Labor and Delivery

I checked into West Valley Medical Center around 12:15 in the afternoon on Wednesday, September 25th after my doctor said he'd be willing to induce me. My delivery nurse, Robin, met me as I got off the elevator, escorted me to my room, set me up with my lovely hospital gown and got started right away with 100 questions, getting me set up with my wristbands, etc. She was super sweet! Very easy going, easy to converse with, super friendly. Turns out I was the only woman in labor that day, so I had  all the attention from all of the staff!

I was by myself at this point. Marc had one more presentation to teach that afternoon. I told him to stay at the school and teach, because it was highly unlikely that I would have the baby by 4:00 and it wasn't worth rescheduling just to come sit in the hospital with me. My mom was originally going to help with the kids, but ended up coming to the hospital to stay with me and keep me company. My cousin Christy ended up hanging onto Lexi for the afternoon, and even grabbed the boys as they got off the bus so they could come play at her house. What a sweetheart! I didn't have to worry about anything!

Robin tried twice to get my IV in and failed. She called in backup and of course, they went straight for my hand. I hate having the IV in my hand, it is so painful and uncomfortable! It's the worst part of the hospital in my opinion. We got monitors on baby to keep track of her heartbeat and keep an eye on contractions. Dr. Palmer came in about 1:30, I think. He broke my water and gave the order to start the pitocin. The pitocin started contractions for me immediately. My mom arrived sometime right after this. She was mesmerized by the monitors and watching the contraction levels go up and down. My mom is really great at small talk. It's something I've never been good at. It was nice to have the distraction.  Robin increased the pitocin every 15 minutes. They kept asking if I thought I needed the epidural. I really wanted to wait for Marc to be there when I got that. When I got word that he was about 20 minutes out, they started pumping me full of IV fluid to prepare me.

I've never had great experiences with the epidural. When I was pregnant with the twins, they had to try 3 times and I was told I had the biggest blood vessels that they'd ever seen in their entire career. With Lexi's birth, I was only numb on one side for most of labor. I was fortunate to have the head anesthesiologist come and administer the epidural for me this time. He kept calling me "Julie Anne".  I'm always nervous about something going wrong. I had Marc sit right across from me so I could keep eye contact with him the whole time and try to be brave. I felt like things went really smoothly and easily, and I was numb on both sides, hooray! Dr. Palmer came in right after we got the epidural started to check on me. I was still only at a 4 I think.

Marc left shortly after to grab the kids from Christy, feed them, get them packed for an overnighter and then took them to Gina's house. He returned about 7:00 with my hospital bag, the Ipad, camera, all that good stuff. My nurse Robin finished up with her shift and sadly said goodbye, my new nurse Trina was nice, but a lot more quiet. I started to make quick progress after that. The doctor came back to the hospital around 9:00 (he had to drop kids off from mutual). When he checked me, I was fully dilated! Two contractions later, and just a couple of pushes, our baby girl was born at 9:15 at night!

 I instantly noticed her dark black hair, her absolute chubbiness, and long fingernails! She screamed for quite a while, but settled down after a bit. Baby girl ended up weighing 9 lbs!! She was 22.5" long. I couldn't believe what a huge baby she was! I can't even imagine how big she would have been if she had stayed in for 6 more days until my due date! Good grief!

Marc was offered to help deliver the baby and politely declined. He also decided to give my mom the chance to cut the umbilical cord. Here's proud Daddy:

My varicose veins caused some complications with bleeding that wouldn't stop. I was stitched, and re-stitched until about 10:00. I lost quite a bit of blood. Here I am finally able to enjoy and get a good look at baby:

Dr. Palmer with baby and I

We had hoped that the kids would be able to come meet baby that night, but when we called Gina right after the birth, the kids were all sound asleep. Not wanting to wake them, we decided the boys would stay home from school and they could meet their new sister in the morning.

As everyone was enjoying baby, she was rooting pretty ferociously. I've never had a baby that wanted to nurse so quickly after delivery! She latched on right away, and ate like a champion. We could not believe how wide awake and alert she was. We also couldn't believe how strong she was! Already holding up her head for a few seconds at a time.

After everything settled down and Marc and I had a chance to be alone with baby, we discussed her name. Throughout most of the pregnancy, I had thought we would name her Madison. Marc really wanted Violet to be her middle name (after his mother's middle name) but we didn't love the names together. We still wanted other options, at my baby shower my aunt suggested looking at family names. I spent hours combing through family history and there was one name that kept popping up on both my mom and my dad's lines, Isabel. I had liked the name, and it was on the short list, but there was something about having the family history connection that really made it stand out. My hang-ups with Isabel were the nick names that go along with it. Bella is too "Twilight'ish" right now and "Izzy" isn't my preference. However, when we got a good look at baby, she looked more like an Isabel than a Madison, and we really liked how Isabel and Violet went together. So there we have it, welcome to the world Isabel Violet Glutz!