Sadie Jane Pratt Has Arrived

We are pleased to announce

the arrival of

Sadie Jane Pratt

October 21, 2014

Weight: 8lbs. 11oz.

Length: 20"

On Monday, October 20 around 3:00 in the afternoon my nurse practitioner called me to inform me that she had scheduled an induction at the hospital for tomorrow at 7:30am.  Initially, I was surprised that she got me in so quickly but I was also thinking oh great is this what I really want?  I knew that I could opt-out at any time so I told her thank you and hung up the phone.  When I told Charlie he was so excited and relieved to know that for sure the baby was coming tomorrow and he didn't have to stress about it anymore.  Which in turn made me happy that he was so relieved so I decided that maybe this wasn't such a bad idea and to go ahead with it...oh, and I also prayed about it too...a lot...and I felt at peace.

The next morning we got up and headed down E-470 and made it to Sky Ridge Hospital just as the sun was rising.  It was such a beautiful morning with a pink, orange, blue, and yellow sky.  After we got all registered (which the whole time I was thinking what's the point of pre-registering?) they showed us to the delivery room.

My nurse's name was Beth and she got me hooked up on a fetal monitor that tracts the baby's heartbeat and another that tracts my contractions.  She also gave me my first dose of penicillin (since I'm GBS positive) at around 10am.  We had to wait until 12noon to start the Pitocin which at that time I was only dilated to 2cm.  We waited and waited and waited and nothing happened.  No contractions and no sign of the baby coming.  Then at 2pm I got my second dose of penicillin and waited some more.

Finally, at 3:30pm Dr. Bozeman came back in and gave us our options.  He could go ahead and break the water or we could continue to wait some more.  But if he broke the water there would be no turning back and if the baby still didn't come he'd have to do a c-section.  I was pretty certain that once he broke the water things would get rolling so I didn't have any hesitation in that regard.  So he brought in more staff and prepped everything and broke my water.  He advised me at this time that if I wanted an epidural to go ahead and do it now, there was really no point in waiting.

At 4pm the anesthesiologist came and administered the epidural.  My reasoning behind getting one, because I went back and forth on whether or not to get one, was simply because the day was looking so grim.  We'd already been there for 8 1/2 hours and nothing was progressing.  So in my mind, I was preparing for a long labor and I didn't want to go through a long, drawn-out labor without some relief.

Typically the epidural takes about 20-30 minutes for it to kick in.  Well, wouldn't you know it, just five minutes after she put the epidural in the contractions started long and hard and steady!  The epidural had absolutely no effect on my pain whatsoever.  So for the following 30 minutes or so I was in pretty bad shape.  I remember squeezing Charlie's hand so hard and wishing the pain would just go away.  I didn't feel mentally prepared for it at all.  I was prepared to sit back and relax and let the medicine take all the pain.  But it was not meant to be and so finally when it was time to push the anesthesiologist came back and gave me some morphine to get me through the pushing.  I remember telling her in the brief moment between contractions that I wanted a refund on the epidural!

My eyes were closed as I was trying to focus on getting through the contractions and as soon as the morphine kicked in I felt an immediate rush of relief.  My whole body finally relaxed and I took a deep breath and finally opened my eyes.  I remember making direct eye contact with Dr. Bozeman and he said, are you ready, you can do this, it's time to push.

Taking strength from Charlie, the team of nurses, and Dr. Bozeman I pushed through 3 contractions, and wouldn't you know it, she was finally here!  Our perfect sweet little Sadie Jane finally decided to join our family at 4:45pm.

Dr. Bozeman's initial reaction was how big she was.  He said wow, she must have been really tucked back inside you because he didn't think by feeling my tummy that she'd be as big as she was.  And then everyone was so impressed with her perfectly round little head.  She wasn't in the birth canal long enough to get a cone head!  She was chubby, pink, with dark brown hair, and had a little red "stork bite" right between her eyes.

 Not long after she was born we noticed that she was coughing and gagging a lot.  The nurse said that since she came out so fast she had swallowed a bunch of air and amniotic fluid in the process.  Later that night she cleaned out her stomach and got most of it out.  She said she hadn't seen that much air and fluid in a really long time!  Poor thing.

All the nurses were so intrigued with my family and they all wanted to know my kid's ages and names.  I think I must have told at least 12 nurses and staff about our family.  Sometimes I forget how rare it is for a woman to have 5 children!

Everything went smooth at the hospital.  The food was actually decent and I actually got decent sleep.  It was by far the quietest hospital I'd ever been to, which was really nice.  Our nurse said that Sadie was doing just great and they let us go home the next evening!

Now let the chaos begin!!