The Birth

Adelaide's Birth Story

From the start of this pregnancy I knew that I would be induced at around 38 weeks, because of the shots I was taking daily to prevent a blood clot like I had with Lillias' pregnancy. I was more than o.k. with going two weeks early, and I liked the idea of knowing and being prepared for her arrival. By the time I was close to my scheduled induction I was miserable. Constant heart burn, still throwing up every morning and sometimes through out the day, I was swollen, hot and over all just uncomfortable. So the 25^th couldn't have come fast enough!

The morning of my induction I arrived at Riverside Hospital at 7 a.m. My nurse, Mary was so nice, which was such a relief because you spent a lot of quality time with your delivery nurse! I brought my own cute hospital gown which was made by Grandma Judy. The whole day every nurse or doctor that came in commented on the gown, they were all being so careful not to get it messy, which made my mom and I laugh because we designed it/made it to have a baby in, or in other words to get dirty! After putting the gown on and getting into bed, Mary got right to work trying (key word trying) to get my iv started. I have never had any issues with this in the past but for some reason she could not get a good vein. During this process I started to feel really faint and nauseous, a few seconds later I was throwing up. Welcome to LABOR! She started the potocin drip and foley catheter to get my cervix dilated at around 8:30 a.m. By 10:30 the contractions had gotten pretty strong and close together. At this point she tugged on the foley and it came right out. This made the contractions a little bit more bearable, but still very uncomfortable, so the epidural was next on the list. With Lillias my epidural wore off after a couple hours and they had to re-do it, so I was nervous that this would happen again, but it was very effective the first time, this time around. While I was getting the epidural Shawn got up from his chair and walked towards the window, the nurse and anesthesiologist immediately asked if he was o.k. and advised him to sit down because he looked really pale. I think he was embarrassed, and blamed in on being cold in the room, but he was really pale. Poor guy, can't be easy to watch all these iv's and needles all day long! The rest of the day was pain-free and although I think the epidural slowed down my contractions a little bit, it was wonderful to be able to relax through the process and prepare to push when the time came. That time was around 6 p.m. Dr. Shepherd let me know that I was dilated to 10 cm and it was time to push. I have to admit that while I was SO excited to meet Adelaide, I was very comfortable and was in no rush to get to work. I really wanted to take in this experience, since it only happens a couple times in life. I was choked up from the moment I started to push, knowing that at any minute I was going to meet my second daughter. Such a special honor! After 19 minutes of pain-free pushing, Adelaide Ann made her entrance into our lives. She was a beautiful dark haired baby weighing in at 7 pounds 2 ounces. 20 inches long and her head was 14 inches. Lisa, Grandma Adams and Shawn were in the room and all very excited to meet sweet Adelaide. She was so alert and calm from the moment she came out. As soon as they had her wrapped up and taken her stats they gave her back to me, Dr. Shepherd asked if I wanted to nurse her (which I was not looking forward to, Lillias was not the best nurser and it was REALLY difficult at first) but Adelaide latched right on. It was so amazing, after my experience with Lillias, that Adelaide just did it with very little assistance.

Overall it was a very easy delivery and recovery. Avery positive hospital experience. Adelaide is 2 weeks old today as I am writing this and is such a good baby. We are very humbled to have been blessed with her as a member of our family!

Just after arriving in our room.

A shot of the gown. (And the slippers that I bought for the hospital and Shawn said I wouldn't use... totally used them!! ;)

Official weigh in.

First mommy baby moments, so precious!

On the way to the recovery room.

Probably my favorite picture from the hospital.

The day after Adelaide was born she met her big sister. It was so neat to see her reaction to the new addition. She is going to be such a great sister!

Dr. Shepherd on Adelaide's second morning. She has made both pregnancy experiences very positive, I feel very lucky to have her as my doctor!!