Lucy Aurelia Gregerson was born on February 2nd, 2011 at 1:17 am. She weighed 7 lbs, 7 oz and was 19 1/2 inches long. She was my biggest baby by far! It's crazy to think Madelyn was over a pound smaller and an inch and a half shorter. Lucy still seems so tiny! I hate that she is growing up so fast already! Knowing she is my last baby and knowing we will never be in this stage in life again is so sad. It's my favorite thing. I know I don't want another child and I definitely will not be going through another pregnancy, but I think I could take a million more newborns!
The delivery was pretty crazy. (This is gonna be long!) I had decided after I had Madelyn and had really bad shakes that I would like to do a natural delivery, without an epidural next time. With the first 3 labors, I would progress slowly to a 4 and then BAM! I would deliver the baby. I figured this one would be the same and I just needed to get through that hard part and then I wouldn't have the crappy epidural side effects; be shaky, no catheter, I could walk right after. It would be awesome!
After all the early scares, Lucy just didn't seem to want to come out. I had gone to the hospital almost a week before she was born, contracting every 3-4 minutes for hours, dilated to almost a 4 and was admitted. Since we were going natural, we got up and walked through the contractions for several hours. When I finally got back in bed to be monitored again, the contractions petered out and they sent me home since I had only effaced a little more in that time. After that, the contractions never wanted to get regular again. I was getting worried because she was getting bigger and I had had a 4th degree tear with little 6 lb 9oz Sienna. I was fine with the last 2 and them being right around that size, but I didn't know what would happen if I had a bigger baby.
I had an appt. on the 1st and was talking about my fears; about Spencer getting ready to go back on call and worry about him missing it, or even needing to shut the base down if the other nurse wasn't around so he could attend the birth. The Dr. said he would talk to the on-call Dr. for the day and see if she would maybe just help things get started. Since I was already contracting, just irregularly, she said no problem.
We got over there around noon and they monitored me, where I was already contracting between 5-8 minutes apart. They started pitocin around 1 and my contractions were 2-3 minutes apart right away. I was fine. For hours. They kept upping the pit and upping it and I wasn't even really uncomfortable. I couldn't understand because when I had had Pitocin before, it killed, right away. They just upped and upped, every 1/2 hour. At 6 the Dr. came in and broke my water. I figured that would get things going. Nope. I just sat on my birth ball, rolling around, trying to get fluid out, hoping it would speed something up. I'm not sure what time I finally started really feeling the contractions and having to focus on relaxing through them. It was late.
There is no way to truly prepare for the pain of that. I tried to, but, I just wasn't. I started feeling like maybe I couldn't do it. The nurse helped me with breathing and that seemed to help for a little bit. I was sharp with Spencer and felt horrible about it and was apologizing tons right after the contraction. He was amazing. He would have preferred for me to get the epidural, but was being so amazing and supportive. I love that man. Seriously, I LOVE him. He is my world.
Then I got to the point where I felt like I couldn't do it anymore. I could NOT get through one more contraction. All my relaxation skills were out the window. I asked for the epidural. They were good and did wait for a little while to make sure I was serious. They checked me to make sure I wasn't too far dilated and I was a 5-6 and 100% effaced. The anesthesiologist was on-call from home about 20 minutes away. Not too long after they called him, I felt like I needed to push. I was checked and just had a rim of cervix left. They told me to not push, but honestly, I had NO control. My body was already doing it. They grabbed everything and had me go. I started screaming to "Get it out!" (and I only said that because I didn't know Baby's sex, not because my baby was an it!) and stopped pushing because it hurt so much. I forgot that I needed to hold my breath and push! 2 more pushes though and she was out. It was so fast and traumatic Lucy ended up with a bruised nose and broken blood vessels in her eyes. It breaks my heart. I was so out of it at that point and it took me a minute to realize Spencer had said she was a girl and realize my baby was out.
I still can't believe I did that. Now that it's been several days, it seems less traumatizing, and kind of funny, but not right after. I don't think I would ever do it again, though. It seemed to be more about getting through the delivery and the pain was my focus, where when I had an epidural, the pain was gone and the baby was the focus. I know my Mom said that she never experienced the pain the way I described it, so maybe for some of us it is different. For me though, it was a learning experience, but not one I would want to go through again.
Lucy is so beautiful and sweet. She is a very mellow baby and we all love her so much. It is such a blessing to have this new life in our home and I feel immensely blessed to be given the privilege of being a mother again to this beautiful little girl.
