birth story – All Kinds of Happy

I would like to finally share Holly’s birth story and how she made her grand entrance into the world. (warning this is a long post) Our second little miracle Holly Noelle, was born Monday, March 12th at 1:25pm. 8lbs and 20″. After much uncertainty about HOW she would arrive, I’m thrilled to say we were able to have a natural birth and she made her debut fairly fast and furious!

After our version procedure had been successful they had me into the office the following week to make sure she had stayed head down, and as far as they could tell she was. They thought I had a lot of amniotic fluid and that the baby was on the smaller side, so we changed the scheduled c-section on March 13th to an induction. Baby girl decided however that she didn’t want to wait and one day after her Dad’s birthday she decided to surprise us.

Around 4am I woke up to what felt like my water breaking, so I went to the bathroom and sure enough it was a VERY slow leak. So I put some towels on my bed and went back to sleep. How I did that I’ll never know. Around 5am I got up again to check and it was about the same, so I went back to bed again. At 6am Dan’s alarm went off as he was planning to go running with his buddy and I said “You can still go for a run, but I think we might have a baby today”! After I explained what was going on he of course freaked out that I hadn’t called the doctor yet, so finally around 6:30am I called and they told me to head in and get checked out. Dan’s mom arrived around 7am just a few minutes after Ada woke up. We told her what was going on and she was so excited and so happy she got to spend the day with Grandma.

We checked into the hospital at 7:30 and all the scheduled inductions and c-sections were also arriving around then so I spent some time just hanging around waiting. I hadn’t had any contractions yet, so we weren’t even sure we were going to stay. When they finally did come in to check me, she said I was already 5 cm and when she did the check she fully broke my water, and they weren’t kidding when they thought I had a lot, it continued to leak almost all morning.

It was a slow uneventful morning and around 10am they decided we might need to start some pitocin to get my contractions to start up a little more frequently. They started that and the first few contractions I had that really hurt the baby didn’t handle well and her heart rate jumped, so I had to labor on my side figuring she had a pinched cord, that was no fun. We wanted to hold off on the epidural until I couldn’t take the pain since we knew it would slow things down and I was good for about an hour or so suffering through contractions every 5-7 minutes on my side.

They finally got so bad so quickly that I was begging Dan to get someone in the room to give me an epidural. They got me one right away and before that doctor had even left the room, my OB came in to check me and said we were at 10 cm and should start pushing. I panicked a lot because I wasn’t even num yet from the epidural and she said to just relax and give it a few more minutes and then we’ll start pushing.

I don’t remember pushing so hard with Ada. I mean I remember pushing and it was about 25 minutes with her, but I don’t remember it being SOO HARD. I pushed again for about a half hour, but it felt like hours and hours! Each time, it took me the entire time between contractions to catch my breath and relax before we had to go at it again. It was exhausting but at 1:25pm Holly appeared screaming and making a fuss, they laid her on my chest and I stared at my little beauty while they cleaned her up.

She is 8 pounds of the most perfect little being! Ada was able to come up and see us around 3:30-4ish and she did not want to leave us, but we explained that the doctors needed to take Holly and make sure she was nice and healthy and promised she could come back first thing in the morning again.

Here are a bunch of pictures of everyone meeting her for the first time. I don’t know if its possible, but I think Ada loves Holly more then anyone else combined. I cannot get over the love this little girl has for her baby sister. And for me as their mommy I cannot even explain how much my heart explodes to see them together.

I just love so much the way Holly is looking right at Ada in this one!! ❤

I could not have made up a better birth story for our little Holly and I am so thankful and blessed that she was able to come into the world the way she did. Holly is almost 3 months old now and today she experienced her first day at daycare with her big sister. Ada has been waiting for the day her sister could come to school with her, I can’t believe how fast the time is going and that I’m already back to work.

Holly has been a bit more challenging then Ada during the day but she has been an amazing sleeper at night and that’s all I can ask for! She has been sleeping through the night since she was about 5-6 weeks old and right out of the gate she was giving me 4+ hour stretches. I had to wake her up to feed a lot because she took awhile to get back up to her birth weight. We had a few stretches where all she would do was eat, sleep or cry and that was a bit challenging, but we noticed it was mostly during growth spurts and other then that she’s great!

She is such a smiley little girl, if you make eye contact and talk she will babble on and on and on, she sounds like a cat! She is super strong! She’s been standing on her little twig legs for months, she’ll kick my phone right out of my hand (maybe her way of trying to get my attention) and she’ll squeeze your finger until its white. She was also already trying to roll over from her back to her belly, she’s so close, but her big head is to heavy for her.

