Okay so I should probably be put in blog prison, cause I haven't posted anything in forever. But I think I have a solution to redeem myself and get off with only a few months probation. I'm going to tell you all about the newest addition our family, baby Hannah and what's gone down in the past 3 days.
For starters, the last leg of my pregnancy I was just exhausted all the time, my legs and lower back were horribly swollen and it was a real chore to walk around and do things, so I was pretty ready to do this birth thing and just get it over with. Last Tuesday at our Dr's apt I expressed my strong desire to get this over with and after letting the Dr know that a C-section did not scare me, however I know it's not ideal, I pretty much begged him to induce on Monday (I figured that was cool, cause it was 2 days after Hannah's due date) he said that he'd be out of the office that day and asked if Tuesday (2-2) worked, I was of course elated and did a little happy dance after he left the room. We went to the nurses station and got the hospital info and it said we'd have to be at the hospital between 5:30-6:00am!
So, we waited and hoped and prayed that Baby Hannah might decide to pop out over the weekend. Unfortunately, she didn't come over the weekend so we had to settle for the early morning induction on Tuesday. I rested for most of Monday, but I couldn't stay asleep for more than 3 hours, because my bladder was the size of a walnut and I was just incredibly thirsty all the time. Elliott came home from work and we went to Wal-Mart, ate Subway, and picked up snacks, so that we could have good stuff to eat at the hospital and so Ell could have food and drink while I was in labor. After coming home we laid down and went to sleep. I didn't get more than about 2 hours before having to go to the restroom. After that I rested and watched several hours of "How it's Made" on the Science Channel. Then around 2 got up and showered before waking Elliott up. He showered and then we got stuff around, made sure Tiger would have enough food and water for a few days and left around 4 for the hospital.
I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything past midnight, but we stopped at McDonald's on 30th in Hutch so Ell could have some breakfast. Once getting to the hospital I had to put on a darn robe and get stuck by a thousand needles and get an IV and get hooked up to a baby heartbeat/contraction monitor. The Dr came in for a few minutes, started me on Pitocin, broke my water and said "Okay, call me when the show starts, it's a great day to have a baby." so we waited for a little while for something to happen, not even 10 minutes later I started having contractions, they stayed about 2 minutes apart lasting anywhere from 45 to 60 seconds and that lasted for about 30minutes and I was ready for drugs. Because we had to get Dr's orders for any kind of anything I had to wait another hour for Stadol and I had to tough it out for a couple of hours before I got an epidural. I think it was like 9:30-10ish when I finally got my epidural, which was awesome! They locally numbed my back and put a little catheter in the epidural space between my spine and spinal cord, then hooked me up to a pump thing that had a little button on it that I could push when I felt pain, but it would lock me out if I pushed it more than 2 times in a half-hour. Once it started working I felt like running through the halls. It also gave Elliott's hand a chance to regain color and blood supply. I sent him for some fresh air and to move the car around from the ER and to bring in the diaper bag and anything else we'd left in the car. I could still feel pressure during some of the really strong contractions, but other than that I felt pretty darn good and when I did feel a lot of pressure and what not it was a lot easier to breathe. My blood pressure was through the roof the whole time, especially when the cuff went off during a contraction.
Around 11:45 they checked me, and thanks to me naturally relaxing and breathing better I had almost fully dilated and they started getting stuff ready. At this point I was starting to feel some pain again, even though I was pretty much maxed out on my epidural stuff. So, Elliott's hand got another work-out. At pretty much the nurses called Dr. Cullen and he said he was in with a patient over at the Clinic and to wait 10 minutes and then start to push. So that's what we did and after about 30 minutes he showed up and was shocked on the progress I'd made and figured it'd all be over in 30 minutes or less. He was right, 15 minutes later at 12:57pm on Tuesday February 2nd, Baby Hannah came into the world and let us all know she had a set of lungs on her. Elliott cut the cord and followed one of the nurses and the baby over to the warmer to clean her up (there was no way they were setting that kid on me before she was cleaned up). Elliott had called my mom a little after noon and let her know to get to the hospital, cause I was freaking out and she got there soon after I'd finally been all cleaned up.
We had lots of visitors and I hadn't had really any rest in over 16 hours and at 7pm-ish we finally got our "Celebration Dinner" and I was done with guests. For our baby Celebration dinner Elliott and I got 12oz KC Strip steaks, baked potatoes, mixed veggies and I got triple chocolate cake and Elliott got cheesecake. They wheeled it all in on a table with a center piece, table cloth and water goblets. During dinner I guess almost everyone and their dog showed up to see Hannah and Elliott was nice enough to get up from his dinner to take baby Hannah out and show her off. The first night wasn't too fussy, but neither Ell nor I got much rest at all. I was having lots of back pain and my feet had severely swollen and I needed assistance for just about everything.
