Your anticipated arrival
started on the morning of July 23rd, 2009 (one day after your
expected due date… you wanted to be fashionably late haha)! I had just gotten up at around 8 AM… the last
night I was able to get a full nights rest ;) and I was busy doing the dishes from the night
before. While I was scrubbing and rinsing
I felt a pain in my back, and I didn’t know if I had just twisted wrong or if
it was back labor, so I called the nurse and she said it was very likely it was
back labor and to just wait and see if anything progresses. About 30 minutes or so later I felt a strong
tightening in my tummy, and I can’t even tell you how excited I was to feel
that pain. I wasn’t 100% sure it was a
contraction, I had never had a contraction before, but then there came another
one about 15 minutes later and that’s when I was sure it was a
contraction. I got so excited I text
Daddy at work and told him I felt something and I wasn’t sure if it meant you
were coming soon or if they were just Braxton-Hicks, but I was hoping for the
best and I was hoping we could go to the hospital soon. I told everyone on Facebook that I was
counting contractions because they were consistently 15 minutes apart, friends
and family sent messages of excitement and anticipation. After awhile the contractions started getting
more infrequent and sporadic, but I still held out hope that this was it. Daddy came home early, 11 AM, to be with me
and he was a tremendous help. We went on
walks, he helped me count contractions, and we played cards and Monopoly (which
he won every game we played, no taking it easy on the pregnant lady in labor
haha!). We waited and waited for the
contractions to come consistently. We
finally decided to eat spaghetti for dinner and go buy a cake to celebrate your "birthday" whenever that would be!
We kept ourselves busy while we waited
for the contractions to become more frequent. We went on one last walk to see if we could get things moving faster,
and when there were no changes we decided to just get ready for bed and try to
sleep. But as soon as I laid down and
tried to sleep I had a painful contraction, and then another one 5 minutes
later, and another one 3 minutes later.
Daddy had pen and paper in hand and he would stare at the wall clock he
had taken down and put on the bed to time the contractions and he made a chart
and everything, it was awesome to have him helping and supporting me, he’s the
BEST husband and daddy!! A pattern
started to emerge and I told Daniel it was time to pack up last minute items
and call the doctor. Once we had
everything packed, I called the doctor who confirmed I was indeed in labor and
I could make my way to the hospital. It
was 12:45 AM by this time and we arrived to the hospital at 1 AM. Our first stop was the triage room so they
could ask me A TON of questions, sign all kinds of papers, and get checked to
make sure I was really in labor. I got
my stylish hospital gown tied on and waited on the bed for a doctor to confirm
that this really was labor, but it was a miserably small, cold, uncomfortable,
dreary room and I was just so ready to be in an actual labor and delivery
room! The on-call doctor, someone I had
never seen before, checked to see how far dilated I was (4 cm) and finally gave
me the go ahead to be placed in an L&D room…yay!!!
Let me tell you though,
I was all cool, calm, collected all day and SO EXCITED, but once in the
hospital where things are so routine and there’s these strict rules to follow
about certain things, and the uncomfortableness of being around people I had
never met, doing things I had never done, feeling pain I had never felt before, I started to get very nervous, self-conscious, and overwhelmed. Thank goodness
Daddy was there, he was my rock and kept me calm. I had to make a decision
about an epidural and since it was so late and it had been a long day already I
decided an epidural would be helpful. Plus, since they get you all hooked up to
things like heart monitors and give you an IV for fluids I was constantly
having to get unplugged to use the restroom, which I had to use like every five
minutes, and then try to get resituated, only to have to use the restroom
AGAIN, so an epidural seemed like a great idea to get some rest. Getting the
epidural was not so pleasant, fortunately I had a very sweet, helpful,
understanding nurse who helped to keep me calm, but the anesthesiologist was
very frank, rushed, and unsympathetic. He tried asking me questions that I
couldn’t answer quickly, especially if I was in the middle of a painful
contraction, and he wasn’t all that understanding. Once he was done asking me
questions he poked me with the needle and I started to feel something strange
so I flinched and then he reprimanded me for moving because it meant he had to
do it all over again, so he had to stick me with the needle TWICE, that was
unfortunate. But once he was finally gone and I was laying down letting the
meds do their thing I started to relax a bit. Daniel turned on some relaxing
music like Butterfly Kisses, Josh Groban, Stephen Curtis Chapman, and Michael
Buble and I fell into sleep here and there all while being monitored and
checked to see how much progress I had made. Every time I felt uncomfortable
and woke up, or if I was woken up by a nurse to be checked I’d start shaking
uncontrollably…weirdest feeling ever!! I literally couldn’t stop myself from
shaking and shivering. Apparently the medicine being pumped through your body
will do that to you…so strange!! But I was SO THANKFUL I didn’t have to feel
all those contractions and that Daniel and I were able to get a little bit of
rest.
