Elizabeth Joy

After what seemed like the longest pregnancy ever, Elizabeth finally arrived on Friday, October 21. She made a quick entrance in to this world, only 5 hours after being induced. While driving home from working a full day and being completely relieved that I'd made it through two big meetings that week, I realized I hadn't really felt the baby move all day. I decided to call my doctor's office and let them know. They obviously needed something to do there so I was told to come down to be monitored, so Eric and I dropped the kids off with my parents and headed over. After a rough start, Elizabeth's heart rate finally started acting like it was supposed to but I agreed to an ultrasound just to be sure. Mostly because we didn't realize my amniotic fluid was so low with Josh at 38 weeks until we did an ultrasound. Turned out my fluid was on the low side again (not as low as with Josh) and with the decreased fetal movement, the doctor in the office recommended induction. He consulted with my doctor and soon we were headed to Mercy Gilbert for the dreaded induction.

I was bound and determined to make this a better experience than I had with Josh and was happy I had learned a few things last time. First, don't eat anything before receiving the medication. Second, be very adamant that I didn't want to be offered an epidural (it's very easy to be talked in to one when you're in a ton of pain). Third and once again, don't eat anything!

I am happy to say that this experience was much better and I no longer fear being induced like I did before. I was given the medication at 6 pm and by 10 pm I was starting to have some stronger contractions. My doctor checked me at 10 pm and I was only dilated half a centimeter more than I was at 6 pm. He did reassure me that the medicine did what it was supposed to do and that I was ready for contractions to start. He decided to hold off on breaking my water or giving me pitocin, which I didn't quite understand but whatever, I'm not the doctor. He obviously knows me pretty well after having delivered my other 2 kids because by 10:30 I was asking Eric to call the nurse because I'd either peed all over myself or my water had broken. Thankfully it was my water, I was a little mortified that I had peed myself. :o) After that, it was all down hill. The contractions were relentless for the next 30 minutes and never let up. By 11:01, it was all over and Elizabeth was here. She was amazing and I was so glad that all those weeks of pregnancy had come to an end with another beautiful baby girl!