Introducing Emma Grace!!

She's Here!!

Emma Grace Sweatman 

9/30/10 at 12:48pm

7 pounds, 20 inches

Birth Story

I went in on 9/30, Thursday, at 5:30am for an elective induction. When I was put on the monitors, I was already contracting every few minutes and I was dilated to 3-4cm/75% effaced...so either way Emma was coming!

At 6:30am Pitocin was started

At 7:25am Dr. V broke my water and I was 4cm/80% effaced

At this point I asked for my epidural so that the contractions I was feeling wouldn't get much worse. Unfortunately, they were in the middle of a c-section so I had to wait. Then there was an emergency case and I had to wait more... and more! My nurse refused to increase my pitocin until I was comfortable with an epidural so I sat at a measly 6mu of pitocin for 3 hours! After 3 hours I finally got my epidural, which was heaven :) And the nurse finally started to increase the pitocin.

At 12:05pm I was only 5cm/90% and on 14mu of pitocin. She decided to cut the pitocin down to 7mu because of Emma's heartrate acting a little goofy. I was getting disappointed that I wasn't further dilated at this  point and that my pitocin was barely even on.

All the sudden I felt an intense sharp pain and asked my nurse to check me.

At 12:40pm I was 10cm and +2 station with an intense urge to push. 

My nurse ran out of the room to flag down my OB who was about to start a c-section case. He came in and was shocked I was ready to deliver since I had just been 5cm 35 minutes earlier. He did a test push with me and said "we are ready". 

He did ask me to breathe through the intense pressure in between the contractions instead of just pushing. It was very hard to keep that control, but I did. He seemed to be very impressed and said I was "just going to breathe the baby out".

At 12:48pm (only 8 minutes later) Emma Grace was born!

She did have a loose nuchal cord (cord around the neck, which explains the heart rate issue) which the OB quickly removed.

My labor was only 5 hours (from the time he broke my water to delivery), which is pretty good!

Emma is perfect (just like her sister)! She has a little bit more hair than Reese did at birth. You can't see her eyebrows or eyelashes though (which was the same with Reese). There is much debate on who Emma looks like!! We have heard every combination possible I think ;) She does have some of the same features as Reese did but there is still enough different.

Emma sleeps great, 3-4 hour stretches! Breastfeeding has gotten much quicker the last few days (which is nice since it took an hour to nurse her the first few days). She gets the hiccups just as much as she did in utero :) So far we haven't had any issues with reflux (which was a big issue with Reese).

~Sisters~

~Going Home~

Here are a few "sneak peak" photos from Emma's photo shoot at just 3 days old!