Labor and Delivery

I always enjoy hearing people's birth stories. They're always so different, and never cease to amaze me. Here's Aiden's story.

I was scheduled to be induced on May 24. The hospital wanted us there at 5:30am. Of course, I didn't sleep a wink the night before. Nerves, excitement, anticipation... kept me up all night. Mike came down with the same stomach bug I had, and was sick the entire day before. So, the night before the induction wasn't ideal.

My mother in law arrived at our house at 5am, as she was taking care of Addison the day of Aiden's birth. We left promptly, careful not to be late- we were excited and wanted to get this show on the road! When we got to the hospital, we waited for an hour and a half just to get to our room. SO annoying. Once we got up to our room, we waited ANOTHER hour to be seen by our nurse. I was not feeling great about how the day was going.

Good thing I was wrong. Once we did meet out nurse, Betsy, I LOVED her. She was awesome. She started the pitocin immediately. This was about 8:30, I believe. She took good care of Mike, too... made sure he had warm blankets, was comfortable she knew we needed our rest while we could get it! Mike was feeling better this day, thank goodness. A little queasy still, but not "sick" like the day before.

I had made it clear from the very beginning that I wanted an epidural. So, at 9:30, the anesthesiologist came in and gave it to me. I was about 4 cm at this point, and the contractions were still very manageable. They were definitely getting stronger, bot to be honest, receiving the epidural was the most painful part of labor. Wah, wah, I know.

My doctor came in to break my water at about 9:30. She said she predicted that I would be delivering around 1pm. I was about 4.5 cm dilated and 80% effaced at this point.

We had a couple of episodes where Aiden's heart rate dropped pretty low with contractions, so the nurse kept coming in and switching me from side to side. This was, for me, a mortifying experience. When you have an epidural, and have no feeling in your lower half, you are of no assistance to the nurses trying to move you. I felt like a WHALE. Dead weight. Huge. Gross. Fat. You get the picture. I had to have an oxygen mask at times, too, so I really felt glamorous.

My nurse was on lunch, and a fill-in nurse, Tina, was taking care of me, and didn't want to check my progress, she said she'd leave that to Betsy. Looking back that's pretty annoying, but at the time I wasn't annoyed at all... I understood. (side note: Tina was my nurse the Friday before, when I was in the hospital with the stomach bug!)

Well, when Betsy came back from lunch, she had a delivery in another room, so my nurse was forced to check me at this point. And to everyone's surprise, I was crowning. Ready to deliver!

She stopped my pitocin, called my doctor, and we found out that my doctor was in surgery across the street. "Can she wait 30 minutes?" My nurse laughed and said "no!". "15 minutes?" I said I wasn't feeling a HUGE urge to push, so agreed. The ER OB came into the room, just in case, and we got totally prepped to deliver. Stopping the pitocin stalled things, and Aiden took 2 steps back, so to speak... he wasn't crowning anymore.

My doctor made it over, I pushed 3 times within one contraction, once in between contractions, and then one more time with the next contraction and there he was! At 1:34pm, I delivered my beautiful baby boy. Mike of course was there, and I looked over at him and he had tears in his eyes. Not thinking, I asked him "what's wrong?" I was worried that something was wrong! He just shook his head and said, "it's amazing".

So, for such a breeze of a labor and delivery, here's where the story gets sticky. Turns out Aiden's cord was wrapped around his neck, (which I don't think Mike even noticed). So they laid him on my tummy for maybe 10 seconds before grabbing him back and taking him to his warming table to "shock" him into breathing on his own.

At this point, one doctor came in after another to help with Aiden. No one was talking. They all had quite serious looks on their faces, and you could tell they each served a purpose, had a job, and were there to do it. I was delivering my placenta, and getting my stitches, and crying... asking "what's going on? Is he ok? What's happening???" I would get affirmation that things were ok, but never more than that. At one point I looked over and they had a long skinny tube down his throat. We still hadn't heard him cry. My doctor explained to me that he swallowed some amniotic fluid... this was normal, especially in babies who had their cord wrapped around their neck. I swear, this all lasted for at least 10 minutes. At least. And there were at least 8 people around him. And then we FINALLY heard the sweetest sound in the world- our baby's first cry.

