How it all went down

This post has been in the works for a while...

Some of you may not find this post too interesting. It will be lengthy and probably not have a ton of pics. I promise it won't be too graphic!

So my due date was November 18. From the beginning of my pregnancy I tried to not let that day get too stuck in my head for when baby will be here. I was pretty sure the date was accurate since I was tracking my cycles and we were trying to get pregnant -  Bailey was no accident :) I know a lot of pregnancies, especially first pregnancies, go past their due date so it's not in my personality to add unneeded stress to my life like concentrating on a date.



Sorry for the horrid picture!



Tuesday, November 13 I had started feeling a few very light contractions later that night. I was excited and hopeful that this meant it was almost time for baby to arrive! I only got about 2-3 hours of sleep that night. I was just thinking about the baby coming and I couldn't get it out of my head that it was almost time.

Wednesday, November 14 when I woke up I didn't feel any contractions but honestly didn't feel like going to work. I just was nervous that I could start going into labor while at work and it really freaked me out, not to mention the lack of sleep. I called my boss and told her that I had felt the contractions the night before and was going to stay home. No problem and she wished me luck and told me to keep moving to help with labor. Chris debated going to work that day, but I told him to go since I hadn't felt anything by the time he left at 10:30. He constantly was checking in with me to which I had to report nothing was going on. That afternoon, I went for a 1.84 mile walk outside. I went later in the afternoon so when I walked by our neighborhood's school bus stop all of the moms saw a 9 month preggo lady walking in mid-November I'm pretty sure they knew what I was up to :)

Bailey's first kisses from the monkeys!
This pic was taken about a week before I had Bailey. Yep, I got stretch marks (and still have them).  I hope someday they will go away or at least fade, but for now they're just a little reminder of the journey I went on :) Also, sorry about the crazy bra...that's all they had at Target and the girls needed a new home, if you know what I'm sayin'

I had my regularly-scheduled weekly doctor's appt at 4 that day (Wednesday, Nov 14). Chris went with me and I told the doctor that I had some concerns for preeclampsia (I almost went in the weekend before due to my high bp levels, seeing spots (visually) and feeling a little light-headed). She did the regular check-up (tummy check and listened to the heartbeat), then she asked if I wanted my membranes stripped and I said yes. She had me check in upstairs in labor and delivery so they could monitor me and Bailey and take blood for testing. Chris and I sat in a room from 5-7 that night while they monitored me and everything came back fine. I felt kind of dumb like I was imagining things and I really didn't want to go back to work the next day. We headed over to Chipotle for dinner and our friends Pete & Megan were there so we sat and had dinner with them. Megan's due in Feb so it was a lot of baby talk :) We got home just after 8 and watched a TV show or two. I went to bed at 9 and fell asleep pretty quickly dreading my wake-up for work the next morning. Chris was downstairs (2 levels down) watching the Timberwolves game.

I woke up at 10pm feeling pretty groggy. Looked at the clock and all of a sudden there was water gushing out of me. I was a little scared/shocked/elated! I quickly grabbed my cellphone and called Chris to tell him the good news that my water broke! He was excited and came running upstairs. I made my way to the bathroom to try and let the water drain out of me. Seriously, so much freaking water! Like, I had no clue there would be that much water. We scurried around and grabbed all of the extra crap we were hauling to the hospital with us. We left for the hospital around 11 that night. I felt so terrible leaving Oscar and Kirby there in the middle of the night (I turned a couple lights on for them). We had asked Chris's mom to watch them while we were at the hospital, but didn't really want to call her at 11pm to come get them so we decided they would be fine until the morning and we would call her then to let her know the situation.

When we got to the hospital, we got all checked in and made our way upstairs to labor and delivery (where we were just a few hours earlier). Chris pushed me up in a wheelchair since I was still leaking water and my contractions were in full effect. I had no idea what contractions would feel like. Watching the videos for our classes we took, I remember commenting to Chris that all of the women looked so miserable in them. Ok, I get it now. They hurt - bad! I feel that I'm pretty tolerable to pain, but not that much pain!

