Ashlyn and Me

I don't remember for sure when this was taken but I think Ashlyn was around 6 weeks old in this picture.

Ashlyn Echo Herbst

Ashlyn Echo Herbst

Born on March 7, 2011 at 3:30 pm

6 pounds 11 ounces

20 inches long

Andrew and I went to the hospital on Sunday March 6th at 9 pm to start a scheduled induction. I was 41 weeks pregnant and Ashlyn wasn't showing any signs that she was going to meet us anytime soon, she seemed very happy in my belly. *stinker!* We got to the hospital and the nurse got my IV going (after having to fish for my vein) and they strapped a heart rate monitor and a contraction monitor to my belly. It was cool to see Ashlyn's heart beat on the monitor and we could hear it too. The nurse was going to start my induction with placing a pill of Cytotec on my cervix and she told me that once the pill was placed I had to stay laying down for an hour, well being pregnant and having an IV I decided it would probably be best to use the restroom before she placed the Cytotec. The nurse showed me how to unhook the monitors and how to take the IV bag off of the holder- I had to carry it with me- and I used the restroom and came back. When I came back she showed me how to hook my monitors back up and as she did that she noticed that I was having contractions. I couldn't feel them so I didn't know until she showed them to me. Since I was having contractions she couldn't place the Cytotec so she decided to monitor me for an hour and see if the contractions would stop or if they got stronger. She came back after an hour and my contractions were staying the same so she called the doctor and see what he wanted to do. They decided that they would just let me labor on my own and we would start Pitocin around 4 am to speed things along. So Andrew and I were in for a long night. The nurse came to check on me every hour or so and neither of us slept very well. Next time we need to bring a pillow for Andrew. lol! So the nurse came back in around 4 am and started the Pitocin. My contractions still weren't very painful yet so I tried sleep a little bit more. I woke up just before six am with very painful contractions. There wasn't a gradual increase in the pain, one minute I was sleeping and the next I was in excruciating pain. So I called the nurse and she came in and said that the anesthesiologist was scheduled to come in at seven so she gave me some painkillers through my IV and said that it should help me make it until he got there. Well, fifteen minutes later I was in pain again and there was still 45 minutes until I would be able to get my epidural. Finally, right at seven am the anesthesiologist walked into my room and we started the process of inserting the epidural. Let me tell you, that sucked! I had to sit up in bed and round my back much as I could and then not move. Ummm.... it's extremely difficult to not move when you are having a contraction. For some reason my body decided to be difficult again and the needle would not go where it needed to. The poor anesthesiologist had to try three different spots before he could get the needle into my spine and get the tube put in. I think it took around a half an hour to get it put in completely. Even though it was such a pain to get in I am so happy that I got the epidural! From that point on it was easy sailing, except for the pushing part. The morning went well, family started showing up and we just hung out and rested all morning. Around noon I started feeling the contractions more and I was having some pretty bad pain on the right side of my stomach. I used the little button that puts more pain meds into my epidural and it just wasn't working. So I finally called the nurse in and she call the anesthesiologist and he ended up putting a different type of medication in my epidural catheter. Then I was good until around 1:30 pm when the pain started coming back again. At that point I was super close to being fully dilated so it was a rush to get the anesthesiologist there in time for me to get some more medication. As we were waiting for him the nurse suggested that we try a few practice pushes to see what that did for the pain and to my surprise when I would push the pain would go away! I was fully dilated so we just decided to start pushing and hope the baby was out before the pain got too much worse. I was lucky (I think anyway) and my legs didn't go super numb so I was able to move them myself and I could feel the contractions, not pain but pressure, and I think that that helped with the pushing. I pushed for just under two hours and at 3:30 pm Ashlyn was born! The doctor put her up on my chest and I just started bawling!! She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life!

I'm posting this for now but I will be back later to finish our story and give updates. :)