Sophie's Birth Story

I decided I better go ahead and write about the birth before I forget too much about it, so here it goes (prepare yourselves, this is long!):

On Monday morning (Valentine's day) we went in for my 38 week appointment. I told my doctor I was a little concerned that I was leaking, but not much, so I didn't know if my water had broken or not. He checked me out and did the test and my water was not broken. But, he had me have an ultrasound to see how much amniotic fluid I had and it was pretty low. One of the nurses said "well, looks like you might have this baby sooner than you think!" I remember trying hard not to get my hopes up though, because the tech didn't seem concerned at all about the low levels.

So when Dr. Harward came in and said "Well, there's no reason to keep you pregnant so why don't you come back tonight and we'll do an induction" I was pretty shocked! Jonny and I just stared at him for a second and said "uh.... ok?" We went over to Orem Community Hospital (which is connected to my Dr's office) and I got a non-stress test done. By the time we finished it was after noon and our time was running out. We ran some last minute errands and tried to get things cleaned and ready the best we could. We also tried to sleep, but I only managed about a 1/2 hour.

We got to the hospital at midnight and they started me on pitocin. They put me on the lowest dose because I was already dilated to a 3 and having steady contractions (and they didn't want things to happen too quickly because I needed time for my antibiotics to kick in- I was group B strep positive). Everyone was really surprised when they hooked me up and saw my contractions. They said "are you SURE you don't feel anything? Most women would be in a lot of pain by now!" I had no idea I was even having contractions though!

After an hour or so I started to feel the contractions and got my epidural around 2:30 am. It was wonderful :) As my contractions got stronger and stronger though, Sophie's heart rate would drop with each one. This was because she had the cord wrapped around her neck. They had to lower the pitocin (which they had been raising up to this point) and I was put on oxygen. This fixed the heart rate problem but prevented me from dilating any more.

Jonny tried to put my hair in a ponytail. It didn't look the best, but it worked :)

After who knows how many hours, I was still only a 3. Yuck. This is when they told me I would most likely have a C-section. Double yuck. They decided to slowly raise the pitocin and found a good level that got my contractions strong enough but without affecting her heart beat too much. I finally got dilated to a 10, but this was only 1/2 the battle. I now had to push her out..

Jonny, anxiously waiting..

They said I would still most likely have a C-section, but we would go ahead and try to push just to see. We were very happy to see her little heart fighting and staying strong. After 16 hours of labor (and about 30 minutes of pushing), little Sophie Lynn Katseanes made her entrance into this world.

She had quite the conehead!

She weighed 7 lbs 12 oz, so I'm pretty glad she got to come early, who knows how much she would've weighed by the time Feb 25th came around! She was 20 inches long, but has probably lost at least an inch now that her head is much less cone-shaped :)

We are now adjusting to life as a family of 3. It's exhausting, but so much fun.

We love you, Sophie! :)