Our first nurse, Deb, was so incredibly nice. If I could request a nurse for all of my friends/family it would be her. We were in the triage room for about an hour-hour and a half while she updated my paperwork from before. While I was in there, I was having quite a few contractions and feeling very uncomfortable. I even started puking while having contractions - yuck! I probably puked about 10-12 times through my whole labor process. Puking up my extra spicy Chipotle dinner was not fun! I chose spicy to try and induce labor - good/bad choice :)

Nurse Deb and me

Then we moved to our spacious delivery room. I was still having my contractions about every 5 minutes which meant that I would wake up every 5ish minutes so I was getting no sleep (and neither was Chris). The contractions kept getting worse and I was in a lot of pain with no sleep. The nurse offered to give me another round of a pain med (not an epidural) and asked if I wanted to try the birthing ball. I got out of bed and gave it a shot, but honestly I felt like I was in more pain once I got on the ball. I told her I wanted the epidural at that point. I was dilated to 5cm when I got my epidural so I made it half ways there :)

My epidural went amazingly well. Nurse Deb stood in front of me holding my hands while the guy administering it was behind me. I hardly felt a thing and it took really, really well. Shortly after my epidural Deb's shift was over and we met our new nurse Kari, who was also such a nice lady. It was weird once I got the epidural, I just kind of sat in the bed and waited for things to progress. Kari would continually check on us and we got some rest. Finally, she decided to see how far dilated I was for the first time since I got the epidural and I had dilated all the way to 10 which shocked all of us. She said it was time to get ready to start pushing and she called my doctor (who was at home still) to see if she wanted to come in for the delivery. She did end up coming in and delivering Bailey (which I was happy she was able to!).

Nurse Kari and me

I just remember the whole time I was in active labor (pushing) that my "focal point" was the TV on the wall. I don't quite remember what was on (I think the news or a morning show of some sort) but I felt weird watching TV while giving birth to my daughter. Chris didn't have intentions of watching the birth (and I didn't blame him or care either way, really) but he ended up taking my one leg (the right one) and saw the whole thing take place. I asked him after everything was done if we was happy that he had watched it and he said he was and that the experience was something he would never forget. I remember during and after each time I pushed how much support/cheering/chanting nurse Kari, Chris and my doctor were doing, which was so encouraging during the whole process.

I was lucky and literally felt nothing at all. I was completely numb and could feel the contractions, but no pain. I could just feel pressure from her coming down (such a weird feeling). I tore just a little bit so the doctor had to do some stitches when I was done.

Once Bailey was out, it was a huge weight of emotions letting go all at once. I couldn't even talk for about 2 minutes because I knew I was just going to burst into tears and be a babbling mess of words. It was such a precious moment in time that Chris and I will never forget. He has a video from when she came out (side view so you don't see my business) and me seeing her for the first time and getting her cleaned up and skin to skin and the height/weight check. I love watching it and it brings me back to that morning.

Me and Bailey doing skin to skin right after birth

Chris and I got to sit in the room for a while after I was all stitched and all of the documents had been filled out. He did some skin to skin with Bailey which was so fun to witness his pure joy! After about an hour or so, they had to move us to a different room where we would be for the next 2 days (booooo!). I still couldn't feel my legs from the epidural so they had to lift me into a wheel chair. It took about 2-3 hours for my epidural to completely wear off. We had some family visit us later that day and on Friday we didn't have any visitors, just family time to recover and try to get some rest which was much needed!

Chris doing skin to skin with baby Bailey

                                 


The recovery - I feel like I recovered from the delivery very well. My pain level was so low from the get go. I had more pain in my back from the stupid hospital bed than I had from birthing Bailey. I was able to move around very well when we got home, which was a good thing since Chris was very busy with work. I have officially made it back to my pre-pregnancy weight. I will say my weight in numbers is there, but my body is not. I have some work to do in the toning department and honestly wouldn't mind losing a few extra pounds :) I'm not putting pressure on myself, I just want to be happy and if that means carrying a few extra pounds (that I'd like to lose) for a while, than so be it.

Hope you enjoyed reading if you made it all the way through, haha!