Had a Baby!

Well, I guess I didn't have too long to wait after that last post, because our little CB was born July 11! (I think I'm going to try to avoid using our baby's name on the blog just to avoid getting her in the Google system too early. If you haven't seen her name on facebook, you can ask me.) Here's the part where I post the story of her arrival in all the detail I want, and if you don't want to read a delivery story you can just look at the pictures of the pretty baby.

So after not being induced on Tuesday, I slept horribly Tuesday night and was SO done being pregnant. I was up every half hour, I couldn't get comfortable, and I ended up going downstairs to eat some cereal and watch Buffy until about 4:30 am. So when I got up to go to my appointment with the doctor at 10, I was feeling a little grumpy, and hoping he'd have something awesome to tell me.

So we went to the doctor, and he said I was almost a 5, that I was almost 100% effaced, and that he could feel the amniotic sac bulging. (Sorry if that's too much information. I warned you.) He also went ahead and stripped my membranes, and then we talked about options. He was going to be heading out of town, and he told me he could still break my water, or we could wait and see if the membrane-stripping worked, or we could break my water on Saturday if I still hadn't gone into labor, or I could just wait but he might not be around (and Eric's business trip was getting closer, plus he was going to do a job in Park City Thursday-Saturday if the baby didn't come, and I was getting nervous about that because if I was already a 5, it could be a quick labor.)

So we decided to go home and plan on Saturday if I didn't go into labor earlier. I lay down to take a nap, and Eric went to a business lunch in Salt Lake.

Except I didn't sleep much, because I started having contractions. They weren't horribly intense, but they were definitely different than my Braxton-Hicks contractions, and they were coming every 8 minutes . . . then 6 minutes . . . then I texted Eric and told him maybe he should head home as soon as possible.

So Eric got home and we checked our hospital bags one more time and timed a few contractions - which were about a minute each and 5 minutes apart at that point. I called Labor and Delivery, and they told me to go ahead and come in so they could start my penicillin IV, since I'd tested positive for Group B Strep. We checked in and they hooked me up to some monitors and did some checking, and they got the go ahead from my doctor for me to stay.

Feeling good! 

Hey! We're having a baby!

For some reason, everyone seemed to have it in their head that I was going natural. I'm not sure where my doctor got this idea, since I believe what I said was, "I just want to see how I feel," and since I wasn't hurting very much I opted not to get the epidural right away in case I ended up being awesome at coping. They got me on the IV (after blowing out the vein in my left hand first - so much for those hand massages they showed us at the birthing class), and then the doctor came in and broke my water, and said they'd monitor me for about 20 minutes and then they could unhook the IV and I could walk around if I wanted to.

Well, after about 20 minutes, my contractions  were less manageable than they had been. They were coming really fast and hurt quite a lot, and suddenly I felt like I was going to throw up. So I decided that an epidural sounded super awesome, because they'd told me I couldn't deliver until at least 8, since I had to have a second dose of antibiotics after 4 hours. It was only 5, and three hours of feeling like throwing up sounded like something I didn't really want to do this time around, so Dave the anesthesiologist came in (he happened to be right outside when I made my request, so that was cool) and he gave me a super quick epidural. Within 10 minutes I was feeling much more relaxed, but I could still move my legs and feel a little pressure during the contractions, so it was great.

Contractions starting to hurt a little more . . .

Talking with our nurse, Courtney.

 They decided to check me again, and at that point I was still a "5 heading to a 6," so they decided to put me on a light pitocin drip. I'm not sure why, because they didn't want me to deliver until 8, and it was still pretty early. They ended up taking me off of it within 20 minutes, because by then I was already a 7 and I was basically having one continuous contraction, since there was no time between the end of one and the start of the next one.

Eric and I worked a crossword puzzle, and then watched the last episode of Doctor Who series 6, and by the end of that, I was feeling a LOT of pressure through the epidural. I called the nurse, and she checked me and said I was a 9. She called the doctor and he told her to give me my second dose of penicillin even though it was only 7, because he didn't think I would make it until 8.

At about 7:20, the nurse came in and said it was time to start pushing. This was a new idea to me - for some reason I thought you didn't start pushing until the doctor got there. Silly Megan. But I could definitely feel when I was supposed to push, and the nurse coached me so that I wouldn't give up too early, and after about half an hour (possibly less?) Eric told me he could see the baby's head of dark hair. (I had an internal party in between contractions, since I'd been really hoping she'd have some hair.)

Except there was a tiny problem. The doctor wasn't there yet. So even though I'd spent half an hour wishing I could stop pushing because it wasn't terribly pleasant and I was tired, and now all I wanted to do was push because she was about to come out and I could hardly stop myself from pushing, they kept telling me to try not to push. "Little pushes!" they kept saying. And after about 20 minutes of this, I'm not sure whether my tired self just decided not to care about the doctor, or whether I just couldn't stop her from coming out anymore, or whether I heard them say he was close and decided that was good enough, but out came the head, and my nurse, Courtney, went ahead and caught it. Someone came in right then, and I heard Courtney say, "Please tell me Doctor Ward is out there!" And just then he ran in, looked at the gloves, and then decided there was no time. He came over, pulled out the rest of the baby, handed her off to the waiting nursery nurses, and delivered the placenta.

I was shaking uncontrollably at this point from some combination of fatigue and adrenaline and epidural, and they came and handed little CB to me as the doctor started sewing up my second degree tear. After a minute, Eric said, "Are you feeling that?" because apparently I was wincing a lot, and the doctor looked up sharply and said, "Are you?" And indeed, I was feeling everything. He told me to push the epidural button a couple more times, but it didn't really kick in before he was done. After a couple of minutes I had Eric take the baby, because between the shaking and the tensing for the stitches, I was afraid I was going to crush her. They went ahead and weighed her and did some assessments there in the room, then the doctor finished, shook my hand, and headed out. (I have some awesome blurry pictures of me with the baby at this point - which will not be posted on this blog - but my face goes from really happy to really in pain and back again. Good times.)

As soon as they finished, they brought CB back to me so I could warm her up and start trying to feed her. At that point the shaking was starting to slow down and I could really see how beautiful and amazing she was. She was so alert, with big bright eyes looking calmly at everything and soft dark hair all over her head, and long fingers and toes like her daddy.

The rest of the next couple of days was just a series of visits from the grandparents and a couple of my sisters-in-law, holding the baby and having her taken for tests or shots, and having my blood pressure taken while they pushed on my stomach and asked personal questions about my bodily functions. I was a little sore, but otherwise quite happy. Eric got to go with CB for her first bath, and the nurses were smart enough to send him back for the camera. So now - a barrage of pictures of my baby (which you may or may not have already seen on facebook - I haven't raided Grandma's camera yet). 

CB was not a huge fan of the sponge bath . . .

. . . until they washed her hair.

A visit from Aunt Julie!

So alert and calm.

Taking advantage of a moment free of prodding nurses

Daddy enjoying some time with his baby.

Getting ready to go home. CB was hungry and everyone kept coming in to get us to sign things.

This was after she finally calmed down and resigned herself to the carseat. 

Made it home! So happy.

Hanging out with daddy later that night.

Sleeping while mommy puts on her makeup.

So far, CB has been a delight at home. She's been sleeping for longer stretches at night than she does during the day, she eats well, and she's just generally pleasant. I'm not sure how long that will last, but it's been awfully nice for her to be so sweet while I'm recovering, and we will not complain if she keeps it up. Either way, we feel very lucky to have her here!