Amelia is here and we are in love.
5 weeks and 4 days ago this photograph captured the most miraculous moment of my life. Who knew that something so perfect could come out of my body?? There were lots of tears and maybe a little screaming (perfection hurts coming out, okay?)... but miraculous is definitely an accurate description.
A couple days after our little peanut was born Luke and I recorded a video of how we remember labor and delivery. (It's over 30 minutes long and since I was nursing during said video it would have to be rated at least PG-13 so don't get excited about seeing that anytime soon)... I'm planning on giving the slimmed down version to you guys and I've also been making some lists for my mommy to-be's out there.
Here are the quick deets on little miss Amelia Eloise:
She was born at 7:51 pm on Wednesday, July 18th 2012. She was 6 pounds 15 ounces and 20 inches long. Her head and chest circumferences were the same, 13 1/2 inches...
Labor/Delivery:
Actual, for real, no jokes labor started on Tuesday morning around 10am. My doula came to the house and since I had been in early labor for oh about 3 days (Seriously. Good thing those early labor contractions are pie because otherwise this would have been miserable.) so she came over to advise us on how to get this party going a little faster. I walked, bounced on the birthing ball, ate chik-fil-a (because the day before was cow appreciation day and you know those 18 chicken sandwiches weren't going to eat themselves...)
We were starting to get anxious about her being late and since we were moving on August 1st I seriously wanted this child out of my stomach and into my arms growing and being able to travel... (turns out there are no rules about when a baby can travel. Actually, it turns out there aren't a lot of rules about anything baby-related, just a whole bunch of advice from people who've been-there-done-that and that advice ranges from practical to a little cray cray so using that maternal instinct that busts out about the time your child does is essential)... The moving bit is a story in itself. Basically it involves unsafe working conditions for the hubs, a lot of douche baggery on his ex-employer, a whole lot of prayer, and God providing above and beyond our needs as usual... (long story short we are now back in our favorite town, with an amazing town house in our price range, both with jobs we love, and only about 329,302,375.6 boxes left to unpack)
...ummm so back to labor... my contractions were getting to be about 4 minutes apart and lasting a minute long around 4 p.m. (Tuesday night) so we headed to the hospital. When we arrived there had been a major accident or something and the ER (where we had to check in for labor and delivery) was insanity (on the way up to the maternity ward we could hear someone screaming because they had just found out about a death... I found myself being thankful for painful contractions and praying fervently for those people. It really puts things in perspective).
So, we get up to the room, I get hooked up to the monitors and BOOM! no more contractions... Okay, maybe I still had them but they were way far apart now. Geez. So the plan now becomes to wait out the night and be induced via my water getting broken in the morning. THANK GOODNESS! The planner in me was thrilled, I could now get my planner out and write
in pen 'Amelia's birthday!' The real person in me was like "Holy crap I'm really going to have this baby by tomorrow!" Haha. So we went to sleep(ish) and awaited the arrival of our favorite Doctor in the morning.
Around 8:30am the nurse (Guess who it was?! MARY POPPINS!!!) came in and put me on the monitors again and prepped me for the Doctor. Also, the doctor was the same one we had been seeing each time we had a false alarm. So, we've got our favorite doctor
and nurse. This was a great start! The doctor broke my water at around 8:45am. For those who are wondering, this does not hurt
at all. I actually had to ask her if she had done it... then I felt a humongous gush of water and I got the hint, haha. I was told that if my contractions would get to be about 2 minutes apart in the next 3-4 hours then I would not have to be on pitocin (yay!) but alas they did not get there (boo!). I walked the halls/bounced on the ball/etc and they got to be 4 minutes apart again but since that was not the 2 requested at noon I was put in bed and Mary Poppins started the pitocin. I had to be monitored continuously on the pitocin so at this point I'm hooked up to the IV on one side of the bed and the monitors on the other and I'm in the middle bouncing on my ball, haha it was quite the sight to see I'm sure.
My contractions started getting closer together and more intense. Up to this point I could talk right through a contraction with just a little more wiggling in my hips to get through. At around 3pm I had to start focusing and breathing through them. Still, I wouldn't consider this "pain" just pressure that was eased if I had someone pushing on my back and if I could sway my hips on the labor ball (which is just one of those big exercise balls, if you're wondering.) At 4:30ish someone interrupted my awesome Eric Whitacre pandora station(by far the best labor music ever!) with a phone call. I was in the middle of a contraction so it was all hands on deck/my back and no one could answer the phone. After that contraction was over Luke went to see who it was and it was the job I had applied for the week before calling to set up an interview!!! They said in the message (which Luke had to play twice since I was in the contraction/out of mind for half of the first time) that I needed to call back by the end of the day (it was already 4:30ish!) or by tomorrow at the latest. Well, since I figured I would have my new baby by the next day and I wasn't sure I would be in my right mind to call back then I decided it would be best for me to call then between contractions. Hahaha, looking back I probably should have waited but since I've never been one for patience I called back which turned out to be good for me because after two interviews I got the job earlier this week and I start next Tuesday!