Wednesday morning one of the lab gals came in and stuck me at 5am and soon after Dr. Davidson (My family doctor and Hannah's doctor) checked her over and said she was one of the healthiest and cutest baby's he'd ever seen and that whenever I was dismissed Hannah could go with us. Not long after that Dr. Cullen came by and checked me to make sure everything was healing normally. He told me that my hemoglobin was down from what they'd really like it and that they'd check it again in a few hours and if it was just a bad screen I could go home. Well unfortunately it only came up .8 so they told me to just "hang out" for the day cause I'd already been pre-approved by our insurance to stay another day, so we did. At around 1pm I was lucky enough to get a 30 minute massage, the birthing center has a massage therapist on staff for mom's who've given birth. Hannah slept most of Wednesday, and gradually started eating better (2oz feedings). We had a few visitors and were able to get a little more rest. That night she slept better and Ell and I were able to get better rest.
The Dr gave me the OK to go home around 5:30am and we were told whenever we were ready that we were good to go. I let Elliott sleep for a few hours before getting him up. We left the hospital at around 11:30ish and drove to Sterling to stop at Mom and Frank's so I could use the restroom and so we could change Hannah. Good thing we did cause she had a really poopy diaper. After a while we finished the rest of our journey home and introduced Tiger and Hannah at about 3pm. I laid down with Hannah and got her to sleep before my mom came by to help us out for a few hours.
Thursday night (last night) was not a good night and I became just as cranky and emotional as the baby, but I'm lucky enough to have the greatest husband in the world and he stepped up and took over primary Hannah care so I could get some sleep because I was still in pain. I slept on and off for a good portion of the day and this evening I was able to get some laundry done. Nancy (Ell's mom) brought pizza over and even helped with a feeding. Later on Pastor Tom came by for a while and they left after a couple of hours. Then Ell and I gave Hannah a washcloth bath and laid her down for the night. She's been up once since then for a feeding and she's been asleep for a few hours now and Elliott is sleeping in the living room with her and I'm fixing to head to bed now. I'll try and be better about writing on here so you can have a better idea of what's going on at our house and so I don't end up violating my blog probation. :P
For starters, the last leg of my pregnancy I was just exhausted all the time, my legs and lower back were horribly swollen and it was a real chore to walk around and do things, so I was pretty ready to do this birth thing and just get it over with. Last Tuesday at our Dr's apt I expressed my strong desire to get this over with and after letting the Dr know that a C-section did not scare me, however I know it's not ideal, I pretty much begged him to induce on Monday (I figured that was cool, cause it was 2 days after Hannah's due date) he said that he'd be out of the office that day and asked if Tuesday (2-2) worked, I was of course elated and did a little happy dance after he left the room. We went to the nurses station and got the hospital info and it said we'd have to be at the hospital between 5:30-6:00am!
So, we waited and hoped and prayed that Baby Hannah might decide to pop out over the weekend. Unfortunately, she didn't come over the weekend so we had to settle for the early morning induction on Tuesday. I rested for most of Monday, but I couldn't stay asleep for more than 3 hours, because my bladder was the size of a walnut and I was just incredibly thirsty all the time. Elliott came home from work and we went to Wal-Mart, ate Subway, and picked up snacks, so that we could have good stuff to eat at the hospital and so Ell could have food and drink while I was in labor. After coming home we laid down and went to sleep. I didn't get more than about 2 hours before having to go to the restroom. After that I rested and watched several hours of "How it's Made" on the Science Channel. Then around 2 got up and showered before waking Elliott up. He showered and then we got stuff around, made sure Tiger would have enough food and water for a few days and left around 4 for the hospital.
