The Birth Story

Since little Eva was a week overdue, I was scheduled to be induced on May 31st. I was originally supposed to go to the hospital at 1am, but at about 11:30 pm the hospital called to say that they were full and asked that we come in around 5 or 6am. So we went back to bed and woke up at 5, called the hospital and they asked us to be in at 7am.

This is right before we left to the hospital. Here I am at 41 weeks pregnant.

In the waiting room in the hospital

Once we finally got our room and everything was prepared, my doctor came in and broke my water. Then they started me on pitocin at about 9:45am. The contractions started coming slowly, but surely. I really started feeling them around noon. And after talking to my doctor I decided to get the epidural around 4pm so that I could be relaxed and hopefully help the labor progress.

After the epidural, everything was pretty relaxed. We watched movies, and I finished some last minute work emails on my blackberry.

After 17 hours of labor, I was dilated to a 9 and 100% effaced, but the baby was just not moving down. Earlier that day my doctor warned me that if the baby didn't move down that I may have too small of a pelvis and have to have a C-Section. But my doctor said that he was patient and that we would wait as long as possible to try to deliver naturally. I really didn't want a C-section so I gave it all I could. But everytime I had a contraction, the baby's heart rate would go down. They watched me closely for hours. My doctor kept checking me and at around midnight he finally said that her head was stuck and that now I was not as dilated/effaced and that there was basically no way this baby would come out except through a C-section. I was devastated. After crying and talking to Lincoln and my mom we knew that there was really nothing else we could do. What was most important was that the baby come out safely. So they prepared me to go into the OR.

The actual operation itself went by pretty fast. By that point I was completely exhausted. It was after 2am, I hadn't eaten in over 24 hours, I had been in labor for 17 hours. I was shaking uncontrollably. And I was under a lot of drugs. Looking back it all kind of seems like a blur.

But I was so happy when I heard little Eva cry. Lincoln told me she was beautiful, and said she had a cute nose and big lips. I got to see her for just a second before they took her away and sewed me up.

The nice thing with C-sections is that you get to stay in the hospital for 5 days. The day after Eva was born we all just slept and took time to recover. It took an entire day (and a good night's sleep) to get to the point where I felt like I could enjoy my darling little girl.

And enjoy her we did. We have all fallen in love with her.

We had so many good friends come and visit us in the hospital. It meant a lot to us to have everyone visit to see little Eva.

And of course, I couldn't be more thankful to have my mom with me during the whole thing. I don't know what I would do without her. Lincoln and I have no idea what we are doing, so it was so nice to have my mom there to help us!

We were extra lucky to have Lincoln's dad come and visit for the weekend. It was so great to have family around!

And after our 5 day stay in the hospital--(which felt more like a hotel, I love Virginia Hospital Center, the nurses are amazing)--we got to go home.

Eva is so tiny that we had to adjust the car seat!

And now we are just enjoying our little baby girl. My mom is still here for another week (thank goodness) and we are doing a lot of playing, sleeping, and eating :)

We love love love little Eva Lina.