{Macy Amelia 12.12.11}

Monday, December 12th was my first day of maternity leave and I was 39 weeks 2 days pregnant.  I woke up early so that I could make it to the hospital by 7:30 am for a BPP and NST.  Before I left the house I was sitting at the kitchen table eating some cereal when I heard Kara open her bedroom door and she came and joined me for breakfast.  I told her that as soon as I was done eating she would have to go snuggle up in bed with daddy cause I had to go to the hospital to check on baby.  At that point Kara told me that the baby was going to be born today and asked who would pick her up from daycare.  I told her that grandma would pick her up, but only if the baby was born, if the baby wasn't born mommy would be picking her up... she told me that grandma would be there to pick her up, she also told Beth, our daycare provider, that grandma would be picking her up today cause the baby was going to be born.  I think she has some psychic abilities.

7:30 am - Arrived at hospital.  Started with the BPP, which is the ultrasound that they do to check on the baby.  I told the ultrasound tech that my 3 year old had predicted that the baby would be born today, she said she didn't like to hear that.  During the ultrasound she found barely any amniotic fluid, in the end the total measurement was just under 2cm, but the baby also had a full bladder and belly, so there was some additional fluid.  Then I had to move on to the NST where they monitor the baby's heart rate and my contractions, while I was having this done the doctor was reviewing the ultrasound and determined that today was the day!  So I had to call Joe and let him know not to start working cause he had to come to the hospital!  I didn't get to leave to go home and get my things, I got to go straight to labor and delivery.  Of course my doctor was on vacation, so the nurse had to try to figure out who was on call and let them know that I was being admitted.

9:00 am - admitted to labor and delivery.  I was brought straight back to a delivery room to have an induction started.  The plan was to get me on cervidil which softens your cervix and makes it more favorable for an induction.  I was about 2 cm dilated at this point, and when the nurse hooked me up to the monitors she discovered that I was contracting every 1-2 minutes, and I wasn't feeling anything!  This changed the plan, because they won't use cervidil if you are having regular contractions, so I got to wait while they figured out what they were going to do with me.

10:30 am - An IV and pitocin were started, and Joe finally arrived at the hospital.  He had to do lots of running around and pick up all of our hospital bags, get Kara's stuff packed up, etc... but he was finally at the hospital with me.

11:30 am - The only thing in the world that I could think about at this point was food.  I had only had a small bowl of cereal before I went in for my appointment, and I wasn't allowed to eat anything.  I could drink water up until I decided to have an epidural, but that was it.   I wanted a Davanni's hoagie incredibly bad.  I tweeted "I sure hope my baby is born before Davanni's closes.  I want a hoagie after I give birth." and guess what.. they responded and ended up sending me out 2 coupons for free hoagies and a Davanni's baby bib!!  Oh the power of social media!

1:30 pm - A doctor came in and broke my water and they inserted an internal monitor to better monitor the contractions, this gives a much more accurate reading of the strength of the contractions.  It was around this point that I started getting really uncomfortable and the contractions were getting pretty painful, but I wasn't sure that I was ready for an epidural yet.

2:45pm  - 3 cm dilated and ready for my epidural!  Getting the epidural hurt like hell - I don't remember feeling pain when I had an epidural with Kara, but this was baaaaad.  I don't know if it was cause I was having contractions while I was getting the epidural or what, but it was a burning, stinging, sharp pain... I don't ever want to deal with that again!  I did learn that when men get epidurals they get morphine prior to the epidural to help with the pain, women just get a small bit of numbing medicine.. WTF, not fair!  Anyway, the epidural hurt like hell, but of course ended up being a life saver!

4:00 pm - 4 cm dilated, feeling much happier now that the epidural is working like a charm.  Between checks from the nurse I was trying to sleep.  It had already been a long day, and I was feeling pretty worn out.

6:00 pm - 5 cm dilated.  Not much else to report at this time.... other than I was getting sick of only progressing 1 cm every two hours, I really thought things would move quicker.  Thank God they had cable in the hospital.. I got to watch all the crappy reality tv shows that I no longer get to watch at home!

8:00 pm - STILL 5 cm dilated.  At this point I was pretty sure that I was not going to be having my baby on 12/12.  The doctor who was going to be delivering Macy came in at this point and decided to stop the pitocin for a while and see what my body would do on it's own.  She also decided to have me sit up in bed for a while to hopefully help the baby move down, as she was still quite high.  The doctor decided to head home because she didn't think that I would be ready to push anytime soon.

