Birth Story

June 26th, I had felt a bit under the weather, had a temp for a couple of hours at 101.4, but it faded by about 5pm.

Matt got home a bit late, I was taking it easy, just getting ready to make some chicken noodle soup and just settle into bed. We'd gotten a netflix movie that day in the movie, and Matt and I were talking about watching it in a bit. At about 8:30pm, I was just sitting in bed, reading a book and suddenly I felt a *pop* and a small gush. I made some grunt "ooof" noise, and Matt heard me from the computer room and came in and helped me out of bed. I told him I felt a small pop and I needed to go to the bathroom.

Once at the bathroom, I had about 5 minutes of straight water coming out, muuuuuuch more than just going to the restroom. I called Matt back in and told him I thought my water broke, so he went into Daddy-mode and got the rest of the bags packed and got things packed up and ready to go, just to be safe. He went down and washed the dishes, made sure the cats had food, and I called my Mom to describe the feeling and she agreed it sounded like my water broke, and I told her that I didn't have any contractions yet. As I finished telling her that, I had one. I started timing them, and almost immediately they were 7 minutes apart. About three or four contractions later, I started having them also at 3minutes, but not as strong and only lasting about 20 seconds. I called the doctor after taking a shower, answered a few questions and they told me to come on in.

It's a good thing we didn't wait until 5 minutes, very honestly. We left very soon after, got to the hospital at about 10pm (bout a 40 minute drive) and my contractions were running about 6 minutes apart then. I was preregistered, so they went ahead and got me all set up in a L&D room. I met my nurse, who would be with me the entire time. She was amazing, I loved her to death. 28, was her birthday on the 26th and she got engaged, so she was rooting for a 26th baby too hehe. She got me changed into a gown and I proceeded to projectile vomit my previous chicken noodle soup all over the toilet. XD Got changed and she got me into the bed, checked to confirm that my water did indeed break (it did!) and then measured me. I was 4-5 cm, contractions about 5 minutes apart at that time. She brought in all the consent forms I needed to sign, inbetween contractions and we got those taken care of. They hooked me up to an IV (mostly because I threw up, wasn't a battle I was going to fight) and it only took 3 attempts and bleeding all over my wedding rings to get it! (I kept having contractions when she was going to prick me and my vein would move/dissapear.

Once the IV got all set up and I answered some more questions, had just a few more contractions, I was measured by the OB who said I was 6, this was about a half hour after my first measurement. Some more stuff went on, random questions, contractions, etc. At about midnight (only an hour later), I mentioned that I felt the urge to push, and my nurse looked at me, puzzled and checked me again. She looked a bit surprised and said "Wow, you're fully dialated!" and went to page the doctor. the OB came in and checked me, gave the nurse permission to let me start pushing when I felt ready. So, for the next two hours, I pushed when I felt ready (there was no timing, they let me do it at my own time and when I felt the urge, which I veryveryvery much appreciated, even though it took a bit longer than I think they expected.) I was making progress, slowly. The OB came in a few times, checked my progress, etc. I was told so many times about how much hair she had, and that it was -dark-. Matt was there for me the entire time, held my right leg for me, let me pull on him, hold onto him, squeeze his hand, wrist, arm... He kept me stocked up on ice chips, and I was going through icepacks like they were going out of style. I got a new one every 15 minutes, it felt like. I just wanted COLD.

At about the 2 hour mark, she was progressed very well and the OB came in and things got rollin'. Over the next 15-20 minutes, I went through the most pain ever in my entire life, but I did it. She came out at 2:20am, after almost 2 and a half hours of pushing. 6lbs, 14.5 oz and 20 inches in length. She's got a full head of hair and is beautiful. :-)

Very very very luckily, I did not need an episiotomy, nor did I tear hardly at all. I had two very minor tears, but nothing that bled or needed stitches. Matt says she came out looking like a little grey alien, and turned pink immediately. He cut the cord, and then he followed her over and watched her get cleaned up and everything, while they took care of looking me over. I was given about an hour of bonding time with her, where we attempted breastfeeding, but she just wanted to fuss instead. Unfortunately, this is the most I've been able to hold her so far. :-(

She was taken to the nursery, while they prepared to move me to my postpartum room. Unfortunately, no rooms were available! But they had the luxury suites available for $300 a night. Er.. No thanks. So, they found me a room, a different wing, that's just a basic tiny post-surgery room. I -should- be moved to a real postpartum room tomorrow morning.(Which are much roomier and nicer.)

I did indeed acomplish going the entire thing pain-medication free, which I'm very proud of, but at the same time, I think everything went -so- quickly that it would've been difficult to get me on pain meds anyway!

Now, the slightly more depressing news. When they took Maddie to the nursery, apparently she had a "breathing spell" where she stopped breathing for about one second, and changed colors a bit. This happened once more not long after, and so they moved her to NICU for monitoring. Over the next couple hours, she had about 3 more "spells" and the NICU specialist came and saw us, asking us for consent to do a spinal tap, just to rule out any serious infections. He explained that they believe it's just a minor infection, which could have been from my fever earlier in the day (which I had told them about when I was first admitted) and they had her on IV antibiotics. She was already doing better (she's wonderfully, perfectly healthy, other than these few breathing issues) and they did tell us we won't be able to bring her home for 5 days, because they want to monitor her for any further breathing issues before sending her home. I completely understand, and I would feel uncomfortable taking her home knowing that she still had the problems. I'd probably be panic-y mommy.

We've seen her a few times, and she seems to be sleeping pretty peacefully. She's gorgeous, has a full head of darkdark hair, a long torso and extremeeeeeeeely cute ears. But, I'm biased! XD

I'm on a pumping schedule now, so they can give her breastmilk tomorrow when they put her on actual food. (She's on IV food just for today, to prevent reflex from causing more breathing problems) I'm still working on getting good production, but each time seems to be a bit more and more collustrum, so I'm positive!