Before I forget...

Hey! Had that baby, incase you were wondering!

I thought it would be a good idea to write what happened that day down before I forget any more details... so here it is - in absurd length... lol

Tuesday, Nov 1, 2011

The braxton hicks (which will be reffered to as BH from here on out) contractions were getting a bit more frequent. In the morning I had 5 or 6 right in a row and then they stopped for a few hours... so I called Mom, and we decided to go out walking in the mall, as that seemed to help...

We were in the Bay making a purchase and Mom is chatting it up with the lady at the desk telling her that I'm in labor right now and just walking it off.

The nice saleslady is now astounded that someone could be in labor and not writhing in pain on the floor,but walking around a public place.

I thought my mom was getting too excited though, it couldn't have been it - it's still a week before my due date and everyone is always WAY late on their first baby. Aren't they?

I get home, and clean up. But not one of those quick clean ups, the ones where you take everything out of it's place and make way more of a huge mess then what was there before type clean ups, because - hey, I'm still a week out to my due date so I'll be able to finish it up before the baby comes over the next few days.

Chris and I watch our movie, eat our dinner... and then head up to bed. Which I HATE now because I can never find a comfy spot, and it takes forever to haul my huge bod now anytime I need to adjust. But tonight the BH are getting stronger. Chris tries to make me a mock hospital bed with all the pillows we have, but I'm still getting the BH's and they hurt too much to lie down.

I get up and pace in the bathroom, but I feel bad keeping Chris awake, so I decide to go downstairs and watch some friends on DVD. I'm up to season 2 now and Rachel and Ross are about to get together.. yay!

November 2, 2011:

So it's about 2 am and I'm noticing these BH's are coming pretty consistently, and so I decide to start timing them.

They are now coming every 5 minutes, and lasting for about 45 seconds.

But it's still a week out to my due date, this can't be happening now!!! I'll just wait, if I get 3 more I will go up and tell Chris.

3 more come at exactly 5 minutes apart, but come on - this isn't it. So I'll wait another 4 more.

This train of thought continues until its just about 3 am and I think " Ok, so I'm sure this isn't it, but it really hurts and I'd like to be told whether this is it or not - so it's time to go to the hospital."

I go up and wake chris up and he jolts out of bed, and runs to the bathroom to brush his teeth. " This is IT Sara. This is IT." he tells me.

And I finally realize, this IS it. This is when I am giving birth to my first baby. This is the day I will finally be able to join the elite ranks of women who've done it and can use that day as a measuring stick to all other pain, or as leverage for things they want.

This is the day I get to meet my baby girl, straight outta heaven!

We head to the hospital and I have chris call Mom and Dad - I can't talk through my contractions anymore.

We get to the hospital and all the information we got on the hospital tour just a few days ago is no longer in my brain. We wait in emergency for a while, only to get told that we could just head right up to the Pregnant Ladies Giving Birth regristration desk and make my way up to the 4th floor.

Finally, I'm in the room and I'm told I have to lie down on the bed so they can strap the machines up to me to measure my contractions, blood pressure etc... to make sure I'm dilated enough to warrant being at the hospital. This sucks, since my contractions are way worse lying down, and I like to walk around to get through them....

The nurse comes in to check how dilated I am and I'm just praying in my head " PLEASE tell me I'm having a baby! Don't tell me I'm 1 cm and I need to go back home!"

And to my delight she informs me that I am 4 cm dilated and doing great.

They unstrap me from all the monitors and I am now able to walk around again. YAY!

Mom and dad are here now, mom is both weepy and tickled with excitement at the same time... she's so cute. Dad just got home from a business trip that he rushed to get home from and ended up waiting at the airport for a few hours. And by just got home, I mean he got home Nov 1'st in the late evening. Then was woken up by a phone call at 3 am telling him to come to the hospital.

So safe to say, he's pretty tired. He sits down in the rocking chair and is diligently timing my contractions while fighting the urge to sleep.

He says they are now 2 minutes and 15 seconds apart.

The nurse comes in and asks if I want to use the jetted tub for some relief of the contractions. heck YES I do! There's only one in the hospital and I assumed someone else was using it, but they weren't!

I get in to the jetted warm loveliness and hang out in the room with my mom for an hour or so.

She tells me that my Grandpa is there with us. It's awesome.

Chris and my dad come in and give me a blessing of comfort - but my contraction during it was pretty bad so they had to stop during it. My mom tells me that it's time for the epidural.

*** Side story: I made my mom promise she would tell me when she knew the pain was pretty bad and I should get an epidural. I knew I wanted one, but I wasn't sure what the turning point would be, and I didn't want to wait too long....

So Chris goes and tells the nurse that I want the drugs.

She comes in checks to see how far along I am now, 6 cm. Not bad! She then says she needs to give me an IV first for fluids. an IV? I've never had an IV before? They look so brutal!

And just like that I revert back to the " No wait, not just, just wait another minute. I need to prepare myself. NO not yet! Just wait!" type coping from my elementary school Hep B shot days. She finally tells me that the quicker she can do it, the quicker I get an epidural and the quicker I wont feel the contractions. I settle down and let her jab me.

yuck.

So now the Dr. doing the epidural for me comes in. I've seen enough episodes of Teen Mom and a baby story to know that this needle is no walk in the park. They give me a couple freezing needles in the spot where they will be inserting it in my spine, a little uncomfortable but it's only really in the skin. I"m leaning over ttrying to hold as still as possible, grabbing chris' hand with every ounce of strength in my body - bracing for the needle.... when, wow. That barley even hurt.

15 minutes pass by and I am ALL smiles. The new nurse comes in (the last one finished her shift) and asks me how I'm doing. Enthusiastically I tell her " I'm GREAT!" and give her a huge smile. Which is the truth! Not only am I no longer in pain, but the epidural is making my legs all warm now, like I have an electric blanket on them. Bonus!

As I watch the needle scream up and down on the machine showing my contractions and I feel nothing at all,I'm pretty happy about it. hah!

After a few hours they come and break my water and all of the sudden I start feeling the pressure.

Like I need to go to the bathoom pretty bad!

An hour and a half after they broke my water the nurse comes in and checks me and says that it's time.

It's TIME.

I felt the same way looking at Chris while we were getting married. This surreal feeling, like - after all this time growing up and wondering what it would be like.. this is IT. this is the moment.

They break out the grab bars for me and I start to push. 30 minutes later the delivering Doctor says she's almost here, I push again and all of the sudden the pressure is gone and there's my baby girl on my chest. 11:00 am. It all is happening so fast I don't have time to get emotional until they have taken her away to clean her and weigh her - I start to cry asking where she is! I want to see her again! My dad and mom and chris are there at the weighing station looking at little beautiful her and I am stuck on this bed!?!?!? Bring her back!!!

The Doctor is going to stitch me up, so she asks if I would like some laughing gas. I've never had laughing gas, so I say sure! Hand it over. I'm sucking it in pretty hard and things get really slow and strange and Im taking a long time to answer questions and respond to things. Chris notices my strange demenor as I get all excited and tell him to "FEEL MY RIBS!". So he makes the executive decision it's time for me to lay off the laughing gas...

I'm back from the gas and I finally get to hold her again. They put her in this cute peachy colored sleeper and it looks so good on her.

I'm going to have to get her more peach colored things.

And she's beautiful.

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So there it was. Labor and Delivery. I have to say as a whole, it wasn't as bad as I was preparing myself for it to be. Especially with that epidural... ;)