I figure while it is all fresh in my mind, I should write Addison's birth story. I surely never thought we'd be writing it this early, but little girl had other plans in mind.
When 6 a.m. rolled around, I called in and they walked me through the standard questions. At the end she said "I think you're going to have a baby today!" (sidenote: it was now June 13, which is my birthday! I was also 37 weeks, 1 day pregnant -- one day inside the "full term" range.) She suggested that we head into the hospital. With Carter, we got sent home the first time we went in, so I asked that she please call up to Labor and Delivery and make SURE they wanted us to come in. She called back a few minutes later and said yes. Since I was still having no contractions, we got Carter to school, showered, straightened my hair, applied make-up...you know, the mandatories. :)
We finally headed in around 7:45 a.m. (still no contractions) and made our way to L and D. It makes me laugh how different it was with Carter and Addison because with Carter, I was MISERABLE on that walk to L and D and with her, we were laughing and joking the whole way up.
When we got up to L and D, they were expecting us and took us right into the exam room where they would do some tests to make sure it was amniotic fluid and check contractions/baby's heartbeat, etc. The nurses were fabulous but it seemed like everything was in slow motion until they finally did the cervical check (I was 3 cm.) and the amniotic fluid tests. The tests INSTANTLY showed that my water had broken and they told us to make ourselves comfortable because we'd be having a baby today! At 9:30 a.m., I was still having no contractions, but they moved us to our delivery room, got me all set up, and began pitocin around 10:15 a.m. I've heard horror stories about the contractions pitocin causes and those stories were true! haha.
It took awhile for anything to really happen but by 11:45 a.m., my contractions were uncomfortable and noticeable for sure, and by 12:15 p.m., they were consistent. I was STARVING and felt so weak from not eating, so I had two popsicles which were like heaven on earth at this point.
At 2 p.m., the nurse said they were having a hard time keeping Addison's heart rate on the monitor so they opted to put one of those tiny little monitors into her scalp. It totally freaked me out but they said it was 'superficial' and we wouldn't see the mark when she was born and it would allow them to monitor her no matter how she or I moved. When the doctor placed this monitor, he [accidentally?] finished breaking my water (before, it was only a tear). He said, at this point, that I was 4 cm. dilated and 90% effaced. I figured now was as good a time to get the epidural, so they paged anesthesiology for me. They arrived within a few minutes--and this is where things started to take a downhill spiral. :)
The first person who began my epidural got paged into a brain surgery within 3 minutes of being in my room, so we waited for someone else to come take over. The next person who came was Doogie Houser, and clearly learning how to do epidurals. Awesome. While we waited for his attending physician, I was becoming increasingly more miserable. They attempted to place the epidural once with no luck, and tried again. It seemed to take FOREVER, but finally I heard those sweet words that they were getting ready to start the medicine. I knew something wasn't quite right within about 15 minutes. Originally, both legs were getting tingly and numb, but within a few minutes, the numbing effect only continued on my right side, with nothing at all taking effect on my left. We kept telling them this, and they kept making small adjustments, moving me around, etc. When the epidural dosage was upped, my blood pressure continued to drop pretty far, so it was a continuous back and forth of "up the epidural, give her blood pressure meds, and on and on." I thought I was going to throw up, but managed to keep it together.
When 3:35 p.m. rolled around and I STILL had no relief on the left (and in fact, felt worse because I had progressed in my labor). They spent the next 45 minutes continuing to tweak the epidural. During this time, I was in so much pain and may have told them how mad I was at them and that I was really grumpy. The nurse was so sweet and helped keep me as calm as possible despite me wanting to strangle an anesthesiologist or two. :) At one point, they decided to pull the epidural out a centimeter and see if that made a difference. I had honestly lost all hope at this point because I could also hear them saying that I was progressing really, really fast and so that a decision better be made soon. Well--as you can imagine--that stupid centimeter made NO difference whatsoever. And JUST as they discussed the possibility of removing it entirely and re-placing it, the anesthesiologists got paged into an emergency c-section. I seriously almost started bawling right then and there. It was never in my plan to have a baby without the drugs, trust me! :)
At 4:20 p.m., the nurse told me that she would have advised me against re-placing it anyway because she was certain that if I sat up to get another epidural, I'd have the baby anyway. At 4:29 p.m., the nurse did a cervical check and promptly said "um, I'm going to go grab the doctor and the baby nurse." Within seconds, the doctor was in the room and did a cervical check of his own. He looked up and said "She's right there - let's have a baby!" They asked if I was having any pressure to push, which, surprisingly, I wasn't. I still don't understand that, but who knows?!? He told me to give it a try anyway, so at the next contraction I gave a good push. The next thing I heard was the doctor saying "Here's her head!" WHAT???? I pushed two more times in that contraction and at the next, contraction/push he said "There's her shoulder - you can stop pushing!" and seconds later, at 4:37 p.m., our little angel had arrived!!
She immediately started screaming and Seth quickly confirmed that she was, in fact, a GIRL. WOOO HOO! For those who didn't know, this was one of my biggest fears ever--that we would be told it was a girl, but that after buying all girl things, it would be a boy!
She was brought to my chest and I remember thinking how GORGEOUS she was. Seth cut her cord and they did her Apgars (9 and 9 - a healthy little peanut). It seemed like an eternity til they weighed and measured her, but when they did we found out she was much tinier than we thought at 6 pounds, 12 ounces and 20 inches long.
I'm still in shock at the fact that when we arrived at the hospital around 8 a.m., I was having NO visible signs of labor other than a small amniotic tear, and by 4:37 p.m., our baby girl was there. It was just so fast -- the doctor was in and out of our room within 15 minutes!
All in all, it was a good experience and you always forget that pain as soon as the baby is born. We were able to get lots of snuggles in and within a few hours, Addison had lots of visitors to love on her.
We are blessed and so in love with our pretty, pretty princess!
By about 5:30/6:00ish, my mom, dad, brother, Ashley, and Carter had arrived--I was actually still in the delivery room, waiting to be assigned a real room. A bit later, Michelle, Jason, and the twins came. I was so excited for Carter to meet his baby sister. He liked her but was certainly not in love. He was more into the mini birthday cake the hospital brought to my room.
His sister gave him her gift (a toy truck) and he played with that. Mostly, he wanted me to hold him and snuggle him. He freaked a bit when they left, which we expected, but did okay once he got to the car. He stayed with my parents for a few days, and did great.
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