I Was Wrong, He Was Right

Apparently, I can go into labor on my own...In fact, I did! Late Wednesday evening, I started having painful contractions that were about 30 minutes apart, but they hurt enough that I couldn't get any sleep. Around 10:30, I went to the couch for about an hour. No change, so I went to bed. Over the next hour, the contractions started coming every 20 minutes and would wake me up they were so painful. By 1:00 a.m. (Thursday morning, 4/23), I thought I might actually be going into labor, which was ironic because I actually went to bed the night before praying to God, "Please, just let it be tonight. I'm done. I hurt. As long as the baby's healthy, I'm ready for her to come." Be careful what you ask for, huh?

At 1:15 a.m., after my contractions had started coming every 10 minutes, I drove myself to the hospital (not even a mile away), and told Hubby to wait for my call to make sure I was really in labor before calling a friend to come stay with the girls. By the time I got checked in, I was in serious pain, and there was no doubt I was in labor. When the nurse checked me, I was dilated to a 4 and 90% effaced. I called Hubby, and we had our good friend Sarah come over to stay with E. He woke H up and gave her the option of coming to the hospital. Of course, she absolutely wanted to be there! Unfortunately, it took them a while to get there. I was there for about an hour and a half before they arrived, and I was in serious pain....like Holy shit, give-me-some-drugs-NOW-pain!!! They had to get blood work done, get the IV in, blah, blah, blah. I was seriously about to lose my shit when they finally gave me the stadol, which helped me to at least relax through the contractions and rest until the anaesthesiologist arrived to give me the epidural.

Right after Hubby and H got there, I got my epidural, then the Dr. arrived. "Didn't you have an appointment today?" he asked....Uh, yeah...clearly, there was no need because look, I'm having a baby tonight, doc. I did officially say to him, "Okay, I was wrong, you were right." He seemed pleased at this in his usual smug way, but thankfully said nothing in response. Shortly after the epidural, the nurse came in to say the doctor wanted to go ahead and break my water, which really didn't matter to me anymore since I wouldn't be able to feel it this time. But, Providence intervened, and when he pulled back the sheets, Nature had done it's job. I still can't believe it! Labor on my own. Water broke on its own. It all happened so damn fast. He checked me, and I was ready to go. With one very long hard push, the baby was delivered in almost one fell swoop, less than 3 hours after I arrived at the hospital.

At 4:18 a.m. on Thursday, April 23rd, our family welcomed Amelia Hope into the world! She weighed 8 lbs 7 oz and was 20 1/2 inches long, perfectly pink and healthy!

Thus far, the breastfeeding has gone better than I'd expected, in the sense that we're dealing with the "normal" learning curve most newborns experience. When she eats, she eats for like 2 hours straight, and when she sleeps, it's even longer. Last night, after eating from 1:00-3:00 a.m., she slept until 7:00 this morning!!

The experience of caring for a newborn, while also trying to care for a 2-yr old is a subject for another post, but it's been particularly challenging. I'm thankful that my mom is here, especially since Hubby had some sort of stomach bug or food poisoning yesterday when we came home from the hospital. He was pretty much out of commission, so I got no rest at all during the day. He's back in good shape now, though, so we're hoping to find our groove again soon. Until then, I'm loving me some sweet babyness!!