I suppose Bria's birth story really began sometime early in February, when my blood pressure started to creep up. My history with Alaina has made everyone, me and the doctors, fairly sensitive to any blood pressure changes, so when my numbers started to go up, warning flags started to fly. The doctors recommended that I start coming in every three to four days, instead of just once a week, to keep an eye on things.
Unfortunately, the numbers never went back down. On February 15, I even landed in the hospital for about 5 hours to monitor my blood pressure. It stayed good and high, which led to a prescription for blood pressure medicine. The doctor told me to follow-up with her office on Monday the 18th, and if my blood pressure hadn't changed in a good way, then we'd be facing an induction at 39 weeks.
Monday came. My blood pressure was still high. So we scheduled the induction. Thankfully the 39 week mark was on Wednesday, so we didn't have to wait long. It was very stressful to walk around with crazy high blood pressure. There is a list of warning signs to look for with numbers like that, and every little headache or foggy contact episode made me wonder if I had crossed over from hypertension to full-blown preeclampsia. It was exhausting.
You know me, I've never enjoyed the waiting for labor game either. So scheduling an induction, while not ideal, was actually a bit of a blessing. I was able to take the girls to Chick-fil-a for lunch for our last lunch together, and to finish up laundry before taking them to my parents' house for the next few days. I could peacefully think through everything I needed to pack for them and me.
So on Tuesday night, after dropping off the girls at my folks', I checked into the hospital to have my cervix ripened. I'll spare you the details, although it wasn't a very detailed procedure. Basically it just meant a long night of very little sleep, because who can sleep well hooked up to baby monitors? But I got as much rest as I could. AND I got to have Molly, the L&D nurse I had overnight with Joya. She was great.
Molly started the pitocin at 6:30 in the morning on February 20th. I had been having crampy contractions all night, but that really kicked them into gear. I asked for the epidural at 9:00, and by 9:45 I was as relaxed as a cat. My doctor came in around 10:00 to break my water, and by 12:00 I was feeling the tell-tale signs of pressure. The good doctor came back around 12:15, and after pushing through 5 contractions, Bria popped right out.
So far she has been almost exactly like my other babies. I have to wake her to feed her, and she sometimes likes to spend her one hour of awake time a day during the 11:00pm hour. She's a hard core sleeper otherwise, even though I do my darndest to get her to join the family during the day. She's awfully sweet to look at, and is a champ at filling her diaper the very moment I put a fresh, clean one on. I know it will come soon, but I'm really looking forward to the day she starts looking AT us instead of just all around us.
Welcome, Bria. We love you!
