Monday, February 22, 2010

The Birth Story
























































Everyone seems to be adjusting pretty well to having a new little one in the house. It also helps that so far she has been a very easy going little baby. She really doesn't cry a lot and she's easily soothed when she does cry. The kids all adore her, CJ practically mauls her with kisses! I wish I had a picture the first time Jaxon held her at the hospital...his face just lit up when Doug put her in his arms and he leaned over and gave her a kiss on her head. Doogie finally held her for the first time this weekend. He was so surprised on how light she was and I think it made him realize how fragile she is. I asked him if he wanted to give her a kiss and he looked up in shock at me and exclaimed "she's too little for that!" Doug and I got a good laugh out of that! Doug went back to work today. He took the kids to school for me and will pick them up, so that I don't have to worry about that just yet. But we figured things should go fine with him being back at work, she's a really good baby and the kids have been really helpful with her.

So anyways, I thought I would go ahead and share our birth story (I've had a few people ask me about it). So if you aren't into that kind of thing you can just skip this part and enjoy the pictures! Okay.... as many of you already knew, I had my doctor's appointment earlier that afternoon on Friday (the 12th). I was really hoping that he would just go ahead and send me on over to the hospital and get things going, especially since I was already 4+ dilated for the past few weeks. So when we got into the room to see him and he was giving me a bad time about not having her yet...I said why don't you just go ahead and send me on over to the hospital and get things going! He pulled out his phone and called over to the birthing center and talked to one of the nurses. It seems that they had been having a pretty busy week over there. Earlier that morning he had a c-section to do and they had to send her back to one of the observation/waiting rooms afterwards because they didn't have any rooms open! So he wanted to check to see if there were any rooms open first. There weren't....so he decided not to strip my membranes or do anything crazy because he didn't want us to have to deliver in a waiting room! So we went on with my appointment...I was dilated a little bit more (up to 5) but I still really wasn't having very many contractions that were strong and frequent. So he told us to go home and give him a call in a couple hours and he would let us know what the room situation was.
So we went home and started doing things to help get labor going. I made Doug take a nice long walk with me, about an hour or so. I did start having more contractions, however when we stopped walking they stopped as well. So I called my doctor to see what the situation was. He informed me that they did have a few rooms open now, but they had a couple of people scheduled to come in for inductions which would leave one room free. He told me if I could hold out until Sunday (the 14th) it would probably work out better, but it was up to me. He said that they wouldn't send me away since I was already 5cm dilated. So he said he would be there either way (he just didn't want me to go into labor on Saturday, because he wouldn't be on call). He then told me a few other things I could do that might get things started. I also got on the treadmill and started walking at a very brisk pace for about 20 minutes or so. I was starting to feel alot more pressure and having some cramping. So we decided to go ahead and head on over to the hospital (I was keeping my fingers that I wouldn't be sent home!) We got to the hospital a little after 5pm. I told them that I was feeling alot of pressure and having some cramping, so they took me into one of the observation/waiting rooms to check me out. The nurse couldn't find my cervix! She could feel my bag of water, and part of my cervix but not the whole thing. So she went out to get someone else (who had longer fingers than she did!) My doctor came in with the other nurse that she had found. He told them not to worry about checking me in there and that they would check when I got into a room. So I got checked in and another nurse checked me (and yes, we found my cervix!) I was up to 6cm dilated. So my doctor went ahead and broke my water and we just hanged out waiting on my contractions to get stronger and more regular. While we were waiting they went ahead and put the epidural in (but they didn't put the medicine in yet, since he wanted the contractions to get stronger first). However, they kept on doing the same thing....just one here and there and they weren't very strong. So he decided to give me some pitocin (which I had done with the last couple kids and I knew once he did that we would be going fast!) Sure enough not too long after I got my pitocin my contractions started coming alot harder and faster and I decided it was time for that epidural to come in to play! Now we just had to wait.... My doctor came in an hour or so later, sat down with his coffee and chatted with us and watched the movie that we were watching. He than decided to check me and see what was happening. He then asked me if I wanted to finish watching the movie or have this baby and that we could probably do both if we got going! My answer was of course "lets have this baby!"
So we got started...he joked around that he thought my full bladder was the only thing keeping this baby in! They got the room all set up and he got ready and I started pushing. I think it was the quickest birth of all my kids (and most of them were pretty quick!) It was about 3 really good pushes and out she came! And let me tell you there was nothing wrong with her lungs! She wasn't too happy about being pushed out of her warm quiet nest! Doug cut the umbilical cord and they put her on my chest, everyone was commenting on how much hair she had! Besides the hair another thing we all noticed was how long her feet, toes and fingers were and we all agreed that she was absolutely beautiful!
So all in all, we got to the hospital a little after 5pm (probably more like 5:30pm) and she was born at 9:00pm on the dot! So we had a pretty quick labor and delivery, everything went very smoothly with no complications or anything out of the ordinary. And we have been blessed with another beautiful and healthy child. We still can't get over how little she is....I know that all my kids were this little (or close to it) at one time in their life, but since they grow up so fast you forget just how small they were!

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