More then anything though I have loved watching Ada be her sister. She reads to Holly alllll the time and Holly will just lay there and listen, she’s gotten a bit too brave a few times trying to carry her or maneuver her in her arms like I do, but best of all she hasn’t shown a bit a jealousy. She loves her sister and always wants to match her (even though I am having the hardest time finding clothes in girls sizes and baby), she never once has complained about us giving Holly too much attention, she has understood that I cannot help her when I’m breastfeeding and goes to daddy, and she has even attempted to change some diapers with me (backs out halfway through). She is already planning our next baby, she said that one has to be a boy so daddy isn’t outnumbered. (Too soon, but my two amazing girls have made it much easier to want another one).

Here is a photo overload of our last three months together! And I’ll try to get better about staying up to date with these posts again.

Holly’s first day home, snuggling with her Big Sister!

My little Jaundice Budda baby getting some sunshine in the window!

Sister Snuggles -this is how we spent our first few weeks. I think Ada held her more then me.

My three LOVES!! Holly’s first Easter at my parents house.

Some of our very first smiles around 4 weeks old.

Holly loves the Unicorn blankey that Ada got her at the hospital. I love that its big nose helped keep her binky in her mouth.

Holly’s first plane ride at 7 weeks to Florida! (Vacation post coming up next!!)

Vacation. We enjoyed long, quiet walks on the beach together sipping coffee while everyone else was still sleeping.

Holly is just another one of Ada’s dolls. I believe this is her class and its snack time.

Annnnd some days have gone like this, full of screams and tears.

Ada will read to her forever and Holly will listen until she falls asleep.

And of course always needs to be holding her hand when we are out and about.

Every Monday we have cousin time at my parents house. The girls all love playing together.

This was Holly’s first day of Daycare and a proud big sister who was going to “Make sure Holly was okay all day long”.

Stay tuned for more fun family adventures as a new family of four!!

So this post has been a long time coming but I thought I would share the details of the Little Ada’s entrance into the world. Before I go on, I have to say this was not nearly as bad as so many women make it out to be and especially not as bad as it looks on TV and in movies. Now I might be in the minority and my second child may give me some serious pay back, but Ada’s birth was one of the best experiences of my life.

I’ll start out by saying that I didn’t like being pregnant, I felt out of control, and more out of shape then I ever had in my entire life. I am not one of those women who “Loved being pregnant” and “Can’t wait to do it again”. I felt fat and slugglish and found myself counting down the days until I could have my body back, but I wouldn’t change anything in the world for my little Ada! My original due date was October 7th and if you’ve been following my blog you’ll know that I had a scheduled c-section for September 30th (1 week early) because baby girl was thought to be breech, but on September 22 (1 day shy of two weeks to go) Ada decided she was ready!

We had just gotten home from dinner at my sister’s that Saturday night. I had felt fine all day and all night, and had no idea what was coming. I buzzed around and cleaned the whole house earlier that day, I mean really cleaned the house. I dusted, scrubbed the bathroom, even cleaned out every nook and cranny in the refrigerator. (Maybe that should have been my first clue – I hear nesting gets out of control at the end) We got home that night around 10:30 and I started complaining that the “braxton hicks” I had been getting nearly all of my pregnancy were really bad, so I started timing them and they were all over the place like they usually were. 10 minutes, 17 minutes, 6 minutes, 20 minutes and on and on. Finally around midnight or so, we decided to go up to bed. Hubby went right out, but I was up for the night. The contractions were getting worse, but still bouncing all over. I got back up and went to get a drink of water, back to bed, up to go to the bathroom, back to bed, downstairs to straighten up the living room (I dunno why? It was already clean.) I just couldn’t sleep and couldn’t get comfortable that night. Back to bed I went, started dozing off, woke up 8 minutes later with severe pain, dozed off, looked at the clock 8 minutes gone by, closed my eyes, opened them 8 minutes later. Finally around 2:30am I decided I needed to wake up my husband. He told me to call the doctor, but I was fine at that point, so I said “No I’ll wait a little longer” 8 minutes later, yelling in pain, “ok, ok I’ll call” pain went away, I’m fine, lets just wait, its 2 in the morning I don’t want to call just yet. 8 minutes later screaming in pain, “ok I”ll call!” I finally called and explained that I know I wasn’t supposed to call until they were 5 minutes apart but I had a scheduled c-section in a week and wasn’t sure what to do. The on call doctor (Dr. Trevette) called me back a few minutes later and said to head to the hospital just to get checked out. So my husband and I looked at each other and said okay I guess this is happening. Dan started frantically running around, what do we need? Where is the bag? Where’s the car seat? (We hadn’t even figured out how to put the car seat in yet.) I decided at that point that I needed to straighten my hair, before we left, so while Dan ran around crazy gathering things and texting our parents I casually stood in the bathroom straightening my hair, delaying the inevitable. Finally we were off and I was admitted shortly after 3am. I was admitted right away due to the fact that we thought baby was breech and I’d be getting a c-section, the only thing I had prepared for. They got me all set up on machines and what not and while Dan was in the bathroom dressing in his scrubs, they did a sono on me. Turned out that baby girl had flipped over and was ready to come into the world the right way!