8:30 pm - Extreme nausea.  Joe was trying to find something for me to puke in, and trying to call the nurse.  The nurse came in and I told her that I felt really sick so she had me lay back down on my side.  She said sometimes sitting up with all those meds can make you feel like that, so back to laying down I went.

9:00 pm - The contractions started to become extremely painful again, it almost felt like the epidural wasn't working at all.  I called the nurse again, she came in and I told her what was going on, so she checked me and guess what... I was fully dilated and effaced and ready to push!  So in one hour I went from 5cm with the baby still high to completely dilated and ready to push, no wonder I felt to sick!  The nurse called the doctor and told her to head back to the hospital cause it was time!

9:43 pm - I started pushing.  With Kara I pushed for 3.5 hours, so I was hoping for a much shorter time this time around!  At this point in the day I was so worn out and didn't want to push at all, let alone for 3 hours! I pushed and pushed and pushed... it felt like I wasn't doing anything, even though the doctor and nurse said I was.  It was a lot harder to push this time around and I think it was cause I could feel the pain, I have no idea how or why women decide to give birth without pain meds... maybe I just have a super low tolerance for pain, but man, I couldn't imagine going all that time without any pain meds.

10:09  pm - 26 minutes of pushing and Macy made her screaming entrance into the world!  She looked so tiny to me, and exactly like her big sister!  She was very covered in vernix (the white slimy stuff), she was so covered cause my amniotic fluid was so low, but she was my tiny, slimy, beautiful, perfect baby girl!   She weighed 7 pounds 1 ounce and was 21 inches long.  This may be TMI, but it's a part of the birth story... so I had an episiotomy (if you don't know what that is, don't google it - you don't want to know) anyway - I am glad that they allow you to hold your new baby and ooh and aah over the baby while they stitch you back up, it's a good distraction from the pain...and  that's all I'm going to say about that. 

Holding my sweet new baby girl.

 

Screaming baby on the scale

 

Proud Daddy

 Proud Mommy

Big sister Kara meeting Macy for the first time

Our first family picture

And another of the proud big sister

So there is the birth story and a few pictures for ya.  Macy is now 10 days old.. so I will start a new post on how the last week and a half has gone, it's been pretty hectic and the time is just flying by!  We are loving our sweet little Macy and trying to settle in to what it's like to be a family of four! 

Birth Story.. Warning.. Lots of details! (copied from my Myspace page)

My original due date was July 27th, at times it seemed like the day would never come, but overall my entire pregnancy flew by.

On July 28th I had a dr appointment, and happened to see my sister's doctor, since mine was on vacation. One of the first things she said to me was "Well, I hope you don't mind, but I went ahead and called Labor and Delivery and scheduled your induction for next Monday." This was the greatest news in the world to me. I really didn't want to be induced, but I was so ready to meet my little girl! At the appointment my doctor checked me and said my cervix was very soft, but I still wasn't really dilated much. So since I had my induction date I decided that Wednesday, July 30th would be my last day of work, and then I would have Thursday through Sunday to relax and prepare for delivery and bringing home the baby.

Thursday, July 31st - I woke up in the morning and seemed to have my bloody show, which can or can't mean that labor is coming.. so I didn't think too much of it. I started my day by cleaning the house and doing some laundry. I went to go bring lunch to Joe and told him that I think today might be the day, but I was only half serious, cause I really didn't know. After lunch I went back home and continued cleaning and by 3:00 in the afternoon I was exhausted, so I decided I was done for the day. Around 4:45 I had a little gush of fluid, I kinda wondered if it could be my water breaking, but I wasn't sure since it was just a little bit, and you always hear the stories of water breaking and it goes everywhere. So Joe got home a little after 5:00 and we went to Target to buy a few last minute baby items. While we were at Target I started getting really uncomfortable, feeling crampy and having a lower backache, but not having any regular contractions. By about 6:45 I had a few more gushes of fluid, so I figured I better call the doctor to see what they say.

I called the doctors office and they told me to go down to the hospital and they would test me to see if it was my fluid that had broke, and if it was that meant we would be staying at the hospital and having a baby. So Joe jumped in the shower and I finished packing up all of our hospital bags, we arrived to the hospital at about 8 pm, at which point I was still not feeling any regular contractions.

When we arrived at the hospital they brought me back to a room and had Joe wait in the waiting area. They hooked me up to some monitors to monitor my contractions and the baby's heartbeat. They did a test to see if it was my amniotic fluid, and the test showed that it was my water had broke, so the nurse went to go get Joe.

