We made the decision to be induced and yesterday was the day! Of course, the night before I barely slept and had a million things running through my head. I managed to get all of the laundry finished and all of th ebills paid and taken care of though which was awesome, especially for a control freak like me : ) I was up nice and early on Friday and got showered and ready to go. I was feeling pretty anxious and nervous, more so than with any of the other girls. I think the thought of actually having 4 children was slightly overwhelming and reality started to really hit home! My family was wonderful and my Mom and Dad were over at our house very early so that they could take care of the girls and get them ready for school. Tommy and I made our way to St. Luke's and waited to get started. We got all checked in and they hooked me up to all of the monitors and began watching the baby and seeing what was going on in there. They started my IV (which is one of my LEAST favorite things ever!) and began giving me pitocin around 9:00 AM. My Mom and Dad arrived soon after that and things started happening pretty quickly. The contractions really started to pick up and were becoming much more intense. Things weren't bad though and I was trying to hold off a little while before getting my epidural (again more needles and not my favorite thing in the world!) I progressed to 5 cm but I was no more effaced and the baby wasn't coming down at all so I decided it was time for the epidural. This is also the time that I got super emotional and started crying because my girls weren't there yet and I just wanted to see their little faces again. I felt a little crazy but I knew it was just all of the hormones racing through my body at that point : ) Now, as many of you know what a baby I am and how I don't deal well with pain, I asked to me completely numb from the waist down but my doctor wasn't exactly agreeable to that right off the bat. So, he put in the epidural, which I have to say was horribly painful - the worst one I've had, and then things went not so well. I literally felt all of the blood rush out of my face and all I wanted to do was close my eyes and drift off. My blood pressure was dropping extremely low and they had to take me off of all of the medicine until they could get me stabilized, which seemed to take quite a while. Needless to say, being off of the meds slowed any contractions I had been having to almost nothing. Once I was finally feeling better and my blood pressure was getting close to normal they were able to start the pitocin again and we got things moving. Fortunately, my Dad and Christina had already arrived with my girls and I was able to finally see them and get some hugs and kisses, which always helps make me feel better! Angelina had also arrived by this time so the gang was all here! It still took quite a while but we eventually made it to 10 cm and I was ready to push. Thank goodness the pushing gets easier with each baby you have because she was quite easy on me! With Cecilia I pushed for over 2 hours, Lila took 15 minutes and when I started pushing with Helena it only took me 6 minutes and she was out. I, of course, was bawling and was just so very happy to see her. I think I forgot how tiny they actually are when they are first born! As everything was happening, they were cleaning her up and getting her Apgar score, Tommy and I were crying, Mom and Angelina were taking pictures, my doctor actually showed us that there was a true knot in her umbilical cord and he was amazed that she was not in distress! Thank God for little miracles! After they cleaned her, stitched me up and I was able to feed her for the first time, we let everyone come in with us. By this point Steph (my cousin and Helena's Godmother) and our friend Cris had also arrived. There were many tears and tons of love and everyone was very excited. The girls were super excited that they were big sisters and couldn't wait to hug, kiss and hold their new baby sister!
Overall, it was a wonderful experience and I cannot say thank you enough to all of my family that was here through the whole thing to help and support us. I love you all so very much and would be lost without you. I am so very blessed to have such amazing people in my life and now I am lucky enough to have 4 beautiful daughters and my fabulous husband. I'm not sure what I ever did to deserve all of the wonderful things in my life but I am so very thankful for each and every one of them.
Now the fun begins...again!
Welcome to the family Helena Artice : )
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