On Thursday, March 7 I was scheduled for a 39 week ultrasound to primarily check for size. With the Gestational Diabetes, the chances of having a very large baby are much higher than not. Four weeks previously at around 35 weeks the ultrasound was measuring her at around 6lbs 11oz which was about a 2 pound weight gain from the previous four weeks. I went into the ultrasound thinking another 2 pound weight gain was possible and expecting them to tell me she would weigh around 8.5 pounds. After the ultrasound techs first measurements she shocked me beyond all belief when she said due to the size of her head and abdomen she was measuring around 10lbs 6oz!! Wow!! She could tell I was beyond shocked so she did the measurements one more time and came up with 9lbs 12oz, still big and putting her in the 95th percentile for every measurement!!
I left the ultrasound office and called my OB because I was very concerned about her size and didn't think they would want to wait until Tuesday to try and induce labor add on to it that I was very concerned about trying to naturally give birth to a 10lb baby!! I spoke with Dr. D who recommended that I come into the office and he would try to push me into labor by stripping my membranes. Within about 1 hour of leaving the office I started to have contractions, they weren't terribly uncomfortable but they were coming about every 4-5 minutes. When I noticed some blood in my urine I called triage and they told me to go ahead and come in and they would check everything out. I called Phil from work and we headed to the hospital. By the time we got to the hospital, my contractions were coming every 2-3 minutes. They checked my cervix and I was only about 2cm dialted and 50% effaced. They wanted to wait a bit and see if the contractions were real labor or not. They had me walk around the hospital for about an hour and then checked again. After an hour and some really uncomfortable contractions for me I hadn't dialated any further so they didn't classify what was happening as being in true labor. Dr. Cook told me I could wait at the hospital and see if anything happened further or because of her size I could elect to have a C-section in the morning because they had an opening. My first thought was concern to go home and try to sleep through the night with my contractions but I thought that trying to get a good nights sleep at home would do both Phil and I some good. So that was the plan...we would come back at 8:00am and have us a baby!!
Phil and I left the hospital around 8:30pm on Thursday and stopped at Chili's to get some dinner since neither of us had eaten. When we got home we ate dinner and watched Peter Pan :) We got to sleep around 10:30pm and tried our best to sleep. I got up around 4:30am and finished Peter Pan and tried to get more sleep on the couch which didn't work very well. Phil and I got up and finished getting ready to head to the hospital. We were there ready to go at 8:00am. Our wonderful nurse, Janet who would be with the whole way through the birth helped get us ready. They gave me my IV and Mom and Melissa came back to see us before the surgery. As time passed, I started to get very nervous but Janet did a wonderful job explaning to me exactly what was going to happen throughout the procedure. Dr. Walsh came by and answered questions for us as well and I felt really great about the wonderful team we had in place to deliver Audrey.
Phil got dressed in his scrubs and mask and we were all ready to go in for the c-section at right about 10:15am right on schedule. It took two tries to get the spinal in and feeling numb but once that was in place everything seemed to happen so quickly. I felt a few bouts of nausea at the beginning but the nurse anesthetist did a great job helping me get rid of it very quickly. Once Phil was brought into the room the c-section was underway. It seemed to go by so fast and before I knew it at 10:59am we heard that first little cry as our daughter was born. Dr. Walsh brought her over so I could catch a glimpse of her very quickly and then they whisked her away to the warmer and to check her out. A few minutes later Phil was able to go over and see her and take pictures of her. They weighed and measured her and as they closed me up Phil was able to hold her for the first time. He brought her over so that I could see her and I couldn't help but feel very overwhelmed because she was so perfect.
They finished getting me closed back up and Phil was able to go out and tell Grandma, Papa, Auntie M, and Auntie Rachel that Audrey had arrived and was perfect. Below are some pictures of everything leading up to Audrey's birth.
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