When Joe got into the room he noticed that the monitor was measuring my contractions and they were coming almost every 4 minutes, I was feeling them a little bit, but they weren't too bad. At around 9:00 they came and got us and brought us to our delivery room. The nurse had mentioned that the doctor wanted me to start on pitocin right away because I had tested positive for GBS, which basically means they don't want you to be in labor too long. But I asked to see how I progressed on my own for a little while before we started the pitocin. The nurse checked me and I was 3 cm dilated 80% effaced and my contractions were coming every 2-4 minutes. The contractions were starting to get stronger and I was getting more uncomfortable.

Around 10:30 the doctor that would be delivering Kara stopped in our room, she had to deliver another one of my doctor's patients that night, so she came and checked in on us. She basically just asked how I was doing, and told me that I could get an epidural at any point now. The nurse checked me again around 11:00 and I was now at 4cm. She asked if I was ready for any pain meds, and I wasn't sure if I was or not. I felt like we had just got there, and I hadn't been in labor long enough to have any drugs yet, and once the drugs were started I would be stuck in bed for the rest of labor. I decided that I might as well just go for the epidural and get some rest. The anesthesiologist came in around 11:30 to give me the epi.. it was a feeling of lots of pressure, but not really any pain, and I have to say it was probably the world's best epidural!

The nurse checked me again around 1:30 or so and because of the epidural my contractions had slowed and I was still only at 4 cm and 90% effaced, so she decided it was time to start pitocin. I was trying to sleep as much as I could in between visits from the nurse, but I was only sleeping about 10 minutes at a time.
The nurse came back around 4 or 5 in the morning and was concerned that the pitocin wasn't doing much because my contractions were not becoming regular. They were averaging around 1-3 minutes apart, but were going up to as much as 7 minutes between contractions, so she was very surprised that when she checked me I was at 6-7 cm and almost fully effaced. She told me if I started feeling any pressure or the urge to push to let her know as soon as possible.

The nurse came back in and checked me at 6:08 in the morning and I was fully dilated and effaced.. it was time to start pushing with the next contraction!! At 6:18 am I started pushing, it was kind of a practice push to see how I would do. The nurse was thinking that Kara could be born before her shift was over at 7:30 in the morning... we started getting really excited at this point! The nurse called the doctor around 7:00 in the morning, and I honestly have no clue what time she actually got there, once I started pushing I didn't pay any attention to what time it was. Even with my epidural I could feel pressure and tightness with each contraction, so I knew when I needed to push. I pushed through every contraction for 3.5 hours! Around 2 hours of pushing talks of a c-section started. Kara's head wouldn't come through my pelvic bone, so I think they were getting worried that she wouldn't fit through. With each push I was making progress though, so they let me keep pushing! Around 3 hours into pushing they called in an extra OB doctor, extra nurses and a NICU team. They wanted to see if a little help from the vacuum extractor would help get her out. They also wanted to have extra people on hand since she spent so much time in the birth canal. At this point they also realized that I hadn't had a catheter in for about 3 hours, so they thought having a full bladder may be getting in the way of her head. So they drained my bladder and were getting ready to use the vacuum. A few contractions later they were ready. I was so exhausted at this point, but I wasn't ready to give up and have a c-section... after all that work I wanted to deliver her on my own!! I got a 2nd degree episiotimy..Joe said that was the worst part of the whole delivery! He couldn't watch when she did it, and the sound was pretty horrible.. thank goodness I couldn't feel anything! So with my next contraction they used the vacuum for about 4 seconds and out came Kara.

I was balling before she was even out, I think I could feel her coming and knew she was coming out. When she came out it was the weirdest feeling in the world, I think only a person who has delivered a baby could understand it. On her way out she promptly had her first poo all over my leg... which I didn't notice, and I didn't care, I was just so happy to finally have my little girl in my arms!

They laid her on my chest and Joe cut the umbilical cord. Then some nurses took her and cleaned her off and that is when she started screaming, it was the greatest sound in the world hearing my daughter cry for the first time. The whole experience was so amazing, but still seems so surreal to me. After 3.5 hours of pushing as soon as I saw her I knew I would do it all over again!

Joe was a trooper! He watched the whole thing, and handled it much better than I thought he would :) When they finally weighed her none us of could believe how tiny she was! She was 6lb 15.5 ounces and 19 inches long, and she was 5 days overdue! I think since I had such a hard time delivering her we all expected her to be much bigger.. but she is just a tiny little peanut!

Today Kara is one week old, and it has been the most amazing, rewarding week of my life. She is a little miracle and me and Joe love her to pieces!! We are just getting settled into our life as a new family and we are loving every second of it!