I feel like this is long overdue, so here it goes! Hoping I can remember enough of the details after 7 weeks of interrupted sleep ;)
Friday, June 29, 2012: When it all began...
Ironically enough, the day started out around 9am when I rolled out of bed. I remember being surprised I slept in, since by this time pregnancy insomnia had been lingering around for quite a few weeks. I distinctly remember how my day started- with a lovely skype call from my friend Chelsea in Asia. She is currently serving at an orphanage taking care of some precious little ones on the other side of the world. We had a lovely talk, catching up and chatting. The rest of the morning I spent getting a few things done around the house, a little laundry and some cleaning. Patrick got off work early and came home around lunch time. He was craving PF Chang's and so we decided to go out for a late lunch date and then hit up the mall. We had a great time at lunch and I ordered my all time favorite, Kung Pao Chicken. It is considered a "spicy" dish, but that day it was pretty mild. I do remember feeling a little weird at lunch, but no distinguishable contractions at this point. After we were done, we ventured over to the mall and did some shopping, visited Starbuck's, and just enjoyed wandering around. We came home a few hours later and I dropped Patrick off and continued on to run some errands. I don't remember at all where I ran errands that day. All I remember was that I was super hot and worn out by the time I got home. The rest of the evening we spent at home. I had my PF Chang's leftovers for dinner (which were a lot spicier at this point) and we just relaxed. Around 8:30pm, we went on an evening walk with Watson around our apartment complex. We only walked for 15-20 minutes or so, not even very long, but on the final stretch of our walk I remember feeling what felt like a contraction. I had experienced some Braxton Hicks contractions before, but this one was different because it was accompanied by some pressure in my lower back. So while it was still early, I had a feeling this was the real deal. I told Patrick and he immediately looked at his watch so he would know and be able to time them if there was another. And sure enough, around 20 minutes later I had another. By this time we were finished with our walk and inside. I remember doing a few things around the kitchen and feeling a few more around 15- 20 minutes apart. Around 10pm, Patrick went on to bed to get a little sleep. He had an early morning that day and decided to try and get a couple hours in him just in case. I got comfy on the couch and watched Date Line and texted with my mom and sisters. By this point, I think the contractions were coming every 8-10 minutes. From around 10pm-12am, the contractions continued to get closer together. By around 12am, I woke up Patrick because I was having a much harder time focusing and timing the contractions. I knew they were getting closer to every 5 minutes and the intensity was picking up. With much persuading and insistence, he finally got out of bed. The poor guy was exhausted, but I convinced him that I thought it was really happening. Sometime around midnight we also called LaReese, our labor doula. I let her know what was going on and told her we would call back in a little while. This is when the contractions started becoming a lot more painful and intense, and it starts to get a little foggy for me as far as details. I remember Patrick called LaReese back sometime within an hour of our first call and told her they were 3-5 minutes apart. She headed our way and got to our house sometime around 1:00am-1:30am. We continued laboring at home in the living room. I laid down on my side some in the beginning. Then I remember sitting in a chair for some of the contractions. A few more I endured by standing up and leaning on Patrick. The pain was really starting to come and I was less and less talkative by this point. Sometime around 4am, I remember asking LaReese when we should go to the hospital. I then went to the restroom and while I was in there, she told Patrick to get a little trashcan with a bag in it to take with us in the car in case I got sick. Immediately after I came out of the restroom, it hit me, and I ran to the trashcan that was over by the door and well, you know what happened next... at this point we knew it was time to go to the hospital! The car ride wasn't bad. I think I got sick another time or two, but the pain wasn't unbearable at this point. And luckily, the hospital is just down the road from us about 10 minutes.
