O.k. this blog is a little past due, but I am sure my "readers" (which I am pretty sure are only two people), completely understand.
Alexis Grace was born on Feb 21st @ 6:38pm. This is an extra special day, because she now also shares the same birthday as her daddy. Although he was not too thrilled with the idea at 1st, I think he has come to terms with it. It's not like you really get a birthday anymore, once you reach a certain age - and he is WELL past that age :).
The last month of pregnancy was a little rough. I was very uncomfortable, and was having contractions off and on. We actually went to the hospital twice thinking we were in labor, only to find that I was just having contractions but not any more progressed than I had been. This was very frustrating to me, because I had a previous C-section, and we wanted to try for a "regular" delivery this time. The only way to actually do that would be if I was in "progressive" labor on my own. There was nothing they could do to help put me in labor, because it could cause serious problems.
Each week I went back to the doctor, and there was no change, not to mention the pain of her having to check, because Alexis' head was in the way, and my cervix was "post terior." Not a good combination.
Sunday, Feb 21st, I started having contractions, in fact, I had some during the night that were strong enough to wake me up. For those of you that don't know me very well, I could sleep through just about anything, so the fact that they were waking me up meant they were stronger than normal.
Around 12:00, they were about 3-4 minutes apart. We watched them for the next couple of hours, and my husband even attempted to take a nap. The pain was harder than labor pain was with my daughter, but we also didn't want to go to the hospital and be sent home again. We had a C-section scheduled for 2 days later, if we did not have her already. About an hour later, they started getting closer. There was a constant "pressure", but strong pains around 2-3 minutes apart. I decided to call my doctor.
My doctor was not on call that day, but the girls in the office had told me to leave her a message and she would call me back. The message sounded something like this...."I have been having contractions for the past few hours 3-4 min apart, and now they are more 2-3 min apart. I don't really know what to do, I don't want to go to the hospital and be sent home. Can you please call me back?" (with tears in my voice too). Thirty minutes later, no call - so I called the doctor on call.
The answering service answered the phone, and I started to tell her about my contractions; she proceeded to put me on hold. I was SO UPSET. I just really felt like no one cared at that point. Not to mention that my husband had called his mom around 12ish to see if she wanted to come spend the day with us and have dinner for his birthday, and be there just in case we needed to go to the hospital. By this point, it was around 3pm and she was still not there.
The doctor on call called me back and talked to me a bit about what was going on. He also informed me that he does not usually do VBAC deliveries, or even offer them to his patients because of the risks. I told him that at this point I didn't care how we had to get her out, I was just in a lot of pain and was ready to get her out. He told me to go a head and go to the hospital.
3:30 rolls around and Brian's mom is just down the street. We went a head and got in the car and were ready to back out of the driveway as soon as she pulled in. At this point, I was beyond frustrated. We get to the hospital - I sign in. The girl at the front desk asked if I had been there before because I knew what to do....UHHHH Just a few times!
They sent me to triage and the nurse came in to start doing her thing. She hooked me up to the monitors and started monitoring contractions. After a few minutes she came back in and started updating my chart...asking me all kinds of questions that they never asked me the other two times I had been there. She made me VERY happy when she said she was "banking on me staying." Whatever she told the doctor, it worked. He said we could go a head and plan to have the c-section in an hour - should have been around 5:30 pm......
One little problem..... I was sick earlier that week and we were not sure if it was the flu or what. I still had 2 days of the medicine she gave me, so he wanted to do a "quick" swine flu test. SERIOUSLY.....I was FINE. I was really only down for one day, no way I had the swine flu. This quick test took 30 minutes.
6:15 pm, we were ready to go. I was in the O.R., had my spinal block and was ready to begin. At this point I was VERY nervous. I don't know why, I was just anxious to hear my little baby cry. Not that I like it when babies cry, but if you have had a child, you understand that that is the most blessed noise you can hear when they 1st come out. I could feel all the tugging and pulling and then they asked my husband if he wanted to see - they had her head out. He looked over the curtain, but I still could not hear any cried. I asked the anesthesiologist if she was going to cry, and he informed me that they were sucking all the stuff out so she could. Few seconds later - there it was. One more big push on their end and they pulled her out - 6:38 pm
They took her over to get her cleaned up, cut her cord, get her stats and footprints while they finished up with me. That time seemed to take FOREVER, I just wanted to see her. They finally brought her over to me, and she was absolutely beautiful. I was so glad she was FINALLY here!!!!
Here are some pictures of my beautiful baby girl........
We came home from the hospital on Wednesday, and I have been enjoying spending time with her ever since. My recoupe time has been MUCH better than my 1st C-section. I have not really been in nearly as much pain as I was with Tyler. This is our 2nd week of Maternity leave (I am taking 8 weeks), and we are just enjoying our time together while slowing doing little projects around the house. I love being a mommy!