Shawn & Ang: Eva's Birth Story

I wish I would've written this 8 months ago, because I'm going to have a hard time remembering every little detail. Sorry Eva.

So on Monday Feb 11 I had a doctors appointment in the morning. My doctor had told me that at this appointment he would strip my membranes and get me going. I was sooo ready to meet you, and to be done being pregnant. The whole week before this was spent cleaning, and organizing, and decluttering, and cleaning, and some more cleaning. I seriously was a mad woman. I even vacuumed the ceilings. I wanted you to come home to a ridiculously clean, almost sterile, home. haha. So, back to the doctors appointment, I got there, was checked in, peed in the cup, was weighed, and then... the doctor got called out for emergency surgery. I. WAS. PISSED. ugh. AND they couldn't get me in later that day, nor could they the next day. So I unhappily made another appointment for Wednesday Feb 13, the day before my due date.

In the meantime, the next 48 hours were spent coming up with excuses to give my doctor in why he needed to induce me. He was leaving on the 15th for a vacation and I was set on having him deliver you. On Wednesday morning dad and I headed to the doctor's office again. I was weighed...and had gained THREE OR FOUR pounds more than I did 2 days prior. This set me into a deep dark depression and I was already crying before the doctor even came in. Your dad did his best to console me, but I think he was secretly shocked as well.

When my doctor came in I gave him a million reasons why he needed to induce me. He gave me some lecture about how it wouldn't be good for you, and how he didn't want me to end up having a c-section. blah blah blah. I didn't care. He checked me and said I wasn't even dilated, but like 40% effaced. He pretty much said that he thought I would still be pregnant when he got back 10 days later from his vacation. I was so emotional! He shot your dad some pretty funny looks. I had to remind him to even strip my membranes, and when I did he tried to talk me out of it! He said it probably wouldn't even do very much since I wasn't even dilated. However, I talked him into it. By this point the appointment was lasting forever and your dad had to get back to work. On my way out I was a mess. I was just mad at the world. I totally expected the doctor to induce me before he left on vacation, and I thought I would've at least progressed a little bit from the last appointment.

As I was walking out of the office I ran into our good friends Cami & Chris, you know, Cici's parents. Cami could tell I'd been crying and came to give me a hug. When she did it just made me cry even harder. haha. I was a freak. I never cry in front of people, but for some reason I just did not even care!

I knew everyone was going to be texting me and asking me how the appointment went and when I was going to have you. I was just not in the mood to talk to anyone about it. I told your dad to update his family, and then I called Nana and cried some more. Chandra & I had made an appointment to get a pedicure, so after lunch we went to do that. I had high hopes that the little pedicure lady would work her magic and use some reflexology to induce labor. BUT NOPE. I got the pedicurist (is that a real term?) from hell. When I asked her if she would try it she asked how overdue I was. I lied and said a week. Then she told me that she wouldn't do it, that she didn't even like kids and that she didn't want to be responsible. UM. are you serious? How could my day get any worse? Chandra's little pedicure lady said that if I was her client then she would do it. I told them to switch places, but they didn't. Seriously the world was against me.

After the pedicure I went home, took a nap and waited for dad to get home. When he got home we YouTubed "reflexology to induce labor". He was so sweet and totally made me believe it was going to work. He took his job super seriously and spent 1 minute on each pressure point, rotating from one foot to the next. After the first round I got up and started making cookies. I had scheduled another doctors appointment for the next day and I decided that I would take my doctor some cookies to apologize for being the brattiest patient in the world. When I was up walking around I started feeling a lot of pressure. You had always been super low, but it felt so uncomfortable. It would kind of just come and go. After an hour dad did another round of the reflexology. I got back up and started cleaning up the kitchen. I totally was having full on contractions. I was so worried that the contractions were just going to stop, so every contraction I would do squats, or bounce on the yoga ball to try to keep them going. Apparently the combination of all of this was working. By this time it was like 9pm. Dad was getting ready for bed and we started timing my contractions on an app. They were getting to be about 5 min apart.

this was the youtube video that we used

By this point dad insisted we go to the hospital. I was so worried that I wouldn't be dilated and that they would send me away. I did not want to be sent away!!! So I got in the shower and told him I wanted to be nice and clean if we were going to go to the hospital. When I got out of the shower I started putting my make up on in the bathroom, and I was only partially dressed. Suddenly my water broke onto the bathroom tile. Or, I thought it did. There really wasn't much of anything, but it just kept dripping. I called dad in to see and he frantically started getting everything out to the car to leave for the hospital while I proceeded to finish putting on my makeup and curl my hair. I was in denial.

I forgot that I actually took a picture of your dad doing the pressure point thing!

We got to the hospital a little after 10pm. Dad dropped me off and I took a picture of the hospital as I was walking in.

