September 26, 2009

Cori Aletta has finally made her appearance!

She was born on September 23rd at 14:29 KST. She weighed 3460 grams (roughly 7 lbs, 10 oz), and was 50 cm long (just under 20 inches). She has a head full of dark hair and is just absolutely perfect.

I tried to remember everything as best I could, but I was pretty out of it with lots of intense contractions.

I had my 41 week checkup on September 22nd at 9am. My doctor decided then to go ahead and induce me since I'd been having painful labor contractions for about a month. I was almost completely effaced, but not dilated. My doctor decided to put me on Pitocin and see how my body and the baby reacted. If i didn't progress, he was to send me home and I'd continue to wait it out.

Around 10am, I was put on Pitocin. The contractions came soon after, but they weren't anymore intense than what I'd already been having for weeks. At about 3:30pm, I was checked and at 2 cm, but still not fully effaced. He decided to turn the Pitocin off and gave me a vaginal suppository to help finish effacing me. I was 2cm when the doctor checked me for the last time on evening of the 22nd.

When he came back in on the morning of the 23rd, (I believe it was about 6am), I was checked and at 4cm, still not fully effaced. The contractions were horrendous in pain by this point and so close together that I was having trouble breathing through them. Four hours later, I was checked again and still at 4cm. I was extremely disappointed because of the excruciating pain I'd been in for hours now. At this point, my doctor decided to break my water. Boy, was that a weird feeling. After a little poking and prodding, I felt a huge gush of very warm liquid. The contractions only worsened from there, as he also turned the Pitocin back on.

Much to my own disappointment, I decided to ask for an epidural. My husband tried coaxing me out of it, but I was in so much pain, I had to give in and ask. My doctor said that he highly discouraged me from getting it because it would drastically slow my progress. I didn't care at that point and kept begging for it. He kept putting it off, and somewhere around two or so hours later, he finally agreed to give it to me. I was still at 4cm when I received the epidural. All the epidural did was slightly numb my toes and slightly took the edge off of the contractions. I was still having to breathe and concentrate through the contractions and I could still feel pretty much everything.

Thirty minutes later, when the doctor came in and saw that I was still breathing very heavily, he asked me if the epidural had worked. I told him I didn't think so, and he started touching different parts of my lower body to check my reactions. I felt everything, so he agreed to give me one more dosage. I had the same reaction as before, and could still feel every little contraction. This was somewhere around 1:15pm, I think, and he told me I was 5cm dilated.

Another thirty minutes later, he came in to check for dilation. After he checked, he went over to the phone and called a nurse in. He was speaking Korean, so I had no idea what he was saying, but I was pretty sure I had heard the word "push". When he got off, he came over and said "Okay, you are over 9 cm, almost completely dilated and ready to push." I looked at my husband, looked back at the doctor and said "I'M 9 CENTIMETERS? I was at a 5 just 30 minutes ago." He replied with "Yes, you progressed extremely fast. You will be ready to push in just a few minutes."

The nurses came in and they all started prepping the room at this point for delivery. My doctor told me I was probably going to push between 1 and 2 hours. He told me that as soon as I felt the urge to bear down to just let him know and do what my body told me to. I was already feeling the urge to start pushing, so I did.

After only a push or two, my doctor told me that he could see her. Another push or two, and I heard Jesse say "I can see her head, you are doing so good, she's right there, she has hair!!" Talk about motivation!

After only about ten total minutes of pushing, she came out and was placed on my chest. I could never put into words the emotions I felt when I looked down and saw this beautiful being laying on my body. The doctor clamped the cord and handed the scissors to my husband to cut the cord. He described cutting the cord as very squishy and was told to cut slowly. As soon as he made the cut, he said lots of blood poured from it, and he described it as "really cool". I sort of held her for a few minutes up by my shoulder and face, and then she was whisked away to the nursery.

My husband and I have never experienced such joy when we saw her and no words would ever describe our feelings.

Since I tore quite a bit, and had an episiotomy it took the doctor about 40 minutes to fully stitch me up and for me to expel the placenta. I was moved to recovery soon thereafter, and a couple of hours later, our beautiful baby girl was brought to us. Our time away from her was just unbearable. We had worked so hard and only wanted to finally spend time with the little one we had been so anxiously awaiting to meet.

Right when she was brought to the room, she was handed to me and we had our first nursing sesion. She seemed to have a perfect latch and suck the first day that she was born. After about 24 hours of birth, the nutrionist decided that since she had lost a few ounces, she needed to have formula supplemented. Breastfeeding went downhill from there, and I am pretty angry with the nutrionist. We are trying to get back on track, and hopefully it won't take too long.

I will say that labor and delivery was very, very hard for me. I'm not even going to lie - it was, without a doubt, the absolute most excruciating pain I have ever felt. I was expecting the worst, and L&D just took it to a whole new level of pain. I've questioned in the days since she was born whether I could ever do that again for another baby. I feel like a lot of the blame of that is on my doctor. While he is a good doctor and I was happy with my prenatal care, I was more than disappointed with how he took care of L&D. I was made to lay on my back for hours, and even when I told him "okay, I just need to get up and walk for a few minutes, I can't lay here like this anymore", he just kept saying I couldn't. I was just made to lay there with an electronic fetal monitor on me for hours. The pressure on my back was unbearable and it literally hurts me to remember how I felt during that time. I feel very confident that I could have made it through labor and delivery without an epidural if only I could have been allowed to do what I felt my body was telling me to.

I really think labor & delivery would have been so much more empowering if I could have been made to feel more like a mother and less like a sick patient.

Cori is so worth it. She truly is. She is the most peaceful baby right now, and I just can't get enough of her. I took a nap with her earlier while Jesse played Xbox with Colin and Stephanie. I have never slept so well in my entire life. I just opened up my eyes every once in awhile, and I wanted to cry because my heart is just so very full. It's true that you will never experience the kind of love for your own child with anyone but your own child. I knew it would be amazing, but my god - I never knew it could be this great. I hope I never forget the euphoria I've felt since I birthed this beautiful little girl. I am in absolute astonishment that my husband and I created this life. I have nurtured this little girl for 40 long weeks, and now she is really here in this world with us. I have never felt so fulfilled as I do when I look into the eyes of my daughter and her father.