Averi's birth

We found out late in the morning that Teresa was at the hospital, dilated to 8cm. Teresa had her epidural, and it was pretty much a waiting game from there! Three hours later she was dilated to 9cm and had a bulging bag of waters. Averi was at -2 station, which means that her head wasn't engaged. This is likely due to polyhydramnios (excessive amount of amniotic fluid) which is common with a CDH baby. Healthy babies do "practice breathing" in the womb, where they "inhale" amniotic fluid. CDH babies have less lung capacity, and often don't do the practice breathing as much. Consequently, fluid builds up and can cause enough fluid that the baby doesn't descend.

Two hours later, Avery still had not decended, and Teresa was still at 9 cm. The doctors decided to poke a small hole in her bag of waters so that it could slowly leak out. This is largely to prevent the umbilical cord from prolapsing, (cord coming out before baby, which sometimes cuts off the oxygen supply.)

After the waters were broken and leaking, Averi still was not descending, so at 6:00, the doctor had Teresa sit up a bit so that gravity could help her come down. By 7:30pm she was pushing!