The Story

There had been some talk at my final appointments about how big Megan would be. For my entire pregnancy, people would always comment about how little I was showing. I gained the exact same amount of weight for both Kelsey and Megan, but with Kelsey it was more belly and this time it was more hips and junk in the trunk. Therefore, at my 37 week appt. I expressed some worry to my doctor about baby's size. He did an ultrasound to check on progress and found out the baby was about 5 lbs. which put the baby in the 13th percentile for weight. I was also 2cm dialated. He advised me to go home and next week we would repeat the ultrasound to track progress again. At my 38 week appt we did a non-stress test and found out that baby was moving fine and not in distress. I was dialated to 3cm. We also did a biophysical profile ultrasound to confirm baby's size, as well as see if the baby had grown throughout the week. It turned out the baby had not gained any weight throughout the week and was maintaining current weight totals. Therefore, our doctor gave us the option of inducing. There was a possibility that the placenta may not be supporting the baby at this point in the pregnancy or that the baby was just genetically smaller. So, we took the option for induction at 39 weeks. It was strange scheduling when the baby would be born, but also allowed us to plan as much as we could up until that point.
Friday morning was the big day. We arrived at the hospital at 6am. They monitored the baby's heartbeat for about 30 minutes and then started me on pitocin. After about 30 minutes on the meds, the doctor broke my water and we were on our way. I labored well for about 2 hours and tolerated the meds well. However, once I reached the highest dosage of pitocin, I asked for an epidural. By the time I got the epidural and it was effective, it was about 10:15am.I felt a lot of relief, but then at about 10:35 I started to feel the need to push. Sure enough, I had gone from 5-6cm dialated to 9cm. My nurse said I was close. I still felt a need to push, so she checked me again and I was ready to deliver. Megan was born at 10:46am. So my whole labor took about 4 hours. It was a quick process and in the end we had our second beautiful daughter.