I digress though, so after the phone call the contractions were getting very intense. I'm still able to focus but I definitely had to focus through them and have someone pressing on my back. At around 6:00 Mary Poppins told me I had to get in the bed to be monitored for awhile because Amelia kept moving and they were losing her heartbeat on the monitors. This is where things got crazy and a little hazy for me. At this point she also had to restart my IV because the vein in my left wrist had blown. (FYI I hate, hate, hate needles/IV's. Seriously.) So she's trying to wait between contactions, and now since I'm in the bed my contractions are ten times worse and I can't relax between them which causes each contraction to build on itself... basically bed=pain. After the first couple contractions in the bed I start crying and telling Luke it hurts too bad and I can't do it. Then MP puts the IV in, I jerked and the vein blew (uggghhhh) so she has to go to the other arm all the while I'm crying my eyes out because I seriously hate needles! Poor lady though, she felt so bad for me that she kept trying to get me to take medicine (did I mention I was going all natural?) I stuck to my guns though and said no thank you but once she left I decided I really did want something haha. During the childbirth classes we had talked about getting hyped up motrin call Nubaine in the case of pitocin since it causes your contractions to be harder and closer together then they would be naturally. So I asked my doula if I got that if it would hurt the baby? She assured me it wouldn't and she went and asked MP to get me some of that. It was probably 6:30 before I got the nubaine and once I got that I was able to rest between contractions and I would say that the next 30ish minutes I was almost in a trance. Not from the medicine necessarily but my body was just so tired that every time I could rest I would practically fall asleep from exhaustion.
At around 7:00 the contractions got way worse and I couldn't figure out how in the world I was going to live through this. Turns out this was my body's way of saying "Hey dummy! It's time to push this baby out!"(also known as "transition"...). The doula kept asking me if I felt like I needed to push and since I had no idea what in the world that felt like I decided to try pushing a little and see if that helped the pain. Oh man, that was like sweet relief. I started bearing down during each contraction and it helped tremendously but then the nurse came in and checked me and told me I had to stop pushing! Apparently I was only at 9cm and I could cause swelling which would make pushing a lot harder. Unfortunately, now that I had started bearing down my body had taken over and I couldn't figure out how to
stop pushing! I tried, but I'm pretty sure there was still some push-age happening. Also, at this point I had become pretty vocal. Did you know that I can make noises like a cave man getting ready to rip into a wooly mammoth? Yeah, me neither.
Finally, around 7:15 the nurses came in to get the room set up/shorten the table (with all my research I missed that they do that)/get the doc's tools ready/etc. And at this point I was told to start pushing. I honestly have no idea how long I pushed before they told me they could see her head. But I remember being amazed that I was already that close. I never thought I would want that mirror to see my delivery but I changed my mind the second I realized I could catch a glimpse at this tiny human that I had been growing for close to 10 months. They wheeled that mirror over and suddenly I had a renewed sense of purpose and I was able to push harder and longer. During each push I could feel her getting closer and closer to coming out and there was a huge sense of power with that. Then suddenly her little head just popped out! It was the biggest relief I have ever felt in my entire life! The rest of her little body just slid right out and they put her immediately on my stomach. I felt like I was having an out of body experience. I didn't recognize this little baby on my belly but I had this intense surge of love and a need to protect her immediately. The nurses were wiping her off and she was crying and I remember I was saying something but I couldn't tell you what, haha and then suddenly she opened her little eyes and we made eye contact and it was like my soul recognized her soul. I know that sounds cheesy but it was like even though I didn't "recognize" her facial features somehow I knew that this was my baby girl. Words just can't do that moment justice.
Eventually Luke cut the cord and she was taken to be weighed and cleaned up across the room. Luke went with her and I was left to deliver the placenta (which fyi all you mom-to-be's is no big deal at all.) and then just as quickly as they took her away they brought her back all clean and wrapped up.
We tried to nurse immediately and she wasn't really into it, but surprisingly enough I really didn't care. Haha, I did all this research about how you
have to nurse immediately after delivery to ensure a good breastfeeding relationship but seriously she maybe latched for 2 seconds and after trying for about 5-10 minutes of trying I just wanted to look at her. Pretty soon after that the nurses had to take her to the nursery for her tests (I guess our hour was up) and Luke walked her over. Leaving me to get cleaned up and prepared to go to our post partum room.
And that is our wonderful, sometimes scary, labor and delivery story.
Since this post is already a book, I'll be writing the post-partum recovery and my recommendations for other mom-to-be's in other posts.
Thank you for reading our birth/love story!