One at a time, the doctors who were working on Aiden left the room, and finally it was just me, Mike, our doctor and our nurse again. They gave Aiden to me, and of course, this was one of the best moments of my life. My tears of concern and worry turned into tears of joy. No one can describe this moment if they haven't experienced it themselves. Amazing.

Pictures of family holding Aiden for the first time coming soon. I need a nap. Aiden and Addison are both asleep right now, so I'm taking advantage.

Baby Story #2

When I titled the last post about my little visit to the hospital "Baby Story #1", I must've known that there were to be more "scares" before the BIG DAY.

Add this to the list of stories.

Thursday night, I got sick. Not sick enough to call the doctor, just sick enough to not sleep and to be REALLY ANNOYED. Then Friday morning I got really sick. Sick enough to call the doctor. I wasn't keeping any food or liquids down, and was feeling terrible. The nurse said it sounded like I had food poisoning, suggested some meds to take, and told me to call back by 1pm if my symptoms weren't better.

Oh yeah, did I mention that Friday was Addy's birthday?

So, I took Addy to school, went home and took the medicine and slept in between vomiting spells. I had to get cookies to take to school, so ran to Target at the last minute possible. Threw up at Target. Made it to school. Threw up at school. Made it to her class. Threw up in her class. It was really, truly, AWFUL. Has anybody every thrown up at 9 mos pregnant? You can't squat or sit, as you normally would... your belly doesn't allow for that. All you can do is stand. You're welcome for the visual.

Anyway, I called the doctor back, and they told me to come in immediately. I did so, and of course, after one look at me, they sent me across the street to the hospital. I was SO sick. (I'll just mention, too, that they "checked" me in the office, and I'd gone from 2cm on Wed to "almost" 4 on Friday. Yay!)

I went over to the hospital, and got hooked up to a monitor and IV. The severe dehydration was causing me to have contractions that were, no joke, 1-2 minutes apart. And they HURT. I was sure I was going into labor.

At 4:15 I looked at my phone to check the time, and realized that 3 years ago to the very minute, I was delivering Addison, probably no more than 5 doors down the hall. Very surreal. And very emotional. I cried and cried, wishing that I were at home with my baby, and sad that the ONE thing I didn't want to happen was probably going to happen: my babies would share a birthday.

After I had received a bag of IV fluids, the contractions just about stopped completely. I stayed under supervision for a while longer, they made sure the contractions were subsiding, that I wasn't dilating any more, and gave me my discharge papers.

And then, just like that, I was going home.

Addison has her OWN birthday. And we even made it to her party the next day. (more on that soon) Hallelujah!

Baby Story #1

Well, well, well... I certainly have had an exciting(?) 48 hours, to say the least. All day yesterday we held our dance team auditions at the studio. I got there at 8am, and was scheduled to be there til at least 9pm. I was swollen, big, and surprisingly in good spirits! There was one little incident when my back started hurting so bad, I was reduced to tears, but sweet Ginger saved the day :)

SO. Around 6:30, I kinda thought my water had broken. I changed my pants and underwear (so sorry for tmi) and was still pretty sure that I was leaking.

So, I called my doctor, and of course they wanted me to go to the hospital. The amnio test came back negative, BUT, when they were monitoring me and the baby, I had about 3 really hard contractions within 5 minutes (it really felt like one huge five minute long contraction) and during that contraction, the baby's heart rate dropped from 140 to 75. So, of course, they wanted to keep me there to stay under watch for a while. I continued to have contractions about every 20 minutes, but none of them were "hard", they were pretty mild. About 2 hours passed, and no joke, just as the doctor came in to send me home, the exact same thing happened again. Super hard, long contraction, baby's heart rate dropped real low again. So, they decided to admit me and keep me under watch all night. I had a couple more random episodes, still maintaining the mild contractions every 15-20 minutes. But, by the time the doctor came to check on me this morning, I hadn't had a big scary contraction in about 5 hours, so they let me go home.

