Eslie Jai: Birth Story

We quickly learned how stubborn our daughter was going to be when she decided to watch her due date go by and remain on the inside. After hitting that "40-week" mark, we had 2 appointments scheduled at the OB office. The first was just a routine appointment to see if I had progressed any farther than when I had been in a few days prior. Unfortunately that answer was a 'no' as I was still sitting at 2cm and 90% effaced. The second appointment was the fetal non-stress test to monitor baby's heart rate and movements to be sure she was not stressed in there since she was taking her precious time. Thankfully the results of that test were positive and baby girl was still doing well. We then had our induction scheduled for Friday, November 23rd at 7:30am when I would be 41 weeks pregnant.

That week went by quite slow. Thankfully though, AJ had already started his paternity leave that week, and I decided to start my maternity leave that week as well, so we had that last week to enjoy each other and the limited time we had left as just the two of us. We even spent Thanksgiving day as just us and made ourselves a wonderful Thanksgiving meal with all the fixings. It was simply delicious :)

We arrived at the hospital at 7:30 Friday morning for our induction. After getting all the paperwork signed and filled out, I was hooked up to the IV and the Pitocin was running by 8:00. The first few hours went pretty slow as we just sat around as my contractions became stronger and more regular. Around 11:00 my water broke (which was okay with me since we were still waiting for the doctor to come break it for me!) After that happened, things started to pick up quite a bit. I was dilated to about a 4, and decided to go ahead and get the epidural after not being satisfied with the IV pain meds. After getting the epidural I felt wonderful and was able to relax a little more. By 5:00 I was at a 9, and then I stayed there for almost 5 hours even with the different position changes. By the time I was 'complete' at 10:00pm I wasn't allowed to push yet because the doctor was in surgery, and because baby was at a 2+ station, they didn't think it would take too long once I started pushing. After waiting an hour (11:00pm) I was given the okay to push. I then proceeded to push with every contraction for 2 hours. But baby was 'sunny-side-up' and trying to come out face-first, so she wasn't getting anywhere too quickly. And by 1:00am I was completely exhausted and the doctor gave us 2 options: keep pushing not knowing how long it could take, or just opt for the c-section seeing how exhausted I was. And as much as a c-section was the absolute last thing I wanted to have to do, I knew I didn't have the strength left in me to keep trying, so I broke down and accepted the offer.

The time surrounding the c-section isn't completely clear to me as I was beyond exhausted and then suddenly full of different pain meds at the same time. I do know that it wasn't the most pleasant experience as I could feel everything they were doing, and even though I told the anesthesiologist this, he claimed I was merely feeling 'sensations.' But last I knew, the pain of being cut open wasn't one of them!

Eslie Jai Krueger was born at 1:39am on November 24 and she weighed 8lb 10oz and was 20.75in long.

Once she was out, I could only hear her crying, I couldn't see her. Finally a nurse brought her over to me for about 5 seconds to show her to me and then she was gone again. And then AJ brought her over to me again a bit later and the first thing he said was "she has hair!" (we were both determined that she would be bald as we both were.) But then she was gone again as she needed to go to the NICU since I had a fever during labor, so they wanted to make sure she didn't have an infection.

I didn't sleep well at all that night as I had to be checked on every 15 minutes for the first 2 hours following surgery and then every 30 minutes after that, and because AJ wasn't there, as he was in the NICU with Eslie. He came back in around 3:00am and brought my mom and step-dad in at 3:30 who had been waiting in the waiting room. They decided they were going to go home and come back the next morning to see her since I hadn't been able to see her yet.

I FINALLY got to go up and see and hold our baby girl the next day around 10:00am. I was a little frustrated with my nurse when she told me that I needed to get up out of bed, eat breakfast, and walk around a little before going up to see her as I was awake and wanting to go see her around 8:00. I was not happy about this as I felt like I hadn't even had a baby since I hadn't had anything to do with her yet. But she wanted to make sure I didn't get sick while up there, so it was only out of good intention to be sure that I was feeling okay.

It was literally one of the longest days of my life waiting for this little lady to arrive, but she is absolutely perfect and I would do it all over again just for her :)