sadly i was not good this time around at keeping up with writing about my weekly pregnancy updates like i did for henry. im sure henry is going to certainly be the one out of the two kids that is going to appreciate the detailed blog i wrote for him (sorry, eleanor!). i did take lots of pictures of my growing belly, and have a stack of 'explanation of benefits' that she can cherish forever! but anyway, i figured i should probably at least be able to give her the first year documented hopefully as well as i did for henry. lord knows weve already taken a zillion pictures of her in this first week of life (although i have yet to take her "just born" sticker picture and we ventured out to target yesterday after a doctors appointment and forgot to take her picture there. target mom fail. she then blew out her diaper and needed a complete wardrobe change. thanks kid! ill take that over my water breaking there though).
i was basically prepared for her to come early, as in i had the bags packed and wished for her arrival starting at 36 weeks (and maybe even earlier). pretty much everyone i know was pregnant around the same time and seriously every one of them went early (except a girl from work who went a week late and i swore up and down i would just jump off a cliff if i went a week late! why would that even happen to people!? rude). also, henry came right on time (albeit a 28 hour labor) so i just figured my body would do the same thing again. ya know, cuz this is like a scripted happening or something.
well wouldnt you know it, 40 weeks came and went.
i had had some not so great feelings at work on friday afternoon before my due date (39w 1d). my back hurt and i just felt kinda crampy. i ended up staying home the next two days (i was scheduled to work), and on sunday afternoon i started having contractions that were about 10 minutes apart. none of them were painful, and they stopped right around bedtime and i was able to sleep all night. monday and tuesday brought more contractions, again about 8 to 10 minutes apart, again stopping when i went to bed. then they just stopped altogether. i had a doctors appointment the day before 40 weeks and i was only 1cm dilated and my cervix was thick and high, whatever that means. eleanor certainly wasnt going to come out on time. im seriously never late for anything... whos kid is this?!
so we made another doctors appointment for tuesday of the following week, and scheduled an ultrasound to check movement, weight, and fluid levels. i was hoping to just go into labor before that appointment (so was my doctor, she was on call for the weekend), but tuesday arrived without baby.
we did have some excitement though before that day... while i was down in westbrook taking a good long (hopeful labor inducing) walk with sarah, henrys school nurse called. he had fallen on the playground.
because a broken arm is exactly what we need at this time. he was a real trooper though for sure. i think i cried more at the doctor than he did... its tough to watch your kid be in so much pain. but once the cast was on and he was thru the initial shock of it all, he recovered well and basically was only asking for tylenol by the next day because he liked the taste of it. not candy, kid. he will get his hard cast this afternoon and we are thankful for that because he is clumsy and were worried hes going to do more damage to it before its healed!
ok so tuesday came, still no baby... at my doctors appointment the ultrasound looked good, no need to emergently rush to the hospital for induction (darn). they said she weighed about 7lbs 15oz, but could be off by a pound either way (there was no way i had close to a 9lb baby in there, so i was hoping they were off by a pound too much). again i was only dilated 1cm, so my doctor called the hospital to check when they had openings for me to go and be induced. i was going to need to go in at 8pm and get some sort of dilation balloon procedure, so she gave me the option of the next night (wed) or thurs to go in. i chose wednesday, just get this show on the road, ive waited long enough. we left and went to 5 guys for lunch, then headed home for henry to take a nap.
one of us is sharing our true feelings... although i do love me some 5 guys
i laid down for a few minutes but really wasnt feeling too tired so i didnt stay there for long. i also figured i had the entire next day to rest. and since i had been nesting for over a month (ok i basically live the nesting life), my house was clean. my inlaws were also there to do whatever i needed, so i really didnt have much i was going to need to do before going to the hospital that night. i thought i would just watch some netflix and hang out.
eleanor, however, had other plans. an independent woman already, look out world!
shortly after ty got home from work and dinner was just about done, a huge wave of emotion came over me. everything just came out all at once and i went upstairs and just cried and cried. over everything and who knows what else. tonight was going to be the last time we were here at home as a family of 3. henry was going to be a big brother, not an only child anymore, no longer my only baby. my biggest fear was that this was going to change my sweet little boy in ways i wasnt prepared for (i didnt know what those changes were, but i feared the worst). it was a weird feeling to have a specific time and date to go have the baby, despite that i had wanted her here for so long. she was coming, soon. and i just couldnt control the emotions.
ty came up and calmed me down so that i could go join everyone for dinner. i can never hide the fact that ive been crying, but i tried to act normal and just sat and ate my dinner and listened to whatever silly stories henry had at the table. we were almost all done eating when i felt something weird... down there. i knew i hadnt peed my pants, but it felt slightly similar. i got up and walked awkwardly to the bathroom, sat down....
my water broke.