So here I am, blogging, with no baby in my arms. Boo hoo. :-( I am still having contractions every 20 minutes, pretty much on the dot. But unless they get crazy painful again, I wait this out. Til Monday, the 24th at the latest. AAHH!

Funny

Today I got pulled over for having an expired inspection sticker. (I've had a few other things to do lately, okay?)

I told Addison that the policeman was going to give me a ticket, and she said "FOR ME TO RIDE A TRAIN?!? Awe! That's so nice! He's SO NICE!"

A Bed Time Story For You

Tonight's bed time story goes like this:

Last night, before bed, Addison says to me:

"My tummy hurts. I want to sit on the potty and try to go poo poo".

Oh, I should have warned you, this story is about poo poo, pee pee and eventually, other bodily excrement's.

I should also mention... that Addison REFUSES to sit on the potty. In fact, her teacher asked me the other day "You know you have a VERY strong willed child on your hands, don't you?". I laughed, said "of course" and then, "why?". Apparently, she's the only one in her class who flat-out refuses to sit on the potty. Just won't even try. Not all of the kids are potty trained, but they all will give it a go on the potty while they're at school. Not our Addison. She's not having any of it.

Continuing our lovely poo poo story...

We rushed to the bathroom, took off her diaper, and it was too late, she had already pooped in her diaper. She said she still wanted to try to put more poo poo and pee pee in the potty, so we sat her on it and for about 30 minutes, traded off story reading duty. (duty, doodie, heehee).

Nothing happened.

So, it was time for bed. She was pretty good at bed time, I thought she felt a little warm, but she wasn't acting SUPER fussy. Let's just say, nothing happened that is out of the norm for our almost 3 year old as far as typical assertion of independence goes.

About five minutes after she went to bed...

"Mommy, my tummy hurts! I want to sit on the potty and try to go poo poo!"

Now, Mike and I had a very quick conversation. Like, really quick, as we walked to her room. Is this something that we allow? I mean, how often does she really say she needs to sit on the potty? Um, never. But it's after bed time. Which kind of made me wonder if this was a manipulation tactic on her part... a way to get out of bed. We agreed that if she wanted to go potty, we were going to let her.

So, we took her to the potty, and sat with her, reading her a couple of short stories while we waited. Nothing happened. Until she stood up, then she peed all over the floor. Great.

So, we went back to bed. Five minutes later...

"Mommy, my tummy hurts, I need to throw up!"

Upon hearing this, I RAN to her room, Mike followed with a big bowl, and we sat with her and told her that if she needed to throw up, to throw up in the bowl. She started acting really silly, telling us she wanted to play. Not acting sick AT ALL.

So, I'm really wondering at this point... what's going on?! Tummy hurts, asking to sit on the pot, fighting bed time, wanting to throw up, then acting crazy and trying to play Barbie? This is all so weird.

She never throws up, and by some miracle, I manage to get her to go to sleep.

Cut to 2:30 this morning. I hear Addison on the monitor coughing. Bad coughing. I send Mike in to check on her (of course I did, I always do nowadays, since it takes me about 20 minutes to get my pregnant butt out of bed.) He called me into her room, she had thrown up.

Poor baby. She was miserable. I immediately feel awful for ever questioning her in the first place, but remember that I wouldn't have done anything differently, even if I was sure all along that she didn't feel well.

The rest of the story is about vomiting and cuddling and whining. I'll spare you the details. I will say that eventually, all of that disappeared and Addison returned to her normal self by this afternoon. Well, except for the whining part, but I'm afraid that is something that isn't going to go away for a while. She sat on the potty lots of times today, all at her request. Nothing ever happened, but I think she might be really ready to potty train!

The end.

"Married"

Quick, before I forget.

Addison is really interested in weddings and brides lately. She's looked through our wedding album quite a few times and any time there's a girl in a white dress on tv, she'll say "look, she's getting married!"

I asked her the other day who I married.

She answered, "Daddy".

I then asked her who she is going to marry.

She thought about it a while... then finally said with confidence:

"Grammi".