I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything past midnight, but we stopped at McDonald's on 30th in Hutch so Ell could have some breakfast. Once getting to the hospital I had to put on a darn robe and get stuck by a thousand needles and get an IV and get hooked up to a baby heartbeat/contraction monitor. The Dr came in for a few minutes, started me on Pitocin, broke my water and said "Okay, call me when the show starts, it's a great day to have a baby." so we waited for a little while for something to happen, not even 10 minutes later I started having contractions, they stayed about 2 minutes apart lasting anywhere from 45 to 60 seconds and that lasted for about 30minutes and I was ready for drugs. Because we had to get Dr's orders for any kind of anything I had to wait another hour for Stadol and I had to tough it out for a couple of hours before I got an epidural. I think it was like 9:30-10ish when I finally got my epidural, which was awesome! They locally numbed my back and put a little catheter in the epidural space between my spine and spinal cord, then hooked me up to a pump thing that had a little button on it that I could push when I felt pain, but it would lock me out if I pushed it more than 2 times in a half-hour. Once it started working I felt like running through the halls. It also gave Elliott's hand a chance to regain color and blood supply. I sent him for some fresh air and to move the car around from the ER and to bring in the diaper bag and anything else we'd left in the car. I could still feel pressure during some of the really strong contractions, but other than that I felt pretty darn good and when I did feel a lot of pressure and what not it was a lot easier to breathe. My blood pressure was through the roof the whole time, especially when the cuff went off during a contraction.
Around 11:45 they checked me, and thanks to me naturally relaxing and breathing better I had almost fully dilated and they started getting stuff ready. At this point I was starting to feel some pain again, even though I was pretty much maxed out on my epidural stuff. So, Elliott's hand got another work-out. At pretty much the nurses called Dr. Cullen and he said he was in with a patient over at the Clinic and to wait 10 minutes and then start to push. So that's what we did and after about 30 minutes he showed up and was shocked on the progress I'd made and figured it'd all be over in 30 minutes or less. He was right, 15 minutes later at 12:57pm on Tuesday February 2nd, Baby Hannah came into the world and let us all know she had a set of lungs on her. Elliott cut the cord and followed one of the nurses and the baby over to the warmer to clean her up (there was no way they were setting that kid on me before she was cleaned up). Elliott had called my mom a little after noon and let her know to get to the hospital, cause I was freaking out and she got there soon after I'd finally been all cleaned up.
We had lots of visitors and I hadn't had really any rest in over 16 hours and at 7pm-ish we finally got our "Celebration Dinner" and I was done with guests. For our baby Celebration dinner Elliott and I got 12oz KC Strip steaks, baked potatoes, mixed veggies and I got triple chocolate cake and Elliott got cheesecake. They wheeled it all in on a table with a center piece, table cloth and water goblets. During dinner I guess almost everyone and their dog showed up to see Hannah and Elliott was nice enough to get up from his dinner to take baby Hannah out and show her off. The first night wasn't too fussy, but neither Ell nor I got much rest at all. I was having lots of back pain and my feet had severely swollen and I needed assistance for just about everything.
Wednesday morning one of the lab gals came in and stuck me at 5am and soon after Dr. Davidson (My family doctor and Hannah's doctor) checked her over and said she was one of the healthiest and cutest baby's he'd ever seen and that whenever I was dismissed Hannah could go with us. Not long after that Dr. Cullen came by and checked me to make sure everything was healing normally. He told me that my hemoglobin was down from what they'd really like it and that they'd check it again in a few hours and if it was just a bad screen I could go home. Well unfortunately it only came up .8 so they told me to just "hang out" for the day cause I'd already been pre-approved by our insurance to stay another day, so we did. At around 1pm I was lucky enough to get a 30 minute massage, the birthing center has a massage therapist on staff for mom's who've given birth. Hannah slept most of Wednesday, and gradually started eating better (2oz feedings). We had a few visitors and were able to get a little more rest. That night she slept better and Ell and I were able to get better rest.
The Dr gave me the OK to go home around 5:30am and we were told whenever we were ready that we were good to go. I let Elliott sleep for a few hours before getting him up. We left the hospital at around 11:30ish and drove to Sterling to stop at Mom and Frank's so I could use the restroom and so we could change Hannah. Good thing we did cause she had a really poopy diaper. After a while we finished the rest of our journey home and introduced Tiger and Hannah at about 3pm. I laid down with Hannah and got her to sleep before my mom came by to help us out for a few hours.
Thursday night (last night) was not a good night and I became just as cranky and emotional as the baby, but I'm lucky enough to have the greatest husband in the world and he stepped up and took over primary Hannah care so I could get some sleep because I was still in pain. I slept on and off for a good portion of the day and this evening I was able to get some laundry done. Nancy (Ell's mom) brought pizza over and even helped with a feeding. Later on Pastor Tom came by for a while and they left after a couple of hours. Then Ell and I gave Hannah a washcloth bath and laid her down for the night. She's been up once since then for a feeding and she's been asleep for a few hours now and Elliott is sleeping in the living room with her and I'm fixing to head to bed now. I'll try and be better about writing on here so you can have a better idea of what's going on at our house and so I don't end up violating my blog probation. :P
