Peanut Butter Cups, Polka Dots, and Pups: Induction Day!

Today is the day! Time to evict Baby Snead from her warm comfy home!

My last day on the What to Expect App!

We had to call at 6:00 am to find out what time to report to Labor and Delivery. We had everything ready to go, but were a little shocked when they said be there at 6:45! Once we got to the hospital the first hour was just checking in, being put on the monitor, starting an IV, etc. Our care team consisted of Megan and Kristen, my nurses, Dr. Brooks from the Women's Center and Roxanne who was the team leader.

We were put in room 359 and at 8:15 I was given Cytotec after my cervix was checked. I was 1 cm and 70 percent effaced at this time. By 9:00 am I was feeling some contractions, but they were not painful. I was able to have a mobile monitor so I was up and walking, moving until 12:30 or so. I was having lots of contractions that were very close together. At 1:00 pm I was 2 cm and 75 percent effaced so Dr. Brooks allowed me to have half of a turkey sandwich at this point thankfully because I was already starving. Otherwise, I was only allowed to have popsicles, jello or hard candy. We all know how frustrating not eating is for me!

At 2:00 pm we started pitocin and the plan was to go up 1 unit every 30 minutes. We didn't go above 3 units because of how close my contractions were together. After what seemed like forever, I was checked again at 6:30 pm and had no change. Ugh! Dr. Brooks gave us the option to either have my water broken or go home for the night and try again the next day. We talked it over and wanted to get things moving rather than going home and prolonging the whole process. Dr. Brooks came back in at 7:20 and broke my water. My oh my was it a lot of water and boy did that get things moving along!

By 8:15 pm I had strong contractions that were still very close together which gave me little to no break to recover. I was standing and then bent over on the bed from the next 3 hours in tremendous pain. I used the same stopwatch that my mom used when she was in labor with me to time contractions and give me a focal point. It was helpful, but only so helpful when contractions were lasting more than a minute with a 15 second break or so between them.

At 11:30 pm I was exhausted and asked for an epidural. Dr. Niche was the anesthesiologist that administered it. We found out that I taught his kids at school a few years ago. Unfortunately whether it was due to the epidural or all of the intense contractions I had extreme neck pain that would not go away. It was nice to get a break from all of the contractions though. At this point I was 5 cm dilated and -1.

Jeff was able to get a little sleep at this point while they were rolling me from one side to the other every 30 minutes. Baby Snead's heart rate dropped at one point so they had to quickly turn me over and the same thing happened again once Casey, my nurse, left the room. I woke up Jeff and let him know something wasn't right. It was at this point Casey said it may indicate that I was ready to start pushing, so she checked and I was fully dilated and effaced....all within 2 hours!

At 1:32 am I was ready to start pushing and holy cow what a LONG process that ended up to be. We had to change the dose of pitocin several times, push more fluids and call Dr. Brooks a few times to check in because Baby Snead kept having a deceleration in her heart rate. I ended up needing oxygen on and off with the contractions because of this. After 3 hours, Dr. Brooks came in and had them open an OR in case we needed an emergency c-section and then explained how the vacuum worked. Baby Snead had been through enough and we needed to get her out asap. At this point, I was vomiting and absolutely exhausted. Each time I would vomit her heart rate would drop again. They gave me zofran and then got everything set for delivery. The next two strong contractions came and Dr. Brooks said this is it, give it 120% and thank the lord I was able to push hard enough to get her out with a little help of the vacuum.

Finley Emerson Snead was born on 4/16/19 at 5:24 am.
She was 20 inches long. Chest 12.5 inches. Abdomen 12 inches. Head 13 inches. Her eyes appear to be dark blue/slate in color and her hair looks wavy and light brown/blond in color.

The next hour was a whirlwind. I was completely overwhelmed with joy and relief to see my sweet girl on my chest! She was then checked by Dr. Hardy, the pediatrician, who happened to my gastroenterologist's wife. They are both such good, personable physicians. There was a little concern that baby may have an issue with her right collar bone, but Dr. Hardy did not think it warranted an x-ray. I loved being able to look over and see Jeff's face as he watched them care for her in awe. She was rated 8/9 on the apgar scale, got her shots, footprints and other tests done before I was able to have her back for her first feeding.

After a couple of hours of recovery and breakfast (thank goodness!), we were moved to our new room around 9:45 am. I had not had any sleep since Sunday night, and was still unable to get any because of the influx of nurses and doctors in and out of the room. My mom and Jeff's parents and Aunt Jenn all came to visit around noon. They were all completely smitten by Finley and loved hearing her name for the first time! Everyone who saw her remarked about her perfect complexion. We didn't get much sleep that day or night due to the people in and out of the room and Finley being up and down all night, but our baby girl was with us and happy and healthy!