Teagan's Birth Story

After being dilated to a 2 for 2 weeks and of course being painfully miserable, Dr. Guerra scheduled my induction for 39 weeks 1 day on Friday June 18, 2010. I was, of course, relieved, but also very nervous since Hadley was also born at 39 weeks, weighing in at 9lbs 14 oz. Many mothers have reported that their second babies were bigger than their first, so you can imagine my concern. In addition, Teagan was estimated to be 7lbs 7oz when I was 36 weeks pregnant.

We went in to Baylor All Saints at 5:00 a.m. I was anxious and surprisingly nervous. Even though I had been through this identical process before, I felt like things were just too similar to Hadley's birth so certainly something was going to go wrong. (I was completely wrong, thankfully) Even though we had been scheduled to induce since Wednesday, they weren't ready for me and finally admitted me at 5:30 a.m. (sure could have used that extra 30 minutes of sleep). Other than my admittance, every thing went very smoothly. I was having a few contractions when they hooked the monitors up to me and had progressed to a 3. They started the pitocin at 6:30 a.m. One thing I love about my doctor is that the nurse told me I could have my epidural whenever I wanted because Dr. Guerra left an order before I had even arrived - there would be no waiting for her approval once the contractions got painful.

I was actually fairly comfortable and even with the pitocin my contractions were manageable. Dr. Guerra checked on me around 8:30 and I had progressed to a 4. She broke my water to move things along. Soon after, I really started feeling the contractions and I promptly requested the epidural around 9:30. The anesthesiologist was amazing! The epidural I had during Hadley's birth was awful. This time I was able to still move my legs but felt absolutely no pain. More importantly, I could feel each contraction but without any pain, which was pretty cool. (Random side note - Jason, the anesthesiologist, knows one of Neil's coworkers and also lives in the same neighborhood as us. Small world.)

I continued to progress throughout the day and was generally happy and relaxed through out my labor. I loved that my mom, sister, and of course Neil, were all there to share the day with me. My sister kept me completely entertained. We laughed so much that my monitors kept moving on my belly and throwing crazy lines across the screens. Around lunch time Dr. Guerra checked on me and later decided to increase my pitocin to encourage Teagan to move down. A short time later I started feeling a lot of low pressure and I totally remembered that feeling. I knew I was ready! I let the nurse know about all the pressure - I was having to breath through these contractions because the pressure was so intense. I wasn't in pain, but I could just feel her pushing down hard. Dr. Guerra came to check on me and I was completely effaced and dilated but Teagan's head hadn't moved down enough. She increased the meds, changed my position and said she'd be back later.

The nurse kept checking me and really started to worry me. She could feel Teagan's head and the look on her face was alarming. She kept saying, "That is a BIG head" and "This is going to be one big baby." She said she felt she needed to call Dr. Guerra. After she got off the phone she came back and told us that Dr. Guerra thought I should start pushing. You could just tell by the look on her face that she was completely unconvinced that I was going to be able to push this baby out. She even mentioned that we would try the best we could but we might have to use "other" measures. I was brokenhearted because my biggest fear seemed to be materializing - we waited too long and this baby was over 10 pounds and too big to deliver.

I started pushing at 3:45 p.m. Jessie was on my left, Neil on my right, and mom was on the side. The first few pushes were pretty tough. I could only go to about 7 or 8 before I had to stop. I could tell that they weren't "good" pushes. I kept pushing (much more intensely) and Dr. Guerra came in just as I felt Teagan's head move down. During the last set of pushes Teagan's shoulder got stuck and the nurse climbed on top of me to help push her down. (I was fully prepared for that to happen since I had the same experience w/Hadley). We kept going and amazingly it only took 4 contractions and 12 minutes and we had our gorgeous baby girl! (4 of those 12 minutes I was waiting for the doctor and nurses to get prepped - which is the worst thing about childbirth. You are there, you are ready, you NEED to push, and now all of a sudden you have to stop and wait on everybody else, ugh.)

Teagan Rose Rollins was born at 3:57 p.m. 9lbs. 2oz. 20 3/4 inches long. She had a lot of bruising on her head, which is reasonable considering her size. They put her on my chest, she was crying and so were we. The feeling of your child leaving your body and then suddenly coming face to face with this crying little person that you've cared for, dreamed about, and imagined for the last 10 months is the most amazing, overwhelming, fulfilling sensation I've ever experienced - and I got to feel it twice!!!

So that's the story of Teagan's birth. Neil and I are in love with our little baby and she really does seem little to us since Hadley was almost a pound bigger. We now have two gorgeous little girls and our little family is complete.