Sophie's Birth Story

I woke up Thursday morning at about 6:00 am (Dec. 2nd) and went to the restroom. I felt fluid coming out but it wasn't like urinating because it started to come out before I'd even sat down on the toilet. I thought my water may have broken but I wasn't feeling any other labor signs so I went back to bed. I got up at 6:30 and walked into the living room and realized my pajamas were wet and KNEW my water must have broken. Steven was awake so he started googling to see if that was the case and I called the doctor to see what to do from there. I had to go into the office to find out that my water had indeed broken and I was 1 cm and 80% effaced. We walked up to the 6th floor of Greenville Memorial and checked in to have a baby!

I was so scared because her birth was not turning out as I had hoped from the beginning. I planned on trying to birth Sophie naturally because I felt it would be easier to push her out if I wasn't confined to being on my back and I was fearful of the myriad of drugs that came along with being induced and having an epidural. I hoped to labor at home where I could eat and relax until it was necessary to go to the hospital. I also heard from friends that laboring after your water broke was much more difficult than having your water break after your contractions had already progressed some.However, because of the risk of infection associated with the ruptured membranes and my testing positive for Group B Strep I had to be hooked up to an IV immediately. I was hooked up to the monitors and given the IV at 10:30 am. The monitor showed that I was having some contractions that I couldn't feel and they were about 7 minutes apart. Unfortunately, the nurse told me the only contractions that actually worked for dilating the cervix are the ones you can feel. I wanted to avoid pitocin in hopes of delivering her naturally so I opted to take a pill that is given to patients with gastric ulcers that causes labor in pregnant patients. I took half of this pill at 10:30 am and half at 8:30 pm. I was allowed to eat dinner around 4:30 and walked around the hospital some to attempt to dilate more before taking the 2nd half at 8:30. My contractions continued to progress and at 10 pm I was checked again only to be at 2 cm.

Since I was only 2 cm at 10 pm, I took an Ambien in hopes of sleeping between contractions. It didn't really work very well and at 3 am I still hadn't dilated so I had to start pitocin. The contractions with pitocin were unbearable and at 5 am I chose to get the epidural. I was only 3 cm at 5 am (really 2 cm change within a 24 hour period?!?) I didn't think I could continue in such pain for another 12 or more hours attempting to birth Sophie. I was very fearful of the needle (we'd seen demonstrations of the epidural in our birthing class) but by the time it came to get the epidural I could have cared less if it was the size of the space needle if it could reduce my pain. Oh the pain relief was absolutely wonderful. I don't know why I ever feared this wonderful invention. I am now convinced that it was the best invention that God ever allowed mankind to create.

I fell asleep after the epidural and was checked again at 7 am to find out that I was at 10 cm. They gave me some more epidural meds and let me sleep until 9 am when they woke me up to push. I pushed for 1 hour and 17 minutes and she arrived at 10:17 am. I couldn't feel anything after the epidural. I could barely feel myself pushing and kept telling Steven and the nurses that I didn't feel like I was pushing. They brought in a mirror while I was pushing so I could see her hair as she started to crown. I was so excited that she had hair. The doctor came in for the last push and kept telling me to look at her and when I opened my eyes I said, "Oh, there's a baby!" I didn't even know that she'd come out.

I got to hold her right away and was so relieved to meet her and see that she was healthy! She was so perfect and so beautiful!

During pregnancy we had several conversations about what I would be like during delivery. Steven thought I wouldn't be loud but I might say mean things. I wasn't loud and never screamed. I didn't even blame it all on Steven like he thought I would. The whole time during labor I kept asking Steven why anyone has more than one child? Why would anyone willingly choose to go through this pain multiple times? I also proclaimed to him and all of the nurses that the rest of our children would have to be adopted. I also told him multiple times that when I get to heaven I'm going to have a chat with Eve about her poor choices that affected all of womankind.