Introducing: Ivy Sommer Dutton!!!

I will put some photos online a little later (forgot to bring the transfer cable to the hospital), but…

Ivy Sommer made her entrance to the world at 9:44pm last night (July 23rd)!!!

Here is her story 🙂

I was admitted on Tuesday at about 4pm, for cervidil overnight, to get the cervix ripened for a second round of induction (see my 37w3d post in appointment updates for all the fun there). When I got to the room, they checked me, and I had opened back up to 3.5cm, so there was some hesitation about whether cervidil should be used, or go straight to pitocin. I made my opinion known pretty clearly (cervidil, LOL) and the doctor agreed. So, in it went.

Unfortunately, I also went on the dang blood pressure cuff and back on the monitors. Hate those things. Anyhow, didn’t really sleep well on Tuesday night – mind was all over the place. The next morning around 7:30 or 8 I think, they pulled out the string and checked again, and I was 4 or 4.5cm, so they broke my waters and started the pitocin drip. Joey gets to the hospital around 10:30 (I may be a little off on the times… wasn’t taking notes, hehe). After an hour of contractions on pitocin, the pressure was getting to be nearly overwhelming, so I asked for an epidural. After going through 15 hours of contractions this past weekend, I had a good idea where my threshold was, and I could see where things were headed, so got it put in BEFORE things got bad.

Well, there were several internal checks throughout the day, and I went quickly from 4.5 to 9, BUT… got stuck there for a while. The urge to push was BAD, and I dunno if the epidural is just less effective at that stage of labor, or if they shut it off so that I could feel what was pushing but that was pretty darned taxing/hard/painful. The docs had me hold back from pushing during those 9cm contractions, to see if that last bit of cervix would go away. THAT is difficult to do, and I was grunting and hollering an embarassing amount, LOL! Joey and the nurses did a good job reeling my focus back in and getting me to breath right. The 9cm game went on from about 4pm until 9:15.

Along the way, we found out Ivy was sunny side up, so they had me get on all fours, with my face in the pillow through a few contracts, and that was THE WORST. That was genuine pain (as opposed to severe discomfort/pressure). Went through 4 of 5 of those and flipped back over onto my back.

At some point around 7pm, I hear my OB/GYN say to a nurse “9pm is the cutoff” — he was in and out. What I found out LATER is that 9pm was the point at which he was prepared to just wheel me off to the OR for a C-section. So around 8:15 he comes in and says he has to go to the ER for something, and he’d be back in half an hour. That left me in the room with one nurse and Joey. Half an hour later, the nurse can see I’m struggling and I confirm that the urget to push is BAD, so she says lets start doing that.

Had a little lip of cervix left on one side, so we rolled to that side for a few contracts (OUTCH), and then back to the other… 9.5cm. Sooo close. Well, by 9:15pm, I’ve been through 10 really hard pushing contractions and FINALLY hear 10cm. Joey got more involved than he had anticipated, and was holding one leg up for me, rubbing my legs, encouraging, etc. He was TERRIFIC! My OB/GYN gets back at 9:15 and says “Mrs. Dutton, we need to deliver this baby NOW, or it’s going to be a C!” Not a threat, an encouragement, because he could see where I was. He said “put your best effort into it, and let’s get this baby girl out!”

At that point, the entire team shows up in the room….

I’m put in stirrups, they drop the end of the bed off, and place papers all around, and I start pushing like I have a huge monster poo that’s going to destroy the world and is on a timed detonator! LOL! Joey is NOT at my shoulder like we figured he would be. He’s taking some photos, and is down where he can see the whole thing (including baby’s head BEFORE she crowned). So, from the big equipment setup about 20 minutes and 4 hard contractions later, on the 2nd set of “1-2-3-4-5-6-7…” FINALLY, her head is out… a brief pause and I can feel the rest of Ivy sploosh on out. Seems like it was not more than 5 seconds later she was crying, and being cleaned up. Ahhhhh.

9:44pm, 7lb 8.8oz, 20 1/2 inches, and a 8-9 Apgar score. She is quite pink, with a little bit of a conehead (not bad). Peachfuzz type hair that appears to be some kind of ash blonde color for now. There was some cutting on the outside to get her big head out, and we found out she ripped me up a line “the entire length of my vagina” on the inside, so there are stitches… that took a little while to close up, and they are kinda painful now.

So far, Ivy is quite calm indeed. Hasn’t latched on yet (nipple appears to be just something that sticks in her mouth and stays there, while she looks around the room), but she has loaded up one diaper quite nicely so far, haha. She’s absolutely cute, with humongous cheeks, and dimples on both her chin and cheeks. Her eyes weren’t all newborn puffy or anything, and we haven’t noticed any birthmarks yet. Once I get the camera hookekd up, I’ll post a few photos here.

I am sooo glad we didn’t get a C-section, and so in love with this little girl already 🙂 Probably head home on Friday — I’m stuck on a Magnesium Sulfate drip for 24 hours after delivery because my urine from last week came back with protein levels of 392 (hit the “superimposed pre-eclampsia” stage right here at the very end), and then I’ll move into post-partum for a day.

Not slept, really, in 3 days, or eaten anything solid since Monday night, either. Bit of a rush 🙂

YAY!!!!!