JoY!!!

I have been wanting to write about the arrival of Ila Joy for a while now but with my more desperate need for sleep this post was put on the back burner. I finally feel a bit more normal now and thought I would get her joyous arrival down in words. Sorry this post is so long but it was a long 2 days!!!
My due date was November 21 and since I have a bizarre condition that requires frequent monitoring of both me and the baby the doctors decided it was in our best interest to not go past the due date. I was scheduled to arrive at the hospital at 6am that morning but we were to first call two hours ahead of time to insure a spot. So of course I could hardly sleep that night, worried both about the delivery and making sure I didn't over sleep and miss our chance at a good time slot. I dutifully called at 4am and the nurse acted like I was a moron for calling so early. I looked at my paper that the doctor's office had given me hopng that in fact I wasn't a moron and it said " your scheduled time is 6am but please call two hours prior to insure that there is room for you". The nurse said that that must have been a mistake because nobody came in before 8am. She told us to just come in then. I tried to go back to sleep (which of course proved impossible). We finally got to the hospital at 8am and were put in a delivery room. We waited for two and a half hours before a nurse finally came in and explained what our induction procedure would be. Apparently they had had a busy night. There were 12 baby girls and 2 boys in the nursery from the night before. At 12:00pm they gave me a pill that was supposed to dialate the cervix and bring on contractions. I had to lay around for a few hours before they checked me again. Very little progress had been made and at 7:00pm they gave me another dose. I was starting to have frequent but no super intense contractions. They checked me at 1am and no progress had been made. I was so frustrated and extremely exhausted. I went to the bathroom and started crying and could hardly stop. The nurse told me that I should just get the epidural now since I was planning on it anyway so I could get some sleep and be ready for pushing. I was worried that it would wear off if I got it too soon but she insured me that it wouldn't. So after I got it I slept until the next morning and they checked be at about 9am and said it was time to start getting ready to push. At 10am I started pushing. At this point I could tell when a contraction was coming but wasn't in any real pain. I pushed and pushed and pushed. I soon started vomiting and shaking and was so exhausted I could hardly muster up another push. We tried all sorts of ways to push. On my sides, with the hand holds, and finally they brought out the birthing bar and a bed sheet. It was really old school but it seemed to help. I was making really slow progress. For every push I gave the baby would move down a bit and then go back a bit. They started to be concerned that her cord was wrapped around her neck. Andrew and my sister Sarah were my coaches. They were really a good support team. I was really frustrated at this point because I was trying to push like the nurses wanted but whenever I did a wrong push is when they shouted that that was a great push. They decided to turn off the epidural so I could feel when to push a bit better. I think they thought I was going to deliver sooner because by the time I got down to the final pushes the epidural had worn off on one side of my body and I could feel everything pretty well. I hadn't planned on this and was not prepared to manage the pain ( I really was in no state of mind to try either) The nurses and Andrew and Sarah kept saying how much hair the baby had so I decided to get a mirror to see, which was an interesting choice. Soon after that the doctor came in and we got down to the real business. Ila finally showed her pretty face (almost 2.5 hours later) and we realized the cord wasn't around her neck but that she was face up. Her posterior presentation had caused the slow progress.

She let out 5 squaks and Andrew got to cut the cord which sprayed him and the doctor with blood. They took her right over to the neonatal team that had been called and they checked her out. My sister said that she had a huge cone head. I could barely see her. The nurses were pumping me full of pain meds so the doctor could sew me up because the epidural was basically gone. The meds made me extremely sleepy. When the baby finally got to come over I held her for a little bit and turned to my sister and said "You've got to take her, I'm falling asleep." Sarah grabbed her and I was out cold.
We were able to bond after she was bathed and I had had a brief nap. Andrew was such a proud papa. I was so glad to have him and Sarah at the delivery. They both have personality traits that helped me to feel encouraged and supported. Ila is such a beautiful baby, and it is true what everyone says about the flood of love that comes over you towards that new baby. She has a really sweet disposition so far and already is starting to show a bit of personality. We are so happy to have her in our home. She has filled our hearts with JoY!!!