They had to do some convincing on my part to have her naturally since I was really not prepared at all for that to happen. I finally agreed only if I could have an epidural, which of course they administered right away. Dan had to leave the room and the very sweet nurse stood in front of me and held my hand while I got the epidural, much of this I hardly even remember since I feel like it all happened so fast. I was already 4 cm when they admitted me and it was the middle of the night. Once I had the drugs they turned off the lights and everyone left. They told me to sleep. Haha. I sent emails to my co-workers, I had about 8 different group texts going with friends and family. The last thing I was able to do was sleep, yes I was comfortable and wasn’t really feeling any pain at all, but this wasn’t supposed to happen this early, I just kept thinking about the baby, what I hadn’t finished doing yet and a billion other things. It was a good rest time, but no sleep.

They came in to check on us every half hour or so, they would check the machines, adjust the monitors etc. Probably around 7am or so they decided to come in and break my water, only to find that it had broke on its own. Then maybe an hour and half later I had to ask them to check me again because I really felt like she was coming out, and she sure was!! They asked me around 10am if I wanted to try a few practice pushes to see where we were at, so I did. STOP! They needed the doctor in the room, she was really coming soon. So I waited, the doctor came in and had me push again. STOP! She needed her scrubs on, this baby was coming now! After about 20-25 minutes of pushing at 10:26am I held a beautiful baby girl in my arms!!

The rest of the day was a compete blur, I had not slept in over 24 hours, we were moved from one room to the next, and had people coming and going all day long. They moved us from the labor and delivery room shortly before 1:00pm, I know this was the exact time, because my husband was very concerned that we were going to miss the start of the Bills game. We couldn’t figure out how to get cable on the TV in our new room and also, I couldn’t find my baby! I asked 2 different nurses if I could see my baby and both of them went off to find her! We had family all waiting in the waiting room for us and I refused to let anyone in until I got to see and hold my baby myself for awhile. They did finally wheel her in, and we had to try breastfeeding before they let anyone in anyway. Here’s a few more photos of my beauty just minutes after birth.

They put her footprint on daddy’s hand

That first night was a doozy, I was beginning to get delirious after lack of sleep, at this point I was going on nearly 36 hours of being awake, and the constant visitors and disruptions from nurses, oh and the fact that I just gave birth to a human, was really wearing on me. Once the night came and everyone had left then they would bring the baby in to me every 2 hours to feed. 2 hours goes by really fast! We had to send her down to the nursery because we just needed to get a little rest, I could tell as long as she was in our room we were never going to sleep. This is where I kept seeing my husband when I finally called a nurse…..

Its hard not to just stare at her all the time. We are so in love in with her and now cannot even remember what life was like before she was here! Its hard to believe 4 months have already gone by, when they say time flies they aren’t kidding. I feel like I will be planning her first birthday before I know it!

Its a big adjustment having a baby around all the time. It really is a rough first few weeks, lack of sleep and emotional meltdowns just skim the surface. I had a few break downs in those early days when we were trying to figure each other out. Breastfeeding is by far the hardest part, sleep came eventually, and thanks to my awesome husband we worked out schedules so we both could sleep, but that breastfeeding thing is still my biggest enemy. I’ve gone to exclusive pumping because I just couldn’t get the hang of making sure she was getting enough and me producing enough both for her and to store so we could actually leave the house for more then 2 hours. Ada is such a good baby and I cannot complain about a thing, I think we’ve had it really easy both with the birth and even in the months that have followed, she’s been sleeping through the night since 8 weeks when I put her in her crib in her own room and has been there ever since, we’ve had a few rough nights recently and I’m sure there are more rough ones ahead. I’ll finish this post with our first family photo! As well as a beautiful family photo we had done for Christmas!

Tag: birth story

Welcome to the world Baby Girl!

Little Ada’s Birth Story

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