Helloooo ladies!!
Today is my first day home alone with Makayla so I finally have some time to sit down and tell our story!
My water broke last Monday morning. I had gotten up around 2:30 am to get some Tylenol for my head cold when I felt a huge gush...luckily I was in my kitchen and not my bed! I thought I was peeing my pants! Then I realized it wasn't stopping and wasn't pee! lol Went upstairs (with a huge bath towel between my legs), and poked DH and asked him if he was ready to have a baby!
We both showered, and called the doctor, and then we were off to the hospital. The got us right into L&D and checked that it was in fact fluid and that I was 2 cm dilated. Checked via U/S that Makayla was still head down and told me that she was back to back so I was definitely going to have some back labor.
They brought us down to our labor room and monitored for about 20 minutes and then unhooked me and told me I could use the labor ball or walk around if I wanted to. I tried both and preferred the ball so I sat there and bounced for a while. My contractions gradually got stronger and closer together. When I started having big contractions that my labor nurse called "mother makers", I started to get violently ill when the contractions would start...that was a bummer lol - not so fun to barf and contract at the same time - with a horrible head cold. LOL
They came and checked me and I was 3cm, 100% effaced and I asked them to fill up the labor tub. This was AWESOME. The warm water and the weightlessness felt SO good and definitely made the contractions easier but I was still puking with the big ones so that made it tough to like hang over the side of the tub/barf/contract/and not drown. That was basically when I decided to go for the epi- too much for me to handle!
So they called anesthesia and they were there within like 5 minutes. They had to tap me twice because the first attempt kept veering off to the left side of my spine. After about an hour of complete relief from the epidural I started to feel full force contractions on my right side so they have to come adjust the catheter so that the medication was more evenly distributed. I stopped vomiting after the epidural was in, thank goodness. After a couple hours I started feeling like I needed to push badly. Doc checked me and I was ready to go! At that point I was like holy crap, this is really happening!!
The doctor told me was could try pushing for 45 minutes and if I got too tired we would take a break. I pushed 3 times with the first contraction and my OB looked at me and was like "oooook, Im going to go get my mask and booties because you're going to get this baby out quickly". I pushed our little girl out in 23 minutes, have only a 1st degree tear of my left labia, and no 'roids!
DH got to cut the cord and they laid Makayla right on my chest, she hardly cried and looked SO content. It really was a surreal moment to look down on my baby girl and up at my teary eyed husband.
I did end up with a spinal headache from the epidural, which was awful and required a blood patch (when they re-tap you and take blood from your arm and inject it into your spine to clot the hole made by the epi). The whole thing was kind of heinous but relief was instant.
Makayla was born 19 inches long weighing 5lb, 12 oz. No jaundice, no issues what-so-ever. We left the hospital at 5lb 7 oz. but had our first pedi apt yesterday and my little champion eater was back to birth weight. The doc was thrilled and said it usually takes two weeks to gain that much back!
I nursed in the hospital and for the first few days we were home but didn't love nursing because shes so small and her mouth is so tiny and when my milk came in and my nips got flat and it got hard for her to latch so it was just kinda frustrating for all parties. So since then I've been exclusively pumping and bottle feeding her expressed milk. I'm pumping 4 oz every 3-4 hours and had to start freezing today!
Seriously loving every minute of this, she is such a good baby. She only cries when shes hungry or needs a diaper change. She's on a pretty consistent feed every 3 hour schedule and falls right back to sleep at night with a full tummy.
I'm only 7 lbs over pre-preggo weight 7 days post partum, so that's awesome too. Hopefully the pumping and daily walks with baby girl will get rid of that super fast! It was SO nice to get outside and go for a walk today, yay for a nice-weather maternity leave!!
I can still see down there but have a feeling I won't be able to for much longer. May have to recruit DH for help LOL.
