Our beautiful baby, Aiden Adele Sanford, was born August 21, 2017 at 12:57 pm, weighing 7.9lbs and measuring 20 inches long. We’d been dreaming about that moment for what seemed like an eternity and the feeling that we had the first time we saw her was something I’ll never forget.
On Sunday, August 20th, after a relaxing, yet typical day, we sat down to enjoy dinner and I felt a decent amount of water uncontrollably leak out of me. I immediately thought to myself, “Oh my gosh, did I just pee my pants?!” LOL! The thought that my water had just broke didn’t even cross my mind; we still had three more weeks! Shocked and utterly confused, I walked upstairs to take a shower, where I felt another huge gush of water spew out of me. I figured at this point something wasn’t right so we called our doctor, who told us to come into the hospital to either be evaluated or admitted for labor.
I always assumed getting ready for the hospital would be like the movies where the actors are scrambling and running around like crazy, so I was surprised when we were able to calmly pack, shower, give our puppies tons of kisses and get ready to leave. At around 9 pm, upon arriving at the hospital, we were admitted and told that I was about one centimeter dilated and my water did indeed break. Within an hour, we met with our doctor to come up with our delivery plan and decided that I would labor on my own for as long as possible and after 5 am, if not enough progress had been made, they would give me Pitocin to speed up the labor process. At this point, I was having moderate cramping but could easily tolerate the pain and Matt and I were able to fall asleep for a few hours while Judge Judy played on the small TV in the background.
Around 4 AM, I woke up with some pain and was about 4 centimeters dilated. Within about forty-five minutes, I went from 4 centimeters dilated to 9 centimeters dilated. After receiving the epidural, it was time to get ready to push. I always imagined that pushing would be worse than the contractions but that was the farthest thing from the truth. Feeling pretty excited and fairly confident, I began pushing. Thankfully, Matt was the most amazing, supportive, concerned and loving person and I couldn’t have asked for a better partner. All I could think about while pushing was how bad I wanted to meet this little girl, so fueled by pain, an already strong love for our daughter and a desire to get through this delivery, I pushed and pushed for what seemed like an eternity. After pushing for two hours, the doctors began to worry about the baby’s position. She was considered occipital posterior or face-up, which was making the delivery more difficult. The doctors attempted to reposition her and believed that with some effort, I’d be able to deliver her vaginally. I was really opposed to getting a c-section, so I continued to push and fight with all I had in me.
Unfortunately, after another two hours of pushing, we weren’t making much progress, so the doctor decided to do an emergency c-section before any complications occurred.
Within 30 minutes, I was being rolled into the operating room. I was pretty terrified when I saw all the people and gadgets that were involved in the surgery. I was so thankful that Matt was there to talk to me and comfort me throughout the entire operation. He was so sweet and kept rubbing my head and kissing me. I got sick a few times during the operation due to the fluctuation in my blood pressure but the overall surgery went pretty fast.
After the operation was over, they wheeled us to the recovery room where we got to watch them bathe and care for our little angel. We watched her open her beautiful little eyes and look around at her surroundings. She had the most animated facial expressions and was sticking out her tongue. I really wanted to do skin to skin with her the second she was born but due to the c-section, plans changed a little bit and I had to wait until the anesthesia wore off. It was completely worth the wait and the initial feeling of contact with her was the most magical thing I’ve ever experienced.
Although our delivery was nothing like we planned or hoped for, I would do it a thousand times again for our little angel. I feel so incredibly grateful for this new addition to our family and I’m looking forward to this amazing new chapter of our lives. My heart is so full.