We watched my due date come and go, and there was still no sign of Cora, despite some of my best efforts to help move things along. I tried eggplant for the first time in my life! Not only did I consume eggplant (which was not bad), I ate eggplant in spicy curry. Eggplant, spicy foods, fresh pineapple, walking 200+ stairs on the morning of my actual "due date" and then walking five miles later that evening. Days later I ran a mile with a friend and then walked another four. Cora, much like her sister, was comfortable in my womb and wasn't ready to come out.
I was due to be induced on Monday, the 23rd. When I called Monday morning to see when I needed to come in the woman on the phone informed me that there were two medical inductions that they needed to do before mine and two other women had come in, already in active labor. Call back around noon. We went out and about, then I excused myself from lunch with Dan, Evelyn, and one of Dan's friends to call L&D again. They were still super busy and couldn't promise me that they'd be able to get me in that day. If they were able to, however, they'd call me.
I think I might've cried. I honestly don't remember. We went home and I went upstairs to take a nap with Evelyn. Around 3:45 my phone rang and they asked if I could be there at 5:00. We got stuff ready to go, and then I texted our friends that were going to watch Evelyn. Not only were we on pins and needles all day, waiting to see if I'd be able to be induced, but they were essentially on call all day as well.
We took a few final pictures of us as a family of three and then I stalled as long as possible while saying goodbye to Evelyn. She was starting to get upset which was making me upset and I was already anxious about leaving her. I didn't doubt the care she'd receive with our friends Amber and Kyle but I was just anxious over all because I had never been away from her for more than five hours consecutively.
The induction started around 6pm. The first couple of hours crawled by with frequent visits from the nurses to readjust the heart monitor on my belly. They ended up adding another one because I think initially, they thought she was coming off the monitor and the monitor started picking up my heart rate instead. I'm not really sure, though. As the night went on, the nurses came in more and more frequently to adjust the monitor on my stomach and to look at the monitor that was keeping track of the strength of my contractions, my pulse, and Cora's heartbeat.
Cora's heart rate kept going down after contractions no matter what position I was in -- sitting on the yoga ball, standing next to the bed, laying on my left side, laying on my right side, sitting up in bed... For quite some time they'd ask me to flip sides while laying in bed after every contraction to see if that would help Cora out but unfortunately it didn't. They trying lowering the level of Pitocin I was receiving but then had to re-up it again when my contractions started being more than five minutes apart. They tried giving me a bag of saline, and I ended up with an oxygen mask. They tried really hard and exhausted their bag of tricks, trying to give us a chance to see if she could be okay as my labor continued to progress. No matter what they were trying, it wasn't helping her heart rate.
They tried two more things, one of which was a shot of terbutaline to try and slow my labor. The shot didn't work. Despite their attempts, the doctor apologized to me, saying he was sorry but they needed to do a c-section. They started unplugging everything and I was rolled through L&D.
Once we were in the OR and I was under general anesthesia, it took the doctor under one minute to get Cora out. That seems incredible to me! They discovered that the cord was wrapped around her neck. Once she was out and the cord was removed from her neck, all was well.
The doctor later came in and apologized that my labor ended in an emergency c-section but I was and am at peace with the outcome. Cora was delivered safely, healthy and unharmed despite her rough time during labor. That is what matters most to us.
Cora was 7lbs 5oz at birth and 19.5 inches long. She weighed a bit more and was a little shorter than her big sister. She was born with an almost full-head of strawberry blonde hair that leans more towards red than strawberry depending on a variety of factors. It was and continues to be thickest on the back of her head. It looked as if she had somehow gotten a haircut in the womb because it was perfectly straight across when it rested on her little neck. Not one hair looked significantly longer than the next. We are so happy she is here with us!
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