Better Late Than Never - My Birth Story

Yes, the baby finally came!  She (that's right, we had a girl!!) is about a month old now and this is the first time I've been able to do a blog post...

Cora was born on August 29th at 11:58 am.  She was 6 days past her due date at that point and still wanted to stay in!  She weighed in at a petite 6 pounds 9.5 ounces and was 18.25 inches long.  I was in labor with her for 30 freakin' hours.   Pictures coming soon!

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At around 5:30 am on the 28th, I started having contractions, again.  They were light and around 10 minutes apart until about 2 in the afternoon, when they stopped.  Bean got home from work around 5 pm and it was like a flip switched - contractions started again and they were much stronger and only 7 minutes apart.  This went on until about 8:30 pm and then they became way more intense and slightly closer together.  By 9:30, we were out the door and on the way to the hospital at my midwife's request.  We were admitted to the hospital at around 10:30 that night.  Because I desperately wanted to have a natural birth, I chose not to do an epidural and tried to power through it.  At around 4 am on the 29th, my contractions were strong but still 5 minutes apart and I wasn't dilated enough - I was going to have to have my water broken and be induced.  I was, of course, heartbroken but also excited because this baby was coming without a doubt. 

The pain was really amping up around 3 am, which made me try the whirlpool tub for some relief - didn't work for me, unfortunately.  The midwife broke the news that we needed to break my water soon because she was worried that the baby would be in distress if we waited too much longer.  After a half hour of intense deliberation and tears with Bean, we decided to go ahead and do the epidural and have her break my water.  At this point, I had been in labor for just shy of 24 hours and was physically wiped out.  The pain med guy appeared and he put in the needle/catheter.  I am absolutely terrified of needles so you can imagine the sheer panic racing through my mind at this point... Thankfully, the worst part was the numbing shots and it was over relatively quickly.  Soon after my epidural started to kick in and I was finally able to sleep for a few hours.  At around 6:30 am, we started the Petocin drip to get the baby coming.  The contractions started coming faster, lasting longer, and hurting much worse, even through the epidural haze.  My mother, who I asked to be in the room when I delivered, arrived at the hospital at around 9 am and at that point I was in a lot of pain and I just wanted it over with.  The nurses and midwife had been monitoring my and baby's heartbeats all night and had noticed that when I had a contraction, her heart rate dropped more than it should have... there was a chance that either her cord was around her neck or that she would not be able to fit through my pevis.  My midwife told me that unless we were able to go into labor before noon, I would need a C-section.  I bawled... like uncontrollable style.  That is the very last thing I wanted and in my heart/mind, nothing about this delivery was going according to plan.

Thankfully, one of the most experienced (and sweetest) nurses tried a technique to get my pelvis to open up - she rolled me to my side and put one leg up on the little bedside table/trays for an hour.  This TOTALLY worked like a charm - I was 100% effaced and 9 cm dilated within the hour.  At approximately 11:15, I started to feel a lot of pressure not only in my bottom, but now in the front as well.  I asked my husband to get the midwife because I felt like pushing... she walked into the room to check me and found that the baby was already half way down the chute, as it were.  I pushed along with my contractions and by 11:58 am, I had my beautiful daughter!  Bean even got to announce the gender, which was the most amazing thing ever!  I, of course, bawled my eyes out right away and my mom was in a state of mild hysterics - she had thought the baby was a girl from day one and was right!

Immediately, they slapped her on my chest and Bean cut the cord.  From the very first minute I laid eyes on her, I was absolutely in love.  Bean was beside himself with joy, it was a beautiful moment.  Later, I found out that yes, her cord was wrapped around her neck but my midwife handled it like a pro - she took it off the moment that it was physically possible and with a speed not normally seen.

She is a perfect, healthy baby and brings us an unending supply of joy and love (and some stress too).  It's funny how life before her seems so long ago now but it's only been a month.  Cora really completes our little family and we couldn't be happier.

Much love to all of you!

Officially Overdue.

Like that favorite library book that I keep forgetting to return, this baby is now 4 days overdue.  These have been four of the longest and most agonizing days of my entire life.  Not only am I questioning every single little twitch or twinge of pain that comes from... down there... but I'm wondering if there is something wrong with me because Baby hasn't come yet.

Yes, I'm overly dramatic but damn it, this was not supposed to go this way.  Add a severe case of "Why ME"s to the equation and you have one very emotional and erratic Nicole to deal with... lucky Bean. 

