose was in, they started the pitocin in an attempt to make my contractions more productive. It would put me into a regular pattern, but didn't really intensify them very much. They increased the dosage several times, but it didn't really do much. I only progressed to 4 cm before I was ready for the next dose of penicillin. They didn't want to break my water until I got enough antibiotics because they were worried I would go too fast at that point. They were right. After the second dose of penicillin, they broke my water at around 4:45 pm. For those who are squemish, skip the next line! When they broke my water it was funny because both the doctor and the nurse were completely floored by how much fluid there was. It just kept coming and coming, soaking through two towels before it stopped. The doctor said that if the baby wound up being a boy we would have to name it Noah because she had never seen that much water before! Anyways, after my water was broken, the contractions definitely picked up in frequency and intensity. I had not had any pain medication again, so I was hoping that breaking my water would bring a speedy end to the labor. I've never had to endure more than 3 hours of intense pain and didn't really want to do it this time! About 1 hour later I made them check me and I had dilated to 7 cm. The doctor decided to go put on her scrubs because, as she suspected, I was going fast now and she thought I would probably deliver within another hour. I continued to work through the contractions, and was eventually ready to push. I have to say that pushing seemed a lot more difficult this time, even though I only had to do it for about 15 or 20 minutes. I had episiotomies with my first two, but this doctor didn't think that I really needed one, so she worked with me during pushing to avoid one. At the time I could have cared less about whether or not she cut me, I just wanted her out! I have to say now, though, that I am so glad she didn't give me one. I have noticed such a difference in the recovery this time that it was definitely worth a couple extra minutes of pushing and pain. Anyways, Grace Victoria was born at 6:43 pm. She weighed 8 lbs. 2.6 oz. and was 20 inches long. I'm sure glad that I didn't go any closer to her due date, she would have been huge! They laid her on my chest and she was so incredibly calm, it was hard to believe that she belonged in our family! Jon was able to actually cut the cord himself, which he hadn't really ever been able to do when we lived in Utah. He will probably admit that his hand got a raw deal this time around, though. I did some pretty heavy squeezing of both him and the hospital bed, so much so that my arms are still pretty sore 4 days later! I'm glad that it is all over and done with. We came home on Monday and are now in the no-sleep for mom all night long mode. At least my other two children are good sleepers. Gracie screamed for about an hour and a half last night, and neither of them heard a thing! We'll hope that doesn't change. We are excited to have her here and I'm sure I'll be blogging plenty more in the days and weeks to come!