The Wilfords: Welcome to the world

The story of our little princess, Brooklyn Sherie Wilford's, entrance into the world. On Tuesday March 6, 2012 we had it planned to go to Davis Hospital at 7 pm to help start the process of getting our little girl here. I was due on March 8, but the doctor gave me the option to be induced, and the 6th was the earliest day. I did not hesitate to get started, I was to the point where I needed to see my little girl, and I was getting VERY uncomfortable, and I was worried I was going to have a 9 lb baby. So Ethan and I went in. I do not think I have been so nervous in my life! Here is what went down....

8:00 pm: I was admitted and checked to see how dilated I was. I was dilated at my appointments, but then the nurses checked me and said I was not dilated at all. I was a little bummed. But the plan was to put a thing called Cervidil in me (a prostaglandin). Which is to basically "rippen" my cervix, so that they could start the oxytocin Wednesday morning before the doctor went to work. So the nurse started my very first IV.

8:50pm: The Cervidil was in. I had the option to get a sleeping pill and just wait the night out. At this time I decided no sleeping pill.

10:30pm: I was just so nervous about the labor, that I asked the nurse for an Ambien (a strong sleeping pill). I wanted to get a little rest before the big day tomorrow.

11:00pm: I started to get VERY uncomfortable. I started feeling crampy, and I did not think I was in labor. I tried walking, going to the bathroom, laying in bed. Nothing helped. It was the weirdest feeling.

11:50 pm: I had no idea why I was hurting so bad, I could not take it anymore. Was I a wus? THe nurse said that you might get a little crampy, but most people sleep ok. So since I was sooo stubborn and did not want to admit how much pain I was in, Ethan called the nurse in. She ended up checking me and I was dilated to a 5! I was in shock! The pain I was feeling was that I was in labor! The nurse was very suprised, seeing that I was not dilated at all before, and the stuff they gave me was not to induce labor. But it did. She asked about an epidural. I wanted to try it natural, but my contractions were coming every minute at this point. So we tried some morphine. She gave me 2 shots of morphine. It did nothing, in fact the contractions just kept getting stonger and closer. Keep in mind I had an Ambien just a little before this. I was kind of feeling a little loopy to.

12:30am: I finally decided that I could not do it, so I asked for an epidural. And I was even more loopy than before. I was loaded with a strong sleeping pill and morphine. Poor Ethan was a trooper with my loopiness, along with the nurse!

1:30am: The nurse anesthetist FINALLY came in. It felt like forever! And before he could do anything he had to ask me a million questions. To be completely honest the only thing I remember about my labor was the extreme pain I was in, and how quick the contractions were coming. Ethan, on the other hand said I was pretty funny. I do not do very good when I have a lot of drugs in me. I get very loopy.

2:00am: The epidural finally was in, it took about 20 min to start working, so by 2:20 I was a happy camper, I also was dilated to a 7.

3:00am: The nurse kind of worried me. She came in and put an oxygen mask on me. Apparently our little girl was in a little distress and was not getting the oxygen she needed to be receiving. This worried me a lot! So of course I was not able to sleep, either was Ethan cause I was so worried I kept him up. I was then dilated to a 9 at this point.

3:30am: I was dilated to a 10. The baby still needed extra oxygen, so the mask was still on, and the nurse went to get the doctor in.

4:00am: The doctor was in. The place was set up. And I started pushing. At this point I only had about 10 seconds in between contractions. So I pushed for just about 6 minutes then our beautiful girl was here!

4:06am: Our Brooklyn Sherie Wilford was here. She struggled when she came out. When Ethan cut the cord she was not breathing, and her heart beat was about 30 beats (which is very low for a baby), so they called in a bazillion people to do CPR on our girl. This was not the way I pictured her coming out. I wanted to hold her and hear her cry. I instantly started to cry when I saw that our little girl was struggling, while the nurse and Ethan were trying to calm me down. Luckily the nurse's and respirtory therapist were amazing, and after about a minute they got our little girl going. She did not ever cry, but she was breathing. Which was enough for me. They then took her to the NICU to get her fully assessed. I did not get to hold her for more than 1 second.

Once the took her. I started my recovery process. When the nurse transferred me from the labor and delivery to the postpartum care they let me stop in the NICU and hold my precious little angel. She was absolutely gorgeous. I did not get that much time with her. Ethan and I then went to my room and waited for word on our little girl. We called as much as we could to get updates on her. At about 9 am they told us that her oxygen dropped super low and that she turned blue so they put her on oxygen. They also took some blood cultures. Those took a little while to get processed at the lab, but when they finally were it turns out that Brooklyn had an infection in her blood. They still do not know where it came from, but it was a kind of strep that was in the blood. Luckily, it was easily treated with Antibiotics. So they started her on two different types, Gentamycin and Ampicillin. And we waited. It was not the way that I pictured our little girl would come into the world, but she is here. And we do not know what we would do without her. Both Ethan and I lover her so much! It is crazy, I feel even more in love with Ethan when I saw our precious little girl. What a crazy experience labor is. Hopefully the next time I am in labor it goes a little smother. :)