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.
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| 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!
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