The contractions were painful, but not unbearable at this point. By the time we got to the hospital they were every 3-4 min and lasting a good 30-50 seconds. Once we got all checked in a nurse took me back to a really weird room. It was all high-tech surgical-ish. She got me all set up to the monitors and then checked me. I was only dilated to a ONE! This is what I was worried about. She said that if I really did break my water, that would be my ticket to stay. She did some little "fern test" to check if my water did break. These big lights came down from ceiling and she opened me up and performed her little test. Apparently there was blood, and dad almost passed out. It was pretty funny. I kept making fun of him saying he wasn't going to be able to get through the labor!

holy crap, I was ginormous! So puffy!

Luckily, the "fern test" proved that my water had indeed been broken. By this point the contractions were pretty painful, and happening all of the time. I got wheeled into my delivery room, and the nurse said I could get the epidural whenever I wanted. So we paged the anesthesiologist and waited for him to come. When he finally got there it all of a sudden hit me that I was going to have you. I kind of started to panic. I turned to dad and he was so sweet. He talked me through the whole epidural, telling me how much he loved me... and it wasn't painful at all. I got my epidural around 1:30. We called your grandparents and they all wanted to come right then. We told them to wait, and that I was only a 1 so it was going to be a looonggg night.

After the epidural kicked in I felt like a million bucks. Dad laid down and fell asleep, I tried to sleep but I was having nurses come checking me every 5-10 minutes. They were really good to make it seem like it was all normal. They had us fooled until dad went out to get a drink and saw 8 nurses huddled around a computer. Apparently, you were being naughty. During a big contraction you would kind of pass out. You were being pushed up against my cervix that wasn't dilated, and it was so much pressure that you would pass out and the monitors would go all crazy. The nurses kept checking me and saying that it was the strangest thing they had ever seen, because you was so low and in the birth canal, they could feel the crown of your head, but I wasn't dilating.

Around 4 or 5 am they decided to start me on pitocin to see if that would get me dilating. In the meantime the monitors kept going off and I kept moving around trying to get you comfortable. I kept telling dad over and over again how people were crazy for not getting an epidural. Best invention ever. By 6 am Nana & Papa were there and we were ready to get you out. By then I was dilated to about a 4. So the pitocin was working! At 7 there was a shift change. I was given a new nurse, but then they switched her out once they found out that you were being naughty. I got the most experienced nurse on the floor. She was seriously amazing. I wish she would've been the one to deliver you (because in the end your doctor didn't even end up being that great, and it doesn't really matter who delivers the baby). Around this time my doctor stopped by to see how I was doing. He was pretty surprised to see me. He really thought I would still be pregnant when he returned from his Caribbean cruise. Don't worry, I also remembered to bring the cookies to the hospital, so he grabbed a few of those. He told me that my nurse would call him when I was ready for him to come.

By 8am I was already dilated to an eight. My epidural started wearing off so I had him come back and give me some more meds. By then all of your grandparents and aunt Bre were all there. I told your uncles that they could just wait at work until you came. When my nurse told me it was time to start pushing I asked just Nana and Grandma to stay in the room. A student nurse asked if she could stay and sit in on my labor, and at that point I didn't even care! My nurse called my doctor and told him I was ready, but said that we would get things going before he got there. She was seriously amazing. She was super motivating and dad said she even made him feel pumped up and ready to have a baby! She sounded like an aerobics instructor or something. Once I started pushing I started shaking so bad. The nurses kept telling me it was just the "epidural shakes". Then I started feeling super feverish. So dad got me ice chips and put them on my head. Bad idea dad, felt gross. Finally my mom came over and felt my head and told my nurse that she better check my temperature. It was 104. By this point I had already been pushing for about a half hour and we were just waiting for my doctor.

Lets not forget to talk about how dang tiring it is to push. I have no idea how some ladies push for hours and hours. It's freaking exhausting. Not to mention you feel like your head is going to explode...and then your face is swollen for the next 5 days. Your dad had been great through all of it though. He didn't get light headed or squirmish at all. At one time the nurse asked your dad if he wanted to count to ten during my next contraction while I pushed. So he did...and I shook my head in dismay the whole time. His counts were way too long. He felt bad and said the nurse could do it from now on. hehe

I'm not really quite sure where everything fell apart, but something was wrong. They started pumping me with antibiotics, as a precaution they said. We didn't even ask why. I wish I would've asked more questions. They had called the nicu team and let them know that I had a fever, because if I had a fever it meant that you would also. By now it was close to 10 and my doctor still wasn't there! It was so frustrating because I felt like I had to push. My nurse asked if I wanted a mirror, and I said yes. She had me push a few more times and watching in the mirror totally helped motivate me.

