The Proctors: Arrival Day!

In contrast to our first experience with Grayson when we let his arrival be a surprise, this time we planned Adelyn's arrival day. I would have been fine waiting, but with no family living close by, no one to take care of Grayson, and my mom flying in, it just made sense to be induced. I'm glad we did it, but I did not have a realistic picture of what that would be like. The Dr breaking my water was the most painful and traumatic experience of the day and the only time that I cried. After that it was much better!

We arrived at the hospital at 4:45 a.m. to get checked in and get started. Unfortunately they had been ridiculously busy the day before and didn't get us in until close to 7:00! It would have been nice to get a couple more hours of sleep! I was still only dilated to 2 cm at that point. My Dr came by at 7:00 and broke my water. Once I had recovered from that my morning nurses had come on duty and got all the IVs set up and the pitocin drip going at 7:30. I was very lucky to have two fabulous nurses taking care of me all day - thank you Angie and Julie!!

That got the contractions going. By noon they were pretty strong, and I was getting pretty uncomfortable, so I called for the epidural at 12:30. I was still only at 4 cm, so that was very disappointing! This was another new experience for me since I didn't get one last time, but I was excited about the pain going away. A trainee came in to see if she could do it, and I said I definitely wanted a pro! Ha! At least I couldn't see what was going on back there, and while it was painful it wasn't as bad as the contractions also going on at the time, so they helped me take my mind off it! In no time it was done, and everything started to feel better. I'm happy to report that I felt absolutely no side effects that they warned me about! The only funny thing that happened was that my right side went completely numb - I'm talking couldn't even tell that I had a right leg, couldn't move it in bed, and the nurses had to pick it up to adjust my position and when it was time to push! The good thing was that at this point I was able to take a nap to get ready for the big event.

Things went a lot more quickly at this point. They said it could take up to an hour per centimeter, but by 3:00 I was fully dilated. A staff of about 8 people came into the room to take care of me and the baby, and at 3:32 Adelyn arrived!

She was 20 inches long and weighed 6lb 14oz and had dark hair! Her hair has been long enough to hang over her collar in the back since the first day!

We are so thankful to God for a safe delivery and a perfect healthy little girl!