In honor of my sweet baby girl turning 2 (!), I thought I would share her birth story. Sorry in advance for all of the blurry pictures included in this post, but it's all we have. So, here we go...
My due date was Thursday, September 26th. I began my maternity leave that previous Monday, the 23rd, because #1, I wasn't interested in teaching my PreK'ers about the birds and the bees and where the stork doesn't come into play when babies are born, and #2, I was holding out hope for an October birthday (Halloween birthday parties year after year after year? Yes, please!). So, I dutifully spent my first days of maternity leave mostly sitting on the couch with my feet up. At least I was sitting around more than I would've at school, so I figured that would be enough to keep the bun in the oven. But by Tuesday, dreams of ghosts and witches and all things Halloween birthday started slipping away. I don't remember exactly when the contractions started, but it was some time Tuesday. (This is where waiting two years to write this down is going to make things difficult...) I don't remember what I initially thought was happening, or how long it took me to realize I was indeed having contractions, but I started writing them down at 4:32 pm... then 4:48... then 5:08... 15-20 minutes apart.
Then 5:59... 6:07... 6:13... closer together, but still not the 5-1-1 rule they tell you to follow (5 minutes apart, lasting for 1 minute each, for 1 hour).
Jordan stopped what he was doing each time I had a contraction to ask if I was okay. Apparently I didn't look very okay. "I'm fine." I repeated each time. At this point I was still very much in denial. I had read of other people being in labor with hard contractions for days, and I think I was still holding out hope that they would subside or that this was just the start of a very long process, and I would indeed have years of Halloween birthday party planning ahead. I'm telling you, I was ready to hunker down and suffer through it for a whole freaking week. What? I like Halloween... Plus, even though it was quite painful, I figured this was just the start, and thus the pain would be getting much worse, therefore I had to be fine. If I wasn't fine now, how on earth would I make it to later???
I ended up getting comfortable on the couch for a night of very little sleep, so as to not keep Jordan awake. The contractions continued to be very irregular, ranging from 20 to 6 minutes apart.
The following morning was more of the same with contractions ranging from 10 minutes to 5 minutes apart, but never regular. I called my doctor's office before Jordan left for work, but she told me until I hit the magic 5-1-1, there was no need to go to the hospital (of course, she went throught the whole gamut of questions to rule out the need to go for any other reasons, water breaking, etc).
So, off to work Jordan went. Of course all the while I was insisting that I was fine, even though he insisted that I didn't look it.
I sat outside enjoying the cool morning with Bowser (yes, we drag his bed and sleeping bag outside with us so he won't get cold. Duh.)...
...and generally went about my business, stopping every 5 to 10 minutes to get through a contraction. When they hit I felt completely immobile. I just shut my eyes, leaned on something, and tried to do my "yoga breathing". I hadn't done any lamaze classes or anything, so I just did what I figured was similar. Deep breaths in, slow out. All I wanted to do was hold my breath. At one point I got in the shower hoping the water would ease the pain. If I remember correctly, I spent most of the time sitting in the bottom of the shower trying to hold my breath breathe through contractions. It helped a little.
Jordan stopped by the house around lunchtime to pick up some work supplies and popped in to check on me. I told him I was fine, and he insisted, yet again, that I did not, in fact, look at all fine. But after reminding him that my doctor's office told me it wasn't time to go to the hospital, and that my contractions were still irregular, he continued on his way.
*I'm just not going to worry about TMI here, because this is a birth story afterall...
About 15 minutes after Jordan left, I went to the bathroom and saw some blood which freaked me out completely. Even still, I was a little leery about calling my doctor's office for the second time that day, but I felt pretty sure that this was one of those signs that definitely means something, so I called. This time she told me it was about that time, and to head to the hospital. I called Jordan to relay they news, but since his guys were at a job site with no vehicle, he continued on to pick them up and sent his brother to get me.
Bowser totally knew there was something going on...
My contractions on the way to the hospital were ranging from 7 to 3 minutes apart.
Jordan met us in the parking lot of the hospital at about 12:30. I stopped in the middle of the driveway, completely unable to walk through a contraction, even though Jordan insisted I couldn't stop there. Yeah, you don't get to tell a woman in labor where she can and cannot stop.
I went straight to triage where I was hooked up to various monitors and asked to rate my pain. I went with a 6 out of 10, still assuming that the worst was yet to come. Come to find out, I was in the thick of it already. Jordan and I chatted with our triage nurse at length about our respective dogs. At this point I would say it was probably after 1:00. The nurse didn't seem to be in any hurry to have a look "down there", but when she finally got around to that, I was dialated to a 3, and she was like, "Whoa girl, you're totally in labor!" Apparently that 6 out of 10 ranking had her maybe on the fence about whether or not it was the real deal. And so I was admitted, asked if I could walk to my room, of course I said I could. About 2 steps in my water broke. On my feet. On the floor. Probably on the nurse's feet. It was em.bar.a.sing. I left a lovely little trail behind me all the way down the hall. It was hu.mil.i.a.ting. It was probably 1:15-1:30 before I got to my room. I'm telling you, we chatted at length about our dogs. Well, the nurse and Jordan did at least.
^^ Trying to smile through the pain. I wouldn't say I succeeded ;) ^^
I was asked if I wanted to go ahead and get my epidural. I said no (after all, the pain was only a 6 out of 10, right :/ ). It didn't take long for me to realize that I actually didn't have to sit there in pain. It wasn't going to make any difference whatsoever if I got it now or later. Actually, I was going to make a huge difference. I could either sit there in agony every few minutes or not. Ummm... I think I'll take not. So the next time the nurse came around I said, eh, what the heck. I think I'll go ahead and take that epidural now. Luckily I didn't have to wait too long for the anesthesiologist to come around with that magical numbing solution. BTW: In my opinion, the epidural really wasn't a huge deal. They numb it first and it's not like you can see anything that's happening (a big bonus for me). But then again, I did rate a level 10 (in hindsight) contraction a 6. So what do I know?
So, I was sitting pretty in bed not feeling a thing. At some point the nurse told Jordan that he should be fine to run and do a final coat on the garage floor he'd been working on that morning. My parents had arrived by then, and everyone felt confident that I still had hours to go, so he wasn't worried about leaving for a little while.
Luckily Jordan was still there when I had my next check. I think this was the first time I had been checked since I was admitted, after all, it had only been an hour, hour and half. Apparently I had progressed a lot and the nurse actually had me do a "test" push. I guess that was around 3:00. That's also when they called the doctor. It went from sure Jordan, you can leave for an hour or two, to get the doctor in here now, we've got a baby comin'!
I pushed through the next 3 contractions. 7 minutes from first push to welcome to the world baby Adelaide!
(They warned me to let my doctor know next time that I labor very quickly, but considering I was having full on contractions for almost a day and a half before she was born, I don't think I labor quickly, I just labor irregularly. I think the more important thing to remember next time is to forget that 5-1-1 crap! :)
And now this baby girl is turning two! She is without a doubt the most amazing person I've ever had the pleasure of knowing, and the fact that I get to be her mom? Well, I feel like the luckiest person in the world. Part of me absolutely can not believe that it's already been two whole years, while the other part can't believe there was ever a time when she wasn't the center of my world. It's kinda the craziest...
Happy, happy, happy birthday sweet girl! I love you x1,000,000!
And now I will bombard you with too many photos :)