We arrived at the hospital and made our way to Labor and Delivery and got admitted sometime around 5am. They took me into a delivery room. I remember that they had to hook me up to the monitors initially to make sure Ellie and I were doing ok (ugh, I hated being connected to the monitors). They checked me and at this point I had dilated to 4-5 cm. My memory during the rest of the contractions is pretty hazy. I do remember not liking the first L&D nurse we had. I also remember the MILLIONS of papers that we had to fill out... poor Patrick! The nurses kept coming in and asking if he had finished them. LOL. But a lot of the questions he had to ask me in order to answer and let me tell you- that was the LAST THING I cared about while I was in labor!! I was not a happy camper about this. Like I said, poor Patrick... The nurses were bugging him to finish, but every time he would try to ask me a question I would snap at him. Eventually he was able to get those finished... thank the Lord! That was terrible. Anyway, at 7am a new nurse came in named Andrea and she was amazing! Since Ellie and I were both doing good, they allowed us to only have intermittent monitoring. Thank the Lord for that too! By this point, I was in a ton of pain and didn't want to get up much or walk around. I ended up sitting at the end of the bed with Patrick in a chair facing me. For the most intense contractions, I would hold onto this forearms and lean back and this would help relieve some of the pressure that was low in my abdomen. For some reason, this was the only way I could get through contractions. This was nothing we practiced and honestly, a strange position, but I just listened to my body and did the only thing that seemed to ease some of the pain.
Like I said, a lot of the details are very hazy. The pain was very intense, and just like they say, I would almost fall asleep in between the contractions. I never understood how women could fall asleep since the contractions are close together at this point. But my body was so tired at this point that I did manage to get into quite a deep sleep almost immediately when the contractions would die down. Some of the contractions would come on top of each other (with no break in-between) and those were terrible. So all in all, the contractions were the hardest and most painful part for me. But thank goodness Ellie was wonderful during all of this! She continued to progress perfectly. By the time I was 7cm dilated, I wanted to start pushing. I just remember hating that feeling of wanting to push but having to hold back. Finally, they checked me again and I was at 9cm dilated. I remember at this point Andrea told me that she would be back to check again in 30 minutes. When she came back to check, she said it was time and she went to get the doctor.
The doctor came in and they wheeled in all the stuff to get ready to deliver. It was all so surreal at this point. I could not believe we were really about to have a baby! Next came the pushing part at about 10:30am... HA. I was so tired by this point and being that this was my first baby,,, I had NO IDEA what I was doing! I am pretty sure for the first hour of pushing I was doing it wrong. I remember thinking I was never going to figure it out! I kept pushing forward with my legs instead of relaxing them. For some reason, this was the hardest concept for me. After pushing for the first hour, the nurses had me try another position to push from. They raised the back of the bed and had me turn around to face it. I leaned on the back of the bed and did a semi-squat. I pushed like this for about 20 minutes. At that point, I told them I was so tired I wanted to go back to the other way of pushing (on my back). After I turned around and they checked on Ellie, they were all shocked with the progress! They said she would be here soon! After that, she was ready to come and with just a few more pushes my sweet baby girl made her grand appearance! The cord was loosely around here neck and they had seen some meconium, so they had to take her immediately and suction out her airway. Everything turned out to be fine and she started crying just like normal!
I really cannot even explain the amazing feeling that completely overtook me at this point. The sudden rush of endorphins after birthing a child is amazing and unexplainable. And it really does help the memory of the pain you just endured fade away! Even though I wasn't able to hold my little girl for quite awhile, I was sobbing tears of joy and thanking everyone who had helped us bring her into the world! Patrick was amazing, our doctor and nurse, Andrea, were phenomenal, and my doula was wonderful as well! We couldn't have asked for a better team of people! Ellie was born at 12:16pm on Saturday, June 30, 2012. She weighed 7 lbs and 3 oz. and was 20 inches long. Our first experience with a natural delivery was more perfect than we could've ever imagined. The Lord definitely was with us every step of the way!
And PS,... If I can make it through a natural/med-free labor, anyone can :)
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| Our Precious Eliza Grace |
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| Proud Dad |
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| Ellie and our Doula, LaReese |
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| Leaving the hospital as a family of 3! |
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| Finally Home :) |
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| Our little blessing |
