Wednesday morning at 2 am I got up to go to the bathroom and we thought my water had broken. Either that or I peed my pants. Ha! I called the emergency line and they said to come on to the hospital. I wasn't having contractions or anything so I wasn't sure that was what happened. I took time to take a shower and we had to pack the hospital bag. Yeah, we were slackers! So we got to the hospital about 4:30 or so, got checked and I was dilated to 2 cm and my water had NOT broken. While being monitored I started having contractions that weren't very strong but I could see them on the monitor. At that point I knew what contractions felt like. We were sent home. I had a big report to get finished so I went up to work and Chris headed to school. During the day, I was still having dull contractions that would come and go. Wednesday afternoon we had our last baby shower at McNair, and it was a great shower! We got tons of stuff. We got home, and I spent some time trying to unpack and organize the new stuff. We went to church that night at 7, and we were home and ready for bed by 8:30 since we were running on little sleep. I fell asleep about 9, and contractions had started again but I was able to sleep for about an hour and a half. At 10:30 I was awakened by stronger ones that I could no longer sleep through. I watched the clock for about an hour trying to time them and they were getting consistently stronger. I got in the shower at 11:30 and went into the living room to try and get comfy. Not possible. Contractions were getting stronger. They were between 2 and 4 minutest apart. I finally woke Chris up at 1:00 am, and we got ready to go back to the hospital. By 2:30 we were in the ER, we found out that my water had broken at some point (or so they said...I think I was maybe slowly leaking a little fluid) and I was dilated to 4 cm. By this point, the contractions were really bad and they were all in my back. OUCH!!!!!! We were sent to a labor/delivery room and at this point, my tracking the timing of events becomes hazy. They put a call in the for the anesthesiologist who finally showed up. YAY!!! Well, it turned out that was a painful procedure. I had to lay on my right side while he put the epidural in. After he poked a bit (all the while I am having awful back labor), he said 'You have a difficult back.' I said, 'meaning?' He said, 'meaning, I don't know, you have a difficult back.' Nice. Eventually he thought he got it right, and thankfully he did. The pain subsided completely and I was able to relax. For all those who haven't had babies yet, epidurals are a god-send!!!!!!!! I seriously don't know how women give birth without them. The rest of the time I watched the contraction monitor get bigger and I kept saying thank goodness I can't feel those. Anyway, I kinda got hung up at 4 cm and they decided to start pitocin to move things along. I can't remember what time that was but I went from 4 cm to 9 cm really fast. I didn't think my parents were going to make it here. By 9:00 am I was fully dilated, but they decided to let me 'labor down' to allow her head to move down further. At 10:45 am they came in and said I was going to start pushing at 10 after 11. By this point my parents had made it up here and of course, Chris' parents were here, too. I started pushing at 11:15 am and once again, thank goodness I couldn't feel anything but pressure. Things started out a little slow; she wasn't moving down too fast. Then all of a sudden my pushes were better and she even started to slide out when I wasn't pushing. The doctor came in (he is the husband of my regular doctor and we actually really like him...he's the one I saw at my appointment on Monday), I pushed a little more, and Sara Kate was born at 11:57 am. 10 fingers, 10 toes, and yep, definitely a girl. Chris opted not to cut the cord, and actually, the doctor had to do it before she was out all the way because it was all wrapped up. They took her to the warmer to get her cleaned up and Chris went with her with the camera (of course!). She scored an 8 and 9 on her Apgar scores (I think that's right)...not bad! She weighed 7 lb., 2 oz., and was 20 inches long (my mom said that's exactly how big I was when I was born). I ended up with a 2nd degree tear...turned out after he head was out, Dr. Hix was sliding her out and she stuck her hand through early and it caused a little tear. Once again, glad I could feel nothing!! I got stitched up, Chris brought her to me, and we just stared at her. Our beautiful baby girl. All I could think was thank you God for this little blessing. I tried to feed her pretty quickly and then we let the all the grandparents come meet her. They took her to the nursery after about 2 hours and I was taken to a post-delivery room around 4 pm or so. Our first night with her went alright. She actually let us sleep from 1:30 am to 5:30 am straight. That was great, especially since we were both running on very little sleep. Friday morning we met with the pediatrician and he said that everything looked great with the baby, and he would release her as soon as I was released. The doctor came in and saw me around 1 pm, and said I was good to go. Before we left, the lactation consultant came in for a feeding and she was really helpful and reassured me that I was in fact doing things right. We headed home about 3:30 pm! We are doing good here at home. Last night was a little rough...Sara Kate was up every couple of hours and had some gas which made her fussy for a while. Today we gave her her first bath at home, which she HATED!! She hates to be naked, including when we change her clothes. So she screamed while I wiped her down and then she calmed down once she was wrapped up again. She's asleep now with her Grandmother Greer, and I couldn't be happier that my parents are here to help out. I need to go feed her soon so I'll wrap this up with some pictures!
Headed home!
I am in love with this picture....beautiful little face looking up at mama.
She's so pretty!!! I'm so excited for y'all!!
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