So labor and delivery did not quite go as I had planned. What is that you say? I can’t make everything go the way I think it should? Man, I wish I had figured that out earlier! ☺
First snuggle time with dad. Garrett looks so tired, poor guy!Anyway, it all started on Sunday night, July 26. We had dinner at my mom’s, and I was lucky enough to get a pedicure from my sweet sister AnJ. We still had not packed the hospital bag, and I really wasn’t feeling well at all. I started worrying that it was going to be THE night and I was not prepared, so Garrett and I stayed up until 1:00 AM packing. I was in sheer panic mode, it was pretty funny.
Getting weighed. She is always putting her hand up like that.Monday I woke up not feeling well again. I spent the day working at home and also went to lunch with my friend Kristalee. I was having what I thought were contractions, though they were pretty far apart. Garrett got home from work, and we decided to run some errands to get my mind off things. The contractions started coming closer together, every 10-15 minutes, and they were pretty uncomfortable. I was sure that now this would be THE night. Ha ha, ha ha, ha ha…..
Snuggling with mom while waiting to move to our room.We went to bed and Garrett was able to sleep through the night. I, on the other hand, did not. I kept waking up in so much discomfort, it was crazy. Tuesday I spent the day working from home and trying to take care of some last minute projects. The contractions kept coming closer and closer together, and finally at around 4 it was all I could do to lie on the couch and time them. Garrett got home from work and the night was spent timing away. We had taken Bradley Method courses and knew that we wanted to stay at home as long as possible because I was trying to go natural. There were so many times that I thought that the next contraction couldn’t possibly be worse then the last one, and then bam. There it was. This went on all evening, until I finally said that we needed to go in. We packed up our stuff, put Bella in the crate, and then headed to the hospital at around midnight. That had to have been the most horrible car ride I have ever had! I seriously felt like I was going to have her right there, the contractions were so hard and right on top of each other. I was so positive that I had to at LEAST be to a 6. Once again…ha ha, ha ha, ha ha….
First bath.So after getting checked in and changed, they did an exam and low and behold, I was only to a 4. Repeat that with me people. A measly little 4. Sheesh! We were in it for the long haul. We spent the early morning hours doing everything we possibly could to get things moving. Walked the halls, soaked in the tub, walked the halls more, every possible thing that we could think of. And every time they examined me I was still at a 4. Then a 4 +. Still a 4+. It was so disheartening to not see any sort of progression at all. Luckily they continued monitoring Nora every hour and she was being a total trooper. At around 7 AM, they suggested that I get some pain medication in an IV, which would hopefully relax me enough to get things moving. After resisting as long as I could, I finally gave in to that at 9 AM. We were hoping that I would relax enough to sleep but that didn’t happen. I was given another dose at 10, and still nothing. So, after all those long hours and being completely worn out, we decided to go ahead and get an epidural hoping that I would finally be able to relax and progress. The epidural, while not what I wanted at all, was nowhere near as bad as I thought that it would be. I’m so glad I had Garrett who was so strong for me. They administered the epidural at noon, and then told me to go ahead and relax and sleep (since it had been a LONG time since that had happened). Oh how I wish I had been able to do that….
Warm and cozy after her first bath.Luckily, Garrett was able to get some sleep and I just rested and watched TV, dozing a little bit here and there. They continued to check me and continued to only progress a little at a time until I was barely a 5+ at 6 PM. At this point, our nurse said that they wanted to break my water, which was one thing I did not want to do at all. I told her that we wanted to wait a little bit longer, to give me a couple of hours to try one more time to sleep, and then we’d see where we were at. Our nurses were so nice and respectful of what we were trying to do! So at 6:30 I tried to sleep. And thankfully, I did. Our nurse came back into check on me around 8:45, and I had finally progressed! She said I was at a 9+ and my water had broken on it’s own. She went to call our Dr. and said that if I felt like I needed to push to let her know. She literally had just stepped out the door when I turned to Garrett and said that I had to push and I had to push now. She came right back in and I was fully dilated, it was crazy. All my body needed to do was sleep so that it could relax enough to do what it was supposed to do!
Our little burrito baby. She still loves it!After all those long hours of working, I thought there was no way I could get this baby out. I had heard all these horror stories of first time mom’s pushing for hours and hours and hours. Luckily, that wasn’t me. I started pushing at 9:03, my doctor got there around 9:25 and Nora Mae was born at 9:33 PM, July 29, 2009. Smack dab on her due date. She was 7 lbs 8 oz and so beautiful! I am not biased though or anything….
Big yawns!It was such an amazing experience. Things didn’t completely go as I had “scheduled,” but I am so glad I had the experience I did. It was hard. Really hard. But it made me appreciate her so much more. It also helped me appreciate Garrett. He is so amazing and I am so lucky to have him in my life. He is such a level headed person and he was an amazing advocate for Nora and I through the entire process.
Man I was so tired...We were in the delivery room for quite a while and I was able to hold Nora for a long time before they took her and weighed her. It was such an awesome bonding experience. She was so alert! And so loud! ☺ And so amazingly beautiful, or at least to me she was. And that was it, the start to us as a family of four.
Half yawn, half smile! Cutest baby ever.