Finally, around 10:30 AM the nurse
could tell by the patterns of my contractions and by how far I was dilated that
it was time to start pushing, and she said that you were so far down already
that the pushing would probably be really quick and easy, probably just 3-5
pushes in 10-15 minutes and she thought you’d be here…surreal, just typing that
is just surreal, you were growing and living IN MY BODY but you were about to
be IN MY ARMS, God made our bodies to do the most amazing things!! Ok, well,
the nurse was sadly mistaken by the amount of pushes and time needed because it
ended up taking more pushes than I could count and a little over 2 hours. I was so full of energy and motivation those
first 10 pushing attempts but after that first hour I was losing steam. It went
from this joyful experience where we were all laughing and joking in between
pushes, to very serious work. Daddy held one leg while the nurse held the other
and I’d do some breathing then a 10 count push, no progress, repeat. During all
of this pushing the nurse would glance from time to time to see how far down
you were and she would tell me she could see your little blonde head and that
as I was pushing you would be wiggling back and forth trying to help get
yourself out of there. I have always loved that thought of you in there trying
to be helpful to mommy and doing your part to get into this world, I’ve always
been so grateful to that nurse for sharing that with me. Well, eventually they
brought this pulling contraption thing that I could hold onto and push in a
different way and we were hoping that would help, but still no progress.
Some
time while at the hospital Daniel called both our parents and they carpooled in
the middle of the night to get to Austin.
They were praying and waiting patiently
to hear of your arrival. Then, as a last straw, the doctor mentioned that they
might need to bring in those awful dreaded forceps to get you out and I guess
that was all you needed to hear to get out of there STAT! Within the next
couple tries after that you were BORN!!! There was such a flood of emotions
once they held you up to me and placed you on my chest. I was crying, Daddy was
crying, you were screaming haha and showing off your strong lungs. It was
indescribable joy, pure joy. And so surreal. Everything was in fast motion and
slow motion all at the same time. I got to hold you briefly and then they took
you over to the heater to measure you and clean you off a bit. I just kept
thinking, “She’s here, she’s really here, she’s so beautiful and she’s finally
here, I can’t believe she’s actually HERE!”
I got to hold you for a little bit more and try to feed you and then
they took you into the nursery for your first bath, so Daddy took you while I
got cleaned up and rested a couple hours by myself, which was really weird
actually because after allllll that WORK all I wanted to do was hold you and
stare at you, not be by myself. Eventually they had a recovery room open up and
so all three of us met in there and began figuring out this family of three business
together.
Something special I learned later from Grandma Susie is that while
the grandparents were anxiously waiting my mom began pacing the hall back and
forth and she happened to walk by when you took your first breath and cried out
for the first time…so glad she was able to experience that moment with us!!
In
the weeks that followed there was a lot for me to learn but you were so loved
and your birth was a dream come true, my dream of becoming a mommy was finally
a reality, not at all what I expected it to be, it was so much better, so much
harder, so much more amazing than I ever could have imagined!!
WE LOVE YOU OUR
SWEET SELAH GIRL!!!!
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