Finally my doctor got there. I was so mad at him. His office was seriously 4 minutes away. When he walked in he later told me that he could sense the urgency in the room and could tell we were all pretty mad at him! I pushed one or two times with the doctor and green stuff came out. You decided to poop. So, the nicu team came and a few more pushes and you were out!

It was pretty much the most amazing thing ever. First your little head poked out, then a hand plopped down right onto your face. It was so precious. Then came the rest of your little body. Your head was so squishy. At one point I remember saying that your looked like a baby gorilla. It was so crazy to watch your head almost like unwrinkle? I don't know how to describe it.

Dad had finally worked up enough courage to want to cut the cord, but by this point everyone was too worried about you having a high fever so the doctor handed you right to the nicu team. You cried just a little bit before the team took you away. Of course dad was the cutest and was pretty emotional. I was just so happy. Luckily they were able to keep you just across the room. Dad and the grandmas went over right away to you. I shouted across the room asking if you had all of your fingers and toes.

Nana came back to be with me while the nurses and dad gave me updates of how you were doing. It was so hard having you across the room and just being able to see you and not hold you. Once they got your temperature under control, which felt like forever but was maybe 30 min, they brought you over to me and I was able to do skin-to-skin for a few minutes. It didn't last long because the nurses were eager to get you to the nursery to do "assessments" and get you started on an antibiotic. I WISH someone would have explained to us why you needed this. We were new parents and didn't know what was normal and what wasn't. So we really just all of this was protocol. We were wrong! We later found out that I was positive for strep B, and my water had been broken for quite a long time before you were delivered...which meant you were exposed to the bacteria for a long long time. Had they had known this when I got to the hospital (why didn't they check me for it?) they would've pumped me with antibiotics right away so that you wouldn't get an infection.

Our beautiful baby girl. 6lbs 4 oz, 19.3", born at 10:23 am on Feb 14, 2013

By the time I finally got wheeled up into my postpartum room I felt like a zombie. Dad was with you and Nana was with me. 2 seconds after I arrived in my new room a nurse was in there giving me tons of random info and handing me packets. It was ridiculous. At one point Nana said "are you almost done? No? Can you tell that my daughter is exhausted and isn't taking in anything you are saying? can you please do this at another time?". Good thing I had my mom there.

We had lots of family waiting in the waiting room to see you. I guess everyone went up to the nursery window and dad held you up for everyone to see.

The nurses wanted to give you formula because your blood sugar was low. We were very set on only breastfeeding, so dad told the nurses no. They kept trying to talk him into it. AGAIN, I wish someone would've explained to us why (we were later told that they wanted to get your blood sugar up by using formula so that they could hurry and get you started on antibiotics). Dad convinced the nurses to let me try to breastfeed for little bit. I attempted to nurse you for about 30 min. It seemed to go pretty well! I loved just having that time with you. At this time dad had only really held you twice and for less than 20 seconds. It was so great to have all of our family there to support us, but it also put too much pressure on us. We felt rushed, like we had to hurry nursing so that everyone could come and see you before you had to go get antibiotics. Looking back I wish we would've had everyone come later that night, or even the next day.

After I nursed her dad wheeled you back to the nursery, with out anyone really getting to hold you. The NICU team was called to get an IV in you. They attempted several times and finally were able to get one in your little hand. They almost had to do it in your head, which I am so glad they didn't! After a few hours we were finally able to have our baby back, and got to finally show you off to everyone.

It was such a long crazy day!!! We had lots of family come...probably too much that first day. When the last person finally left that evening I just broke down and cried. I was so exhausted. I had slept maybe 3 hours in 48 hrs, and had given birth to a freaking baby.

Oh, let's talk about how you decided to come on your actual "due date". Some people would tell me "oh you don't want to have a baby on Valentine's Day, they will hate it their whole lives". I think that's dumb. I love that you chose to come on Valentine's Day. You also had perfect timing by coming just one week after I graduated from dental hygiene school. I don't know how I would've survived if you came during school. Your dad and I were never really that "into" Valentine's Day...and now it will always be remembered as most special day of our lives! You are our forever Valentine.

That first night we had you in the nursery for a few hours, you had to get more antibiotics there anyway. That first day we just couldn't get over how calm and beautiful you were. We felt so blessed. You were so perfect. You would open your eyes and just look around, hardly cried at all that first day.

At this point all we knew was that you were receiving antibiotics as a "precaution". There was so much going on that we didn't really think to ask any questions. We felt just so lucky that you were healthy. We didn't even get a chance to finally decide on a name until that evening when everyone left. We went to the hospital with two names, Eva & Adriana. We decided on Eva Mae. We had no idea what we wanted your middle name to be, but because you were born on Valentines Day I wanted something to do with love. I asked dad some Portuguese words for love, but nothing sounded good. Then he said Mae...it is a family name, but the spelling means "mother" in Portuguese. I loved it!