I'll start with the pregnancy: (I'll try to keep it brief)
Millie is our miracle baby. At six weeks, I started bleeding. Heavily. We made the appointments with the doctor to be sure of what was happening. Our hearts were broken. The doctor ordered some blood work to check my hormone levels just so that I would have the closure of what we assumed was a miscarriage. After a few days and the second blood test (to see if the levels went up or down) I get a call from a very excited doctor..."They went UP! How soon can you get a sonogram?" We rushed to the ER to find out what was going on, and discovered two things. 1. We were indeed pregnant. The little peanut size baby in my belly had a perfect little heartbeat! and 2. I had a subchorionic blood clot the size of a tennis ball that was causing the bleeding.
Long story short, I was in and out of the doctors with sonograms every three to four weeks monitoring the clot as well as baby's growth. It went away at week 12, and we rejoiced thinking it was finally "over" and we could move on with our pregnancy...then I developed another one at week 15. same size, same place...but the amount of bleeding resulted in a 24 hour stay in the hospital for monitoring, and modified bed rest for the foreseeable future. At week 21's sonogram we got the all clear. The baby (girl we found out) was growing well, the clots were gone, but they found a uterine band or "weird thing" as they put it. I was back to "just take it easy" status until week 30 where we saw that she as big enough to have closed the band gap, pushed away any chance of clots and was still growing and healthy. So the rest of my pregnancy could be treated as a normal healthy pregnancy. And it was for the remainder of the pregnancy that we all were healthy and as "normal" as you can be during your last 10 weeks of the pregnancy.
Her due date came and went and our stress levels were high in anticipating our little girls arrival. We had everyone on call, the doctors, the babysitters, back up babysitters, even the fire department just in case we had another birth like Titus'. When I was over due by a couple of days, I confided in my doctor about how stressed out we were. Adam had been working super late hours to cover his time for when we had her so he could have a week off...but not knowing when she would arrive, he just kept the crazy schedule. We finally decided that an induction might be a good idea, so we scheduled it for the following Monday. The Saturday before our induction, I felt a lot of contractions that were getting stronger and crazier and thought "THIS IS IT!" we called in the troops. It was late at night, so we called our neighbor to come hang out until our sitters could get the kids. We hurried to the hospital with this great anticipation only to be sent home after a couple of hours. I was in fact contracting, but it wasn't progressive. I explained to the nurses about my labor/delivery history being super fast and they kind of smiled and nodded and sent me home anyway. "We'll hopefully see you in the next day or so"
We went home feeling defeated and bummed out that we haddn't had the baby. Our cousins had the kids, and agreed to just keeping them Sunday so we could have the day to focus on possibly having a baby and not stress over where the kids were and all of that. They were going to take them Sunay anyway with the induction being scheduled for early Monday morning anyway, so no harm in having them a little bit early.
Adam and I took advantage of our day and made it into a day date. We shopped for last minute "needs" for the baby, we went to a nice restaurant (and scared everyone with my 4 days past due belly) and just took it easy. We drove up to Sykesville to see the kiddos for dinner and put them to bed. During our visit I sat on the couch and counted contractions. Every time the kids bumped into the couch while playing it felt like they were really slamming into it hard and jostling me was very uncomfortable. I ate standing up swaying because it was just more comfortable that way (I didn't realize I was in early labor at this point). After we got the kids down I told Adam that I wanted to go home. I just felt better knowing we were closer to the hospital. We got home at about 10pm and went right to bed because we had a very early morning. Our induction was set for 6am. As soon as I laid down the contractions really kicked in. I remember laying there timing them and praying "God if this is it, I really need to know. Make it clear when it is time to go to the hospital" the next contraction took my breath away. It hurt so bad that I opened my mouth to say "OWW!" but nothing came out...After it started coming down and passing I grabbed Adam and said "Babe we gotta go! That was a doozy!" Adam sat straight up. It kind of reminded me of the old movies when the vampire sits straight up out of the coffin.... it was kind of funny. He had me whisked away to the hospital before I really knew what was going on. On a side note: As we went through the traffic light by our house (that leads to the Fire Station) we realized "our crew" was on duty that night. For about a second (between contractions) I thought "lets go say hi and let them know we're on our way!" but that only lasted a second. :)
We got to the hospital. again. and wouldn't you know it, had the same nurses and staff from the night before. Naturally, they remembered us, and you could see on their faces that we were "that couple". You know the ones...the frequent fliers that come in for every discomfort...yeah. The difference this time was that I could barely sign my name for the check in papers.
They got us into a room and while I was changing into my gown I was telling the nurse (we'll call her Karen) about Titus' birth and that this one might likely be very fast.
She nodded along (not believing me) and got me settled into the bed. I talked about having an epidurral as my pain was pretty severe and I just wanted to "enjoy this experience" without the incoveniance of pain (HA!). Karen put my request in the system and proceeded to give me an IV and take a blood sample. They have to do that before they do the epi. and check my dialation. I was at 6cm
anyway, In the time it took her to do that I contracted like mad and asked her to check me again (it's been 5 minutes after all) she did as she was checking she was saying "it's only been 5 minutes, I really don't think there will be much cha....oh look at that...you're 8! wow!"
She called in another nurse...We'll call her Kim...I don't remember their names exactly except that they both started with "K". Kim came in and started prepping the baby area and chatting me up. This was the nurse from the night before so there was a lot of "I told you so" conversation going on between huffing and puffing and breathing and groaning.
I transitioned into "ready to push mode after another 10 minutes or so and told them "I really feel like I need to push"...Karen...little doubter that she is....skeptically checked me again and was like "wow! you're at 10! lets start pushing! Kim call the doc"
Kim's side of the conversation was amusing "Yes, we're ready to push...I know she just got here. It's happening pretty fast, you might want to hurry"
I start pushing and Dr. "Stringbean" walks in (seriously....this guys scrubs looked like they were wrapped around his tiny body a couple of times before he tied them off) walks in while I'm pushing, "has her water broken yet?" "not yet" "okay. I'm going to check on another patient real quick, I will be right back"
After he walked out, I was pushing pretty hard, and after a few good pushes, pooping on the table a couple of times (yes I did it. we all do. and yes I was apologizing profusely for it...cracking the nurses up because I was more concerned about that than I was about the baby coming out of me....whatever)It was finally time to really get her out. I was done waiting. Karen was messing with the monitors on my stomach during contractions which hurt, a lot. trying to get a good read of baby's heart rate during a contraction..."making sure it's not dropping. If it's dropping..." KAREN! I SWEAR IF YOU TOUCH THAT THING AGAIN WHILE I'M CONTRACTING YOU'RE GONNA GET PUNCHED!....I'm sorry. That wasn't nice. It just hurts...."
I decided enough messing around, lets get this baby out! First push had her head out, second shot the rest of her out...yes shot. I even heard Kim yelling "Whoa! Karen! Karen! Catch!"
the doctor walked back in as they were putting her on my chest...he just stood there like "well that was fast!" I opened my eyes to this TINY little baby on my chest giving us a good pouty cry. She was perfect. She had a perfectly round head, she was super little, and just soo beautiful! I asked "She's a girl right?" I heard some chuckles and "yes. she's a girl and she's peeing on you"
I totally didn't care. after all the dramatic moments throughout this pregnancy, all the stress at the end of when she'd come and if she'd be fast like Titus, and whether or not I'd make it to the hospital...I just didn't care if she peed on me.. she was here. she was healthy, she was beautiful and I didn't have to worry about anything else.
Now she's a six month old rollie pollie bundle of love. We love her so much and she's just been an awesome addition to our family. :)
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