Hello, Charlotte Everly

Introducing our daughter, Charlotte Everly.

My sweet little girl was born Tuesday, June 11th at 3:51pm. Unlike her big brother, she came screaming into this world hard and fast.

My son was induced at 38 weeks and it took 20 hours. With Charlotte I had been 4-5cm dilated for a couple weeks, so I was induced at exactly 39 weeks. I was actually slightly concerned that my labor would go quickly and I wouldn’t make it to the hospital in time, so a repeat induction sounded perfect. As a bonus, my doctor was confident that it would go much quicker this time. With my son, Pitocin didn’t work quickly and labor didn’t pick up until they broke my water around hour 14. This time, the plan was to start at 9am by breaking my water and delivery was expected to be some time between noon and two.

For whatever reason, when we got to the hospital the plan changed. The nurses opted to start with Pitocin again and increase my dose every 45 minutes. My plan had been to get an epidural before my water broke, so I opted to wait on that since we were doing drugs first. The Pitocin started around 10am and I had a few contractions off and on, but nothing consistent or painful.

By 2pm, I had had only a few uncomfortable contractions so we were still just waiting, waiting. My husband decided to take a quick walk up the hall to get a drink. Less than 5 minutes after he left, I had my first real contraction. I thought I’d ask for the epidural when he got back. Two minutes after that, I felt a pop and my water broke. Then the back to back contractions started. My husband had been gone almost 20 minutes at this point. I texted him to hurry back and ended up calling the nurse to let her know I needed help.

By the time the nurse and my husband got in the room, the contractions were too painful to talk through. She quickly called my doctor, the anesthesiologist, and back up nurses to set up my delivery table. It was becoming apparent that this labor was going to go quickly. The contractions were coming so close together that I was nervous I wouldn’t be able to sit still for my {much-needed} epidural. God bless that anesthesiologist though because he got it placed super quickly between them.

Unfortunately that process still takes about an hour to go in and take full effect. By 3:15 when the epidural really kicked in, I was 10cm dilated and ready to push. I went from 6cm to 10cm in an hour without much pain relief! My doctor still wasn’t at the hospital and I was starting to think someone –anyone!– was going to need to catch this baby.

Just about that time, my doctor breezed into the room. Bless her, she delivered my baby with sunglasses still on her head. Charlotte was born in just a few minutes with 4 contractions, compared to over an hour of hard pushing with my son. And sweet sister came out feisty! She did have the cord around her neck, but it wasn’t tight and she cried as soon as they got her free.

We are so in love!