As of yesterday our Pearly Girl is 3 weeks old. We love her to bits! I wanted to be sure to write down her birth story before the details get muddy in my memory.
So the plan all along with this pregnancy was that I would be induced at 39 weeks. When I first met my OBGYN in Bountiful, Dr. Ward, and he saw on my medical history that I'd gone to 41 weeks with both Evie and Eliza, he asked if I'd done that by choice. When I said that no one seemed to give me any other option, he said, "well, I'll induce you at 39 this time around if you want," and I was happy about that. I was induced with Eliza and it had gone really well, so I felt confident about it. Plus I liked the idea of everything being scheduled, so I could arrange for care for the girls while we were at the hospital and everything.
At the beginning of February, my sister-in-law, Brooke, was induced with her 7th baby. For whatever reason it took 22 hours. BLESS her heart. How awful. Of course it turned out fine and their little girl, Olivia, is just precious, but what an eternally long induction. So of course when I heard all about that, I talked to Dr. Ward about it and said I really wanted to avoid having that experience. He assured me that they would check me in the weeks preceding the induction to make sure I was dilating some on my own (he said you need to be around 2cm to be induced) and said that based on my past experience that I shouldn't have a problem. So that was reassuring.
At my 36 week appointment we talked again about the induction, and when I said I felt good about it, Dr. Ward put me on the list for an elective induction for Monday, April 6th. (My due date was April 12th). He said that way at least I'd be on the list, and I could always change my mind if I didn't feel ready on that day and wanted to wait. He said he felt confident it would work out though - he said, "We'll get you in there at around 7:30, get your water broken, and we should have that baby by 4." He checked me then and I was already 1cm dilated so he was confident I'd dilate more in the next few weeks. Two weeks later a nurse in his office checked me again (Dr. Ward was out of town) and I was 2cm, so everything looked good to be induced on Monday the 6th.
On Sunday night, April 5th (which was Easter), the hopsital called me and told me I should call in at 6:30 the next morning. My brother, Spencer, who lives in Orem, had come up for Easter and was spending the night so he could be with Evie and Eliza the next day. So we just crossed our fingers that I'd be able to get in on Monday and wouldn't be postponed to another day. I called in at 6:30 and was told to come in at 8:30am. Yay!
We left the girls with Spencer, and drove down to LDS Hospital. As I was checking in my doctor called the desk to make sure I was there. Nice to know I was remembered. :) So then they took me to my delivery room where I changed into a gown. My nurse, Erica, came in, along with a student nurse, Veronica. Before they can start the Pitocin they have to fill out a bunch of medical history paperwork, get your IV set up, and get at least 20 solid minutes of monitoring your baby's heart. Getting those darn monitors in place was the most difficult part of this Eliza's induction and this one too. My babies are so wiggly and my pregnant belly is always a total basketball that is hard to strap anything to. Poor Erica, she tried so many different bands and straps trying to get the monitors to stay put. Just when we thought we were settled, the baby would move and she'd have to adjust everything. It took forever. At one point she even brought in an ultrasound machine so she could be sure what position the baby was in so she'd be even more confident where to try placing the monitor. The IV also took a little while to place, because the student nurse tried placing it first and had only done an IV once before and totally popped through the vein. Whoops. Luckily I had asked them to numb that spot on my arm. :) It didn't bother me though, I mean how else are you supposed to learn except to practice? I would have been fine if she'd wanted to try again, but Erica stepped in and placed the IV on the other arm since we were needing to get the Pitocin going. Finally they got their 20 minutes of heartbeat monitoring and the IV was in, and they started the Pitocin at 10am. I didn't feel much for the first while and Tinoa and I just hung out.
At 10:30 the nurses came back in to say that the anesthesiologist on call was going into a C-section at 11:30, so if I wanted an epidural I'd need to do it before then, or I'd have to wait until probably 12:30 or 1. At first I felt like I was copping out getting one so soon, but we decided to go ahead and have the epidural done at about 11. So at 11 the anesthesiologist came in. I can't remember his name now, but he was really nice and kinda looked like a surfer - he even had a long ponytail. So he joked around about how he'd done millions of epidurals, had me sign the paperwork, and we got started. After he placed it, he was like, "Okay, so tell me if you have any buzzing in your ears or if you feel spacey." I said I did, and it was true - it felt like I was using laughing gas. Very trippy. He was like, "okay...I think we may have hit a little blood vessel then..." :/ Oh dear. Eventually the buzzing went away and I didn't feel so trippy, so he was like, "Okay, I think this is going to be alright then," and he left for the C-section.
