The Last 12 Gruesome Hours of Labor

So, after 25 hours of no change at all, I had dilated to 6cm and the balloon was removed and they broke my water to see if they could speed things up a bit. The second day if the stay brought in a lot of familiar faces. All the nurses and doctors from the previous day were back for their next shift and all felt so bad that I was still pregnant.

The one good thing about the slow progress was that it gave my mom the time she needed to jump on a plane and make it in time. She, my best friend Sarah, and Justin's parents were all in the room when I started feeling a lot of pain. I had them all leave and the anesthesiologist came back to see what was going on. She tried upping the medication, fixing the port, and finally said the only other option is to reinsert the whole thing, which was no guarantee or I could just deal. I refused to try again after the problems I had the first time so I decided to just continue on without it. About an hour later, around 11pm, I started feeling like I needed to push. I called the nurse who was hesitant that I was at that point. She checks me and all she says is "Yep, that's a baby's head!" Justin looked at me and started crying because he was so happy and ready to meet our daughter. The nurse had me push twice while the doctors and staff were called to set up the room. The doctors came in at 11:15pm and after two more pushes over only 15 minutes, she was born. They held Stella up and put her on my chest while they finished up. Justin and I were so overwhelmed with joy and emotion as we looked at our beautiful daughter. She was so tiny, weighing in at only 5lbs 11oz and 17 1/2in long.

I thought the worst was over and that it was going to be easy from that point on, but I was wrong. The doctor said that the placenta and cord had broken inside and they had to go in and manually extract it. It was horrifying to say the least, but all the while I just stared at my new baby girl and watched as her eyes explored the world. That moment was when the past 37 hours of labor and pain became worth it.

It was about an hour later that we let my mom, his parents, and Sarah into the room to meet her. They were all so overwhelmed by how beautiful she is and everyone took turns holding her. I still was confined to bed for the next day because they needed to keep me on the magnesium. That was awful because I was unable to pick her up or change her without help. Justin was so great and did absolutely everything for me and the baby. It made me love him so much more than I ever thought possible. He's the most amazing dad and he is so in love with his daughter.

After they removed me from the magnesium, we were moved to the Mother Baby Unit. The nurses were all so helpful and nice, which made it much easier for me to recover and for Justin to get some much needed rest.

We were (finally!) discharged on Friday the 16th after what seemed like forever in the hospital. My mom was waiting for us at home and had cleaned the entire house. It made it so much easier to transition into life at home. I can't thank her enough for all her help.