The House of Huff: Finley’s birth story

January 16, 2013 at 7:55 pm, we welcomed our second healthy and beautiful baby girl!

We were scheduled to come in for induction on Wednesday morning, January 16th, at 7:00 am. Although I was 39 3/7 weeks, I was still a little hesitant about being induced, because of everything with Mia (that I still blame myself for.). However, my doctor, who we have so much history with was on call and wanted to deliver this baby (as did we), so we went ahead with induction.

I was able to get up, not like I slept the night before anyway, shower, put makeup on and fix my hair! We even stopped by Wal Mart on the way to the hospital to get magazines and momma some new lip gloss! HA! Mia stayed at home with my mom.

We arrived at the hospital and got settled into room 14, with my friend Mindy being my nurse! We got the IV of fluids and Pitocin started and I was surfing Pinterest :) We also had a little photo-shoot!

At about 10:00 am, Dr. Paul made rounds, checked me and broke my water. At this point I was only about 3 cm. When she broke my water, it was meconium stained (she pooed inside), and I immediately said “Are you freaking kidding me?!” My crazy nurse brain started going to all the worst case scenarios. What if she inhales before they can suction? Then is she aspirates it, she’s going to get pneumonia, go to the NICU. We are going to have to go home without our baby AGAIN! The antibiotics they give her and going to cause hearing loss. OMG I can’t do this again!

Lucky for me, I work with amazing nurses, who are also friends, who know how crazy I am and can talk me down :)

Shortly, I am talking 30 minutes MAX, I request my epidural, because WOW! Those contractions hurt! Plus I’m probably a big fat baby, but whatev.

The anesthesiologist comes in and I want to kiss him! He is probably every laboring woman's favorite face to see! HAHA. Unfortunately, as I lie there going numb, I realize I am still feeling everything in my lower left abdomen and back. We try turning side to side, nothing helps. Anesthesiologist comes back in, gives me a bolus of “something stronger” and everything from the waist down completely dies. Dead. I literally could not feel a thing. As much as I hated the pain, I didn’t exactly enjoy the absolute and complete numbness either. I know, beggars can’t be choosers :)

After the epidural, everything kind of slowed down. We were just playing the waiting game. I got pretty nauseous a couple of hours later and all I could do was lie in the fetal position and try to sleep. I felt bad because we had many visitors stopping by, but I wasn’t much company. I don’t do well with nausea!

My sweet girl waiting on her baby sister!

As time was going by, I was starting to get nervous that I would have to have a c-section because I wasn’t progressing as fast as I would have liked :) (I mean, with Mia, I was 8 hours, TOTAL. IN and OUT!) I also really wanted to have this baby while Mindy was still working, but unfortunately it wasn’t looking so good.

I was due for a “check” at 7:30 pm (nurses shifts typically end at 7pm) and was sad that Mindy was going home, but she did hook me up with my other friend/great nurse, Gretchen! 7:30 rolls around and in walks Dr. Paul, Gretchen and Mindy. Dr. Paul checks me and says I am complete and plus 2 stations! WOOHOO!!! The time has finally come!!

You know how I know I had the best nurse? Mindy stayed after her shift to be with me for delivery! Talk about feeling special! And then to know that all of my mother/baby friends/nurses were on our unit, tracking my progress on the monitors and cheering me on, made me so happy!

At this point, my room was like a revolving door. All of the nurses, delivery team, neonatologist, Dr. Paul and OB techs were all there. I did one practice push for Dr. Paul and she said “Ok, wait a minute!” while she got gowned up! After one push, her head was out, but I couldn’t push again because she had a nuchal cord (cord around her neck), that had to be cut. After the cord was cut, I pushed one more time and at 7:55 pm, with my husband, mom and mother in law by my side, our princess was born, weighing in at 7-0 and 19.5 inches long!

She was immediately suctioned and assessed. The neonatologist said she looked great and she was put skin to skin on my chest. Best feeling and most wonderful words for my momma heart. She went straight to the breast as if she came out knowing exactly what to do and nursed for 40 straight minutes!