Chance and Sarah Rasmussen: Sadie Mae

I'm finally getting around to sharing my birth story with the world. :) This labor was definately different than my last one with Emma. With Emma I went into labor on my own, and although she did have some complications I was able to deliver her the "normal" way. The second go around I was sure that I would go into labor on my own, and I was hoping Sadie Mae would come even a little bit before my due date. I had scheduled an induction date the day after my due date just in case. Well, nothing happened and it left me a little frustrated. Had I known what was going to happen I would have opted to get induced at 39 weeks, but I guess we can't change the past....

So then my plan was to be induced, have Sadie sometime in the afternoon, stay the minimum 24 hours in the hospital and be discharged from the hospital the next day. Needless to say, that didn't work out as planned either. We showed up on the 22nd at 6:30 in the morning, and everything was going smoothly at first. Got my IV, started the Pitocin, and then started the epidural a little bit later (contractions really hurt with Pitocin, hehe). After a little while Sadie's heart rate dropped after a contraction, which is not a good sign. So they changed my position, the least invasive thing to do. That worked for maybe five minutes. :). My blood pressure was low too which sometimes happens after the epidural, so they decided to give me some medication to bring my blood pressure up, hoping to help with the perfusion to the baby. That worked for a little bit as well, but Sadie's heart rate kept going down and doing weird things. So they started to worry a little bit. The doctor and nurses were constantly in my room, I am grateful my doctor worked just right next door so he could come and check on me often. They tried EVERYTHING to get me to go naturally. They usually only give the blood pressure medication once after an epidural if its low, they ended up giving it to me five or six times. They gave me alot of fluid through my IV and gave me an amniotic infusion, which basically is just fluid for the baby. They gave me oxygen and they were constantly changing my position. But poor Sadie's heart rate kept doing crazy things. Every time they checked me and touched her head her heart rate would go all over the place. And her head wasn't coming down like it should.The other problem was that I wasn't dilating fast enough. So they tried to increase my pitocin higher than what they normally give anyone, but that only made Sadie's heart rate do even more crazy stuff to where they eventually had to turn it off. They had told me when they started to have problems that if they didn't resolve I would have to have a c-section so it was in the back of my mind, but I kept thinking it would just work itself out. When they had to turn the pitocin off, meaning I wasn't going to have regular contractions, I knew I had reached the end of the line. My doctor and nurse stood in my room for like ten minutes just looking at my screen. We finally decided to do what was best for Sadie. As soon as we made the decision, Sadie came into the world literally less than twenty minutes later, at 6:18 pm. She weighed 7lbs 12 ounces, and was 20.5 inches long. I didn't even have time to really think about it. I didn't say any crazy things that I recall but I know I was way out of it. I remember they handed me Sadie once I was back in my room, and I remember thinking I had zero energy to even hold her let alone try and breastfeed her. But I felt better as the medication wore off. I know we did what was best, but it was still a little hard to deal with the change in events. It all worked out though because Sadie is healthy and not to mention beautiful. She sleeps great, eats great, and we are so happy to have her in our lives.

Emma first had a little freak out in the hospital. She wanted nothing to do with me, in fact she was scared of me. I just don't think she liked seeing me in that condition in a hospital bed, she hated the hospital bed. She didn't really know what to think about Sadie either. She held her because we wanted her to, and she would kiss her because we asked her to. All that pretty much changed too. Now I'm constantly telling her all day long to leave the baby alone. She is constatly trying to touch her, hold her, pick her up, poke her in the eye, etc. The list goes on and on. She does love her though which I guess is a good thing. I do have to watch her like a hawk.

I actually recovered better with this one than I did with Emma surprisingly. I feel great right now and am adjusting pretty good to two kids although it is a bit of an adjustment. I am so lucky though to have two healthy beautiful daughters. I love them both so much. Chance is a great little daddy and I'm so lucky to have him too. I am so very blessed to have such a great family. Thanks to everyone who watched Emma while I was in the hospital and recovering. That was a huge blessing!

Well, here are the pictures:

One of Sadie's first glamour shots..

They took a little picture before they shipped her off to the nursery

I don't think that picture describes how tired I was at that moment. :) We couldn't get a family picture then because Emma refused to get near me, so this one had to do.