Welcoming Ayva

OK, where do I begin? I guess I’ll start with a little background on my pregnancy with Ayva first.  The first trimester was rough, lots of morning sickness (or what should be called all-the-time sickness).  I lost a bit of weight during that time, but once the second trimester started, I felt great!  My original due date was 10/10/10, and the doctor moved it up to 9/30/10 due to Ayva’s measurements during the second trimester.  Around 30 weeks, we started to notice that I kept losing weight, and our sweet baby wasn’t gaining weight.  After weekly stress tests and ultrasounds, we decided with our doctor to be induced so that Ayva could come out and grow in the real world. We set it up with the hospital to go in that following Monday evening.

After a crazy weekend of preparation and excitement, we headed to the hospital Monday evening.  I was admitted and the process started with a gel that was applied to my cervix to soften it and allow dilation.  After two applications and many laps walking around the hospital, the Pitocin was started, which triggered my contractions.  By this time it was about midnight.  Throughout the whole night the contractions continued with little sleep and lots of trips to the bathroom.  My doctor came at 7am the next morning to check on my progress, which was not much.  He broke my water to help speed things up, which was an extremely strange feeling and if I had any modesty left in me, it was gone now.

The contractions became quite severe and only a couple minutes apart.  I had piggy-back contractions for a couple hours, which really amounts to about two contractions per couple minutes.  By 3pm, I was exhausted and decided to get an epidural so that when the time came, I had the energy to push.  That left me feeling a lot better and much more relaxed.  When my doctor came a little after 5pm to check and I was only 5cm dilated, he suggested a c-section since my water had been broken for so long.  This was a really hard thing for me to hear and was not anything I had thought about.  After at least an hour of debating with myself, my husband, my mom, the nurses, and the doctor we decided that for the health of Ayva we would have the c-section.

The operation was quick and a sensation that I will never forget.  During the operation, they found that the umbilical cord was wrapped around Ayva’s neck twice, so the c-section was the right choice to make.  Ayva was born at 7:58pm on 9/21/10 and weighed in at 5 pounds, 1 ounce.  She was tiny, but passed her newborn tests with flying colors.  Both of us were released from the hospital that Friday, and my life is forever changed.