Yesterday was just the most awful day I've had in a loooong time.  First, I was up since about 3 am because of severe acid reflux that just wouldn't go away.  At about 8 am, I was able to fall back asleep for a few hours until 10.  I wanted to take a quick shower and head out to the pharmacy to get some Zantac and lo-and-behold, the water main outside of our house broke.  I got soaped up and partially rinsed, but no hair washing in sight... I had to finish my "refreshing" shower with baby wipes... yay.  Then we left for the pharmacy, finally everything would be okay.  We were in the store for roughly 5 minutes and when we came out, our fairly new and nice car would not start.  Like nothing at all was happening.  Bean popped the hood and found that the battery casing had a big crack in it and had leaked all of the acid/water out... we had no power to do anything.  If you would have seen me in the parking lot of that store, you would have made a point not to make eye contact... here is a car with the hood up and a very pregnant woman sitting inside bawling.  Thankfully, my sister and her fiance lived pretty close so they were able to drive us home to get Bean's car so we could buy a battery.  Then off to Sam's Club, where we ran into Bean's parents and they teased me about my watermelon belly.  Everybody laughed but me because I was still right in the middle of my pity parade. 

Fast forward to us getting the new battery in the car, which is working perfectly now.  The afternoon was fine, we ended up making a special dinner together that was really really good.  3-Cheese and Spinach Stuffed Chicken Breasts with Orange-Butter Broccoli.  Seriously, it was heavenly after a long and painful day.  At about 8pm that night, I started to feel menstrual like cramps, and I was praying that they were real contractions this time.  Coming pretty regularly, my tummy was tightening like it should... everything was finally falling into place.  Move to about 10:30 when Bean and I decided to go to bed.  Contractions still coming, everything was great.  I fell asleep pretty quickly and I woke up a few times in the night to pee, contractions were still there.  Woke up this morning and NOTHING.  No pains or tightening of any kind, just the baby wiggling about occasionally.  I woke up blaming myself that this all had stopped, like if I had just stayed awake we could have a baby today...  I am still pretty upset about the whole situation but honestly, what can I do?  If the baby isn't ready to come yet, it just isn't ready.

Here is hoping that today is better...

Will you look at the time...

Yeah... I flaked on my blog for a while.  Sorry about that.

Baby thought it would be super awesome to go into false (?) labor about a week and a half ago, so I've been chillin' and not doing much crafty stuff, IE getting re-addicted to The Sims 3.  Bed rest is on, at least for the next week.  Kind of sucks, but it gives me a good excuse for Bean to pick up the household slack, just a little.

So this false labor thing did not feel very false.  I woke up at about 1 am that night with some mild cramping and an achy back, no big deal.  I got up, got a glass of water, pee'd for the 3rd time, and went back to bed.  Fast forward to about 2:30 am and you'll see me doubled over in pain and crying from the stress of the situation.  I was having contractions, oh god.  They were coming around 20 minutes apart and were lasting for about a minute each.  Thinking that this was probably Braxton Hicks, though mine had not been painful up until this point, I went into the living room and snuggled up in Bean's new leather recliner and put on Tremors 4 (why??).  Seriously, that movie is just the worst.  I love the first one simply because I have so many great memories of my grandfather tied to it.  Why I decided to watch the 4th in the series was beyond me, but I blame my pain-hazed brain for any bad decision making that day.

Anyway, I didn't sleep a wink that night and spend most of the morning hours googling pre-term labor, which was an awful idea.  Not only was I already freaked out, but now I was giving myself more symptoms... I woke up Bean at 5am and told him that he was not going to work that day, I was possibly going into pre-term and we might have a baby later.  Obviously, he freaked out which freaked me out even more.  In a hurry, we packed both hospital bags and made a list of things we still needed to get.  We hadn't packed that yet because neither of us had felt the need, I was only 32 weeks after all.  We not-so-patiently waited until 8, which is when my midwife's office opened and left a message for the charge nurse to call me back right away.  At some point during the interim, the baby started to move down into my pelvis zone, which made the peeing situation like 10 times worse.  UGH.

Because she didn't call us back right at 8:05, we decided that we'd go to Walmart and get some cinnamon rolls.  And the stuff off of our lists, but mostly breakfast.  We are not Walmart people... I do whatever I can to avoid it 90% of the time.  I, again, blame my pain-brain for this lapse in judgement, though I will say that it was much more enjoyable at 8:30 am on a Monday morning, we were one of the few people in there.  The midwife did call me back at about 8:35 and told me to time the contractions and I should just come to my appointment at 1:15 that afternoon that was already scheduled.  Funny thing... around 12:15 my contractions slowed down to about 30 minutes apart, then 40, and by 1:15 they were gone altogether.  Figures.  They did the contraction monitoring thing on us for a while, which was cool because the baby was kicking the paddles and having hiccups the whole time.  While we were trapped in this little room, Bean and I watched a shoe thing on QVC, which was hilarious and really lightened the mood.  All in all, baby was fine, I was fine.  The midwife told us that a) I was officially on bed rest until week 35 and b) that we were not to be intimate in that time frame.  Bean audibly groaned at that last bit, which made me laugh and the midwife feel uncomfortable, which was great.

So that is my excuse for not blogging for the past week, take it or leave it.  I am going to try and pump out another tutorial in the next few days, but I can't promise anything concrete.

Later gators.