On Monday 9/6 (Aunt Becky's 30th birthday), we were called into the hospital around 7:30pm to start inducing labor. First, I was put on cervix softening gels for about 18 hours before they started petocin at around 2pm Wednesday (with not much progress.) The petocin began contractions, but unfortunately none were consistent enough to progress the labor. After about 10 hours of petocin I was still only dilated 1cm and Dr. Langer decided to take an hour or two break and then start again. Throughout this time, Dr. Langer let me know if the induction became too much I could elect to have a c-section, but I wanted to continue trying. On the second round of petocin I finally began progressing and my contractions became strong and regular. It was now 9/8 Wednesday morning, and Dr. Langer decided it was time to break my water! I continued to progress and finally began an epidural around 2pm when the pain became a little too much (I was also exhausted from the previous two nights of contractions!) Unfortunately around this time when I finally was progressing, Caroline's heart rate began to dip a little more than we were comfortable with strong contractions. Eventually, I had to stop petocin for her safety, and along with that my contractions stopped being regular- we were so deflated! Dr. Langer called and let me know we could see what happens if we tried to start petocin again, but if Caroline looked like she wasn't tolerating it, we would need to do a c-section for her safety and mine. I decided to try it, but the second her heart rate dipped again, we all decided it was time to get her out. Both Chris and I were relieved to be near the end, but both were pretty scared walking (or wheeling) into that operating room. I was shaking like a leaf throughout the surgery and Chris was amazing and right by my side. In no time our precious Caroline Reese was out and we were overcome with emotion. It was definitely the happiest moment of our lives.
Because was born premature at 36 weeks we were worried about her having to go to the neonatal intensive care unit, but she did amazing and scored an 8/10 and 9/10 on her APGAR scales! Here are her stats:
Caroline Reese Walker
6 pounds 5 ounces
20 inches
born with a head of strawberry blond hair!