"She said stupid"

One of our favorite songs on the Glee soundtrack, "Standing at your door", as Addy likes to call it ("it's really called My life would suck without you"), apparently has a "bad word" in it.

"Mommy, she said stupid."

This is the first time I've ever heard Addy repeat a word that we don't want her to repeat. And if I'm being honest, this surprises me, because she does hear more than just "stupid" on a more-regular-than-I'd-like-to-admit basis.

Anyway, my reaction was "yes, she does say that. That's a bad word, I don't want you to say it, ok?"

"She said stupid?"

"Yes, Addison, but don't repeat it. I don't want you saying it."

"Why did she say STUPID?"

"ADDISON. We can't listen to the song anymore. And you can't say that word ANYMORE. Do you understand?"

"I like Standing on your door! I won't say the bad word!"

So, now, we fight in the car, because the poor child NEEDS to hear the song, or else her life will just END right then and there. And I know that she just wants to hear the word stupid... so I don't let her listen to it.

There have been a couple of times that the song has come on and I didn't notice (probably was on the phone), and lo and behold... know what she does?

"Mommy, she said stupid."

I'm Not Sure What to Think About This

A couple of weeks ago, one of my four year olds asked me what I am going to name my baby. I told her I didn't know and she went ahead and listed a few suggestions. One of which was "Munkus Trap". Ha. I stifled my giggles and wrote the "name" down so I would be sure not to forget it.

I knew this was blog-worthy, but it wasn't until I googled Munkus, just to be sure it was just a made-up word, that I realized it is indeed blog worthy. I guess you could say it is just a make-up word... but when googled, the first thing that comes up are two definitions from urbandictionary.com.

I won't give the definitions here, as I'm not sure who exactly reads my lil ol blog, and I certainly don't want to offend anyone. Let's just say it's... sexually graphic?

I hope this little girl just happened to make up the word Munkus, and wasn't repeating it after hearing it somewhere.

And if I wasn't considering Munkus Trap for our child's name, I certainly am not now.

"Confessions", pt 5

"Good Morning, Miss, Sarah, my name is _____"

"Do you have any news today?"

"I'm in high school now."

"You're in high school now? WOW! How old are you?"

Holds up 3 fingers.

Confessions, Pt. 4

Remember these?

"Good Morning Ms. Sarah, my name is ____"

"Do you have any news today?"

"Maybe the kids that aren't here yet are dead. Maybe they died in their beds."

((speechless)) "Um. Well, let's hope not. Everybody up- let's dance?!?"

Friends

Today after dance class, I took Addy with me to Jiffy Lube to get my oil changed. Dressed in her pink and black tutu, pink tights and red sparkly shoes, Addison walked 4 or 5 shops down with me to Weinershnitzel for a treat- her favorite- a hot dog! Just before we got to Weinerschnitzel, we walked past a Whataburger, where Addison saw an elderly couple getting out of their car and walking toward the restaurant. (using the word restaurant to describe Whataburger just feels weird, but I digress)

This couple was SO adorable. Slow walking, hand holding adorable.

"Friends!" Addison shouted.
"Are those your friends?" I asked her.
"Yeah!"
"Well, say hi to them!" I encouraged her.
"Hi, friends!"
They didn't hear her. I told her to say it louder as we were walking closer, and finally after maybe four tries, they saw and heard her.

Oh, the looks on their faces as Addison ran toward them, "Hi, friends!" was priceless. Obviously impressed with her outfit, they asked her if she had just attended a party. I told her to tell them where she had just been, and she said proudly, "dance class". The woman reached out to shake her hand, and Addison reached right up and shook her hand! And THEN, SHE reached her hand toward the man, to shake HIS hand! They told her how pretty she was, she got the silly coy look that she gets, they continued to admire her, she ate it up... we wished them a yummy lunch and went on our way.

I won't spoil this story by telling you about the time-out that had to happen, outside of Whataburger, not 15 seconds after this took place, because Addison refused to hold my hand and tried to run away from me- into the parking lot.

No, I won't do that. Instead I will end by saying how very proud I was of my sweet daughter. I was elated to see her bring such joy into these two people's lives. I don't think I'll ever forget it.