So then we just hung out for awhile, with the nurses coming in periodically. Yay for the epidural, I wasn't in pain, I was just lying there sucking on my strawberry-flavored ice and Tinoa and I were discussing his stake conference talk (to be given the following week) on the Book of Mormon. I tried reading, but that was sorta pointless. At about 1pm, Dr. Ward came (during his lunch break from his regular clinic stuff). At that point he checked me (I think I was 4cm?) and broke my water to encourage things along. He told the nurses to text him when I got to 8cm, and jokingly told me it would be nice if I'd hold off having the baby until after 5 so he could finish his clinic stuff. So then he left and we went back to hanging out. At some point during this I asked Erica how the day was going and she said it was one of the busiest days Labor & Delivery had seen in years and that I'd been the only elective induction to get in that day. Lucky me! Good thing Dr. Ward had put me on the list several weeks early; I'd been first on it.
Then at about 2:30 it was suddenly like my epidural vanished. The contractions were really strong and painful and I found myself having to breathe really hard through all of them. I worked my way through them for a little while, and then I was like, uh, I think my epidural isn't working, this is really hurting. They called for the anesthesiologist to come back and Erica checked me again. At about 3pm I was 6.5cm. The anesthesiologist came in and gave me another dose of the epidural, but because of the nicked blood vessel, I just got all trippy and buzzy again with the higher dose. So it was kind-of intense for like half an hour and eveything sort-of happened in a blur. The contractions were coming really fast and the epidural was making me all spacey and not helping at all. Tinoa was getting concerned, and Erica was like, "I think her baby is going to come really, really soon." What was also interesting with this birth was that at this point with every contraction TONS of amniotic fluid came rushing out; I totally soaked the bed and the floor. I don't remember that happening with the past two births. After a few minutes of no success with the epidural, the anesthesiologist decided just to place a new one, which he did successfully, but they take about 15 minutes to kick in so I just carried on with my heavy breathing/gripping the bed rails. At about 3:20, I was like, "I really feel like I have to push." Erica checked me again and I was fully dilated. (Whew, pretty fast there.) By this time Dr. Ward had been alerted that I was progressing quickly and that he should come, but he was all the way up at his clinic in Bountiful, so when I told them I needed to push, they were like, "uh,..okay, well Dr. Ward won't be here for about 20 minutes, so you'll need to wait." Tinoa wasn't impressed and kept saying to me, "Just push the baby out, I'll catch it!" but of course the nurses were like, noo, you gotta wait, and I knew I needed to wait too, so I just told him we'd wait and that he needed to be supportive. :) By 3:30 or so the new epidural was working, so I wasn't hurting anymore which was great, but the urge to push was really strong. Every time I had a contraction I just focused on holding the baby in, even saying out loud to myself, "holding, holding, holding."
Finally at about 3:45 Dr. Ward came rushing in the room. First he had to get all his garb on and then we started the pushing. I remember doing about 4 big pushes and then there she was! As I was pushing her out Tinoa was so excited, he kept saying, "I can see her! I can see her head!" She was officially born at 3:54. I remember looking down and seeing her little legs up in the air as they were cutting the cord and then when they handed her to me I burst into tears. I hadn't cried at a birth before, but this time I did. It was so awesome and beautiful.
Our plan during the whole pregnancy was that we were going to name the baby Nina Pearl. Tinoa had an Aunt named Penina, which is Samoan for Pearl, so we wanted to name the baby Nina Pearl in memory of her. I love the name Nina and Tin liked it too, so we were going to go with that. When they handed her to me though I felt like a voice in my head was saying, "Pearl, Pearl, Pearl." I admired her for a few minutes and then I turned to Tinoa and said, "I think she's Pearl." He gave me a huge grin and said, "Oh, I'm so relieved! I was thinking she was Pearl too, but I didn't want to say anything because I know how much you wanted the name Nina!" So she was meant to be Pearl.
For the next hour I just held the baby, still covered in her whitish baby goo from being in the womb. Then my brother came with Evie and Eliza so they could meet the baby. It was lovely and overwhelming all at the same time to have all three girls together. Our new reality. :) The girls were so excited though and we took tons of pictures of course.
So that was her birth! We had the baby 6 minutes before 4pm - just like Dr. Ward predicted, haha.
Also funny, I found out later from my Aunt Patty that her son-in-law, my cousin's husband, Todd, is the head of anesthesia for Labor & Delivery at LDS Hospital. Of course I know about my anesthesiologist cousin, but those cousins were way older than me so I never knew them well or stayed in touch, and I was under the impression that he was at the U. But no. So my Aunt was like, "Next time you can request Dr. Seymour and he'll do an excellent job!" Maybe it would be weird to have someone in your family place your epidural though, I don't know, haha.
We mulled over her middle name for about a day, and both individually felt good about the name Grace. President Uchtdorf had just given that beautiful talk on grace in General Conference, and the first morning in the hospital I read a talk by Sherry Dew on grace, and for whatever reason it just felt right to both of us that that should be her middle name.
The recovery for this birth has gone really well too I feel - better than the recovery after having Eliza for sure. Nursing was more difficult to get started this time for some reason, but it's fine now and we are adjusting to life with three.
Pearl is darling, and we are so glad to have her here. Birth is such a miracle.
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