1. ew
2. thank the holy lord this happened in my house
i just sat there in the bathroom and thought "of course this is happening right now". i had literally just been crying my eyes out, thankful that i would have this one last night with henry and ty and have tomorrow to wrap any last minute things up... and now this.
i didnt know how i should tell everyone, and i couldnt get up without more water coming out (graphic, sorry). i stuffed a towel in my sweatpants and walked out, announced "well, my water just broke" (which set off a real frenzy downstairs apparently), and went upstairs to figure out the next steps. everything felt chaotic and rushed (as opposed to how i thought it would go if my water broke), henry was upset and nervous, i had towels everywhere... it was almost comical. all i kept thinking was that i had made apple crisp that afternoon and still hadnt had any. bogus.
my contractions started in the truck halfway to the hospital, strong and about 6 minutes apart. my biggest fear was delivering en route... thankfully we arrived and made it upstairs without that happening. the nurses set me up in a triage room so that they could make sure i was truly in labor before admitting me (the doctor asked "are you certain you didnt just pee your pants?" ...uh, yes, 100% positive, thanks for asking). ty and i set up to play cards and waited for the lab verification of fluid, and then off we were to the delivery room. i was only 3cm dilated at this point, so they were going to see if i would continue to dilate on my own before starting any medications to help speed up the process. we figured she would arrive sometime the next day... everyone told me 2nd babies come much faster than 1st babies, but we thought tomorrow would still be less than the marathon henry put me through.
my times are a little foggy, but i wasnt dilating any more or quickly, and i think they started the pitocin somewhere around 11pm. my contractions started getting much stronger and closer together, and again i was having all back labor just like with henry (thanks a lot, kiddos! i again see some physical therapy in my future). my nurse, Ceile (prounced kay-lee), suggested i try to labor on my hands in knees, which actually felt much better than just laying on my back in the bed. we shut off the lights, i put my headphones on, and just tried to breathe through each contraction. she then added in a big excercise ball under my belly in the bed that i would roll around on to try to move the head into a different position and off of my spine. although it felt good (well, better) to do this, i called for an epidural around 1am. i felt one contraction in my lower abdomen and not in my back right before anesthesia got there, so i feel like i had succeeded in moving her around, but still opted for the meds. sweet relief. thanks modern medicine!
once the epidural was in place, they had a lot of issues getting my already low blood pressure to stay up (baseline throughout the night was 100/60, with the epidural i was dropping into the high 80s/40s. lots of fluids and adjusting the level of the epidural, as well as moving into different positions and we were finally good to go. baby seemed ok throughout it all, and i was left to try to get some rest while they upped the pitocin. i wasnt able to "sleep" much, but i rested, had my music on, played candy crush, texted a few people i knew were awake in the middle of the night and just waited to see what was going to happen next (spoiler alert: have a baby! shocking, right?) i did manage to fall asleep for a tiny bit of time, and the doctor came in at 5am and tapped me on the arm asking if she could check me for more dilation. i wasnt even fully awake when she said "well, are you ready to have a baby right now?"
huh?
ty jumped up off of the bench he was sleeping on. i was trying to wrap my head around what she had just said. all the lights came on, two more doctors and nurses came in. my bed was starting to be broken down. im going to have a baby on this shift? the sun isnt even up yet. but ok, yeah, bring it on. i think. it just all happened so fast. i needed to wake up.
once they got all set up i started pushing and after the first set i asked what time it was. throughout the night and during the set up the doctors had been talking about me running marathons and my 26.2 tattoo, and we joked about wanting to get a "pushing PR" (i had started pushing with henry at 1:30pm and had him at 1:52pm... they told me i started pushing at 5:25am here). ok, lets go! everything basically went exactly the same as it had with henry, i could feel when contractions were starting and was able to get into position and get in three strong 10 or so seconds of pushing. i cannot imagine having to push for hours on end, its truly a difficult and exhausting effort. i could barely catch my breath in between the three pushes, and then the contractions would come closer and closer together giving even less recovery time before it started again. i equated this all to being on the treadmill or track with interval speedwork. my doctors laughed at me. they didnt seem to understand my correlation, but it all worked for me.
im not sure how many sets of pushing i had gone through, but i just kept waiting for them to say "this is the last one". that finally came, i pushed and they helped guide her head out, and with one final contraction i was able to reach down and pull her body the rest of the way out. eleanor was finally here, and she was so small! definitely not 8 or 9 lbs, thankfully. she was also a better color than henry and was breathing and crying (both good things!) and i pulled her up to my chest and had our first snuggles. i looked up at ty and we both were just like what the hell just happened, werent we just asleep?! (also sadly i missed my pushing PR by 6 mins). but regardless here she was, and she was perfect.
i remember feeling like the stork had brought henry when i delivered him; it all seemed to go so smooth (although really long) with his labor and delivery. i feel that way again this time, and i know i am lucky for that. i basically felt like i was recovering from a tough marathon the next day or two and pretty much feel back to normal now (just tired and i know that wont change forever). i ran and exercised more/longer in this pregnancy than i did with henry, which i am confident helped with every aspect of labor, delivery and recovery. i gained the exact same weight as i did with henry (34 lbs... yay for bagels every day) but carried it very differently in my body this time around. henry was 2 oz lighter and half an inch shorter, and i might be biased but they are both perfect and awesome and super cute (and super stinky!).
welcome to the world, little one.
Better luck on the PR next time.
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