it all started on june 17. i went to the doctor for my normal weekly check up. i hadn't been feeling quite right, in fact i threw up the nite before. i hadn't gotten sick like that since my first trimester. it had us both a little alarmed. when i arrived at the doctor's office, i started to feel dizzy and queasy. i told my doctor, and sure enough my blood pressure was reading dangerously high for someone as pregnant as myself. the visit changed from a routine check up to this sudden heightened sense of urgency. my doctor quickly got some paperwork together and told me i was headed for the labor and delivery triage area where they were going to run some tests and have me get another sonogram.
as i headed to triage, i called dusty and told him it could be "go-time". naturally, this was the ONLY appointment throughout this pregnancy that he couldn't come to due to work. would be our luck, right?! anyways, he left work immediately and headed from rockwall to dallas to be at my side. they hooked me up to all sorts of monitors, drew blood, and performed another sonogram. everything checked out wonderful, however, my blood pressure was no joke that morning. my doctor informed us how dangerous it could be to wait any longer due to the bp. we were scheduled to come in the very next nite, the 18th, to begin the induction process.
the next day was a complete blur just waiting for 6:00pm to roll around when we would head to the hospital. i was a ball of nerves, crying one moment and laughing the next. dusty was also full of nervous energy cleaning like a mad man--he didn't stop moving all day! we went to the hospital that evening where they admitted us to an observation room. they inserted something into my cervix that was to help "ripen" it. (i hadn't even begun to dilate at that point.) the nite was full of cramping and anxiety over the impending day.
the next morning, we were greeted by the nurses bright and early (6:45am) to begin the real deal. they moved us down to the labor and delivery room where we would stay the rest of the day. fairly quickly after being moved, i was given pitocin. in no time at all, i began feeling stronger contractions than i had been. about this time, my parents arrived. (the room was super nice, plenty of room for visitors all day long!) as the day progressed, my contractions intensified. for the first part of the morning, i was getting pain medicine every hour and a half or so injected into one of my iv's. it was great in the beginning but as the contractions intensified, the medicine didn't work so well anymore. what was supposed to last a good hour, was wearing off within fifteen minutes. all i remember about the pain four weeks later, is that i had never felt something like that before in my life. there is nothing you can do except close your eyes and try to breathe through it. by noon, the pain was becoming unbearable and we decided it was time for my epidural. thank goodness! the epidural was painless to receive and the relief was almost immediate. the hardest part of receiving it was the position they have you get in--hunched over, legs hanging off the bed, having to be completely still, all the while contracting like crazy.
from then on, i was being checked about every hour and a half to two hours to see how dilated i was. for the majority of the day i was stuck at 2 cm. nothing was moving. it was becoming hard on addy, so they placed an oxygen mask on me which i had to wear the rest of the day through delivery. when i was checked around 5pm, i had finally dilated some more to about 4 or 5 cm. and again, got stuck there. at 7pm, our nurse had the "talk" with us. she explained that because i wasn't dilating at the rate i needed to be, it was becoming increasingly hard on addy. her heart rate would drop in between contractions because her little body was working so hard and not getting anywhere. she informed us that if i hadn't dilated at least 2 more cm, that we would have to discuss other "options". by other options, she meant internal monitors (which can be dangerous) or a c-section. both choices were scary to me. after going through everything with us, she checked me. all of a sudden i was dilated to 9 cm! we couldn't believe it...i just knew i was headed for a c-section. it was time to push! my mom and dad gave me a kiss and left the room. it was surreal, we were about to meet our baby girl.
at 7:48pm, we began pushing. the pain began to return. i know it was probably nothing compared to what someone who goes natural feels, but all i know is that it hurt. at one point, i was in so much pain, that i threw up. as i was pushing, i was leaned over a bag hurling up all the fluid they had been pushing through me all day. this was about the moment where i thought to myself "i don't know if i can do this...c-section anyone?". but i muscled through it. they had me pushing three times for ten seconds each time during each contraction. i remember that in the beginning i was so wiped out in between contractions, i would just close my eyes and almost pass out. meanwhile, dusty and my nurse were talking about where we each live in sachse. (our nurse happened to be from sachse also.) i remember thinking "are they seriously talking about hwy 78, 5th st, and 544 while i'm in between these horribly painful contractions?"....geez!
a little less than 2 hours later, i was just crowned enough that it was time for the big show! my doctor came in and a slew of nurses began prepping all sorts of things in the room. i had a series of pushes where when i would finish with my 3rd push, they would ask me if i could go a 4th time--and i did, everytime! we finally got to a point where my doctor said we were one contraction away. this was it. could hardly believe it. along came the contraction and off i went pushing....4 pushes and 40 seconds later, little miss addy made her debut at 9:54pm!
it was the most surreal experience of our lives. suddenly we went from just the 2 of us to the 3 of us. this little person was our's. its been 4 weeks since that day and our world has been turned upside down in the most wonderful way. she is the love of our lives...love her more every single day. i cannot imagine anything more perfect than her.
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