Tuesday, August 9, 2011

charlotte's birth day



since i was too out of it to record charlotte's birth right afterwards, i thought i'd try to share it now while i can remember everything. here goes nothing:

on thursday, may 19th, ryan and i headed to labor and delivery after work because i was pretty sure my water was leaking. after about 3 hours in l & d getting monitored, we were sent home around 10 p.m. after being told it was a false alarm. when we left the hospital that night, i was totally bummed. we had left the house in frenzy, grabbing all the bags i had packed and getting greer squared away with my in-laws. it was pretty much just as i had always pictured charlotte's birth, but i guess it just wasn't meant to be.

the next morning, greer and i met some friends at the zoo. after walking the hills and pushing the stroller all morning, i knew that my previous inkling of my water leaking was correct. i didn't want to have another false alarm though so i tried to put off going back to the hospital since i wasn't having any contractions yet. that evening at about 8:00 pm, ryan finally convinced me to go back. although that time, we decided not to even take our bags or anything since the likelihood of me really being in labor was so slim in our minds.

when we got to labor & delivery, i felt like i was having a little bit of deja vu. we got checked in and they began monitor me again. i wasn't having any contractions, {no surprise to me!} but after another check, they said that my water was indeed leaking! that news really began to sink in when the nurse told me that they'd be moving me to a l & d room and that i wouldn't be leaving the hospital until our little girl had finally arrived!! whoops, leave it to us to not really have all our stuff when we really needed it :)

we got moved to our room and began furiously calling and texting all our family and friends to let them know the news. that night the nurse told us to settle in and get some sleep because the action was most likely not going to happen until the next day. however, around 11:00 p.m., they began giving me pitocin, making it not so easy to sleep. in fact, i'm pretty sure that i didn't sleep more than 30 minutes all night combined! meanwhile, ryan was completely zonked out over on the rollout couch. in fact, at one point, i actually launched some ice pellets at him to get him to stop snoring!!

the next morning, my contractions had begun getting a bit stronger but were still pretty mild overall. i was more tired at that point than i was in pain, but my mom and sister came by for a visit giving me a little burst of energy. since i was bed-bound, we all just chatted and watched a crazy amount of tv coverage about the predicted doomsday. while the thought of delivering a baby seemed pretty scary at the time, i also didn't want the world to end before i could meet her :)

around noon, the nurse told me that i could go ahead and get my epidural. i still wasn't in an unbearable amount of pain but since i knew i wanted one, i went ahead and got it. after it kicked in, i'm pretty sure that i began feeling the best i had in 9 months! i was finally feeling good enough to get some rest, and later even had a brief visit from my mother-in-law and little greer. it was so good to see him since we didn't really leave the night before anticipating to be away from each other for a couple days.

some time around 4:30 pm, the nurse came in and told me that my doctor was not very happy with the progress i was making. she cranked up my pitocin again {as she had been doing about every half an hour} and told me that they were giving me until 5:00 pm to make some progress or they were going to go ahead with a c-section since my water had been broken so long. when we heard that news, we were majorly bummed. i hadn't progressed at all since i was admitted to the hospital the night before so we were thinking that a c-section was imminent. i had never had surgery before so the thought of having an unexpected major surgery was terrifying. ryan and i prayed, and asked a few friends and family to pray as well.

around 5:00 pm, the nurse came back in for another progress check and we were expecting the worse. much to everyone's surprise, i had progressed more than double what i was before!! we were so happy and praised the Lord for not having to worry about a c-section afterall.

the next few hours were basically a blur. the time passed quickly and i knew the big event was about to take place. around 7:30 pm, the nurse came in to tell me that we were going to begin pushing shortly. i was panic stricken but beyond excited to know that miss charley was about ready to make her appearance. the nurses began filing in the room around a quarter to 8:00 pm, and the time had finally come.

ryan and my mom were both in the room with me, and ready to help coach me through the pushing. ryan may have taken the word "coach" too literally though :) more about that on another day! the pushing was tiring and pretty darn intense, but i was obviously motivated by the end result so it was bearable. {big props to you mommas who do it without an epidural!!} after about 50 minutes of pushing, our long-awaited charlotte reese arrived at 8:49 pm. She was 7 lbs, 11 ounces and 19.25" long.

seeing her for the first time was such an amazing high! i can seriously only equate it to the first time we walked in greer's nursery in ethiopia and saw him standing in the crib waiting for us. it was such a rush that i immediately forgot about the not so fun parts of pregnancy {like those 4 months of yacking daily!} and labor {i'll spare you the not-so-blogworthy details!!}.

here are some pictures from our first moments with our little charley girl:

*this was ryan's first good look at her. i think i was still crying too hard to really see her at this point!

*my first time holding her!!

*i don't think i've ever been so happy to hear a baby crying :)

*charlotte's first weigh in. by the way, please check out that cone head!!
we were more than smitten with her right off the bat, and things have not changed yet!

2 comments:

Life With Lucy said...

Aw yay Les! I wish that I would have read this before I saw you today! I have so many questions now!! haha. I'm so happy for you guys, even more so after meeting both of your sweet babies! I'm so glad you are back to blogging :) Love you!

Ginny said...

You're welcome for that walk at the zoo, my dear! :) Great reading the story! And I had forgotten that she was born at the same minute as Jack and weighed the same amount! FUN!!!