What can I say, I have been a little bit busy lately with a growing girl, and do I mean GROWING!
I wasn't sure if I should tell my story, but I thought that I should get my thoughts down typed here for my next child, so when I am pregnant again I can look back and remember the details while I still have them in my memory (which is fading fast into mommy brain). I will start from the beginning, or the day before Annabelle Laura was born.
It was Tuesday March 25th and we (my husband and I) were headed up to Rapid City for my 38 week check up so see if Anna was going to show up any time soon. Before we left I got everything at work ready for my transition, packed the truck full of our overnight hospital gear, and I told everyone at work I wasn't coming back. I was of course joking, but I guess in a way I was willing Annabelle to come out and meet the world. At my appointment my Doc said that I was a 'good 4 cm' and could go in and get induced. I did not want to get induced, it just isn't something I believe in unless it is medically necessary, which in my case it wasn't. I also found out that the Braxton Hix contractions I was having the last few weeks were actual contractions! There were not really painful, but made me more dizzy and nauseous than anything. We were having dinner with friends that night so I figured we could go to the hospital if we wanted before we headed the hour and a half back down to Chadron. The last thing we wanted to do was drive to Chadron, then drive right back up to Rapid to have a baby.
Surprise Surprise I had more contractions at dinner, and decided to go get checked out just in case. The hospital triage room said I was still at 4cm, but told me to walk around and if I had any changes they could admit me. Away Clint and I went walking the halls of Rapid City Regional. It was pretty boring except for the strange sounds that we heard coming from one of the administration rooms of the hospital. It reminded me of what happens in the on-call rooms on Greys Anatomy for those of you who watch that show :). It was not painful for me again, which I thought was strange. There were other women in Triage room crying and in a whole lot of pain and only at 1 cm. Those women were sent home while I got to stay which didn't seem fair to them, but I was the one actually having a baby. I kept thinking that if this is how I felt with pain, why have I been so afraid of childbirth this whole time? FINALLY at 11:30 pm I was admitted and given a room after hanging out for 6 hours in triage. I was so happy that Anna was finally on her way that I was surprising everyone. Clint kept asking to make sure that I was ok, the nurses said they hadn't delt with someone this happy in a long time and didn't know how to react to me. I was asking if I could take a bath, wondering what I could eat, asking how long they thought I had. I was just so excited! That night I did have some some-what painful contraptions but nothing I thought I couldn't handle. I kept thinking that if this is what it was going to be like maybe I didn't need the epidural I had been wanting my entire pregnancy.
That next morning I remembered I forgot to call my job and tell them I had been admitted. When I called my fellow co-worker and mother of two was so excited for me. We were chatting when a contraction came on just as she was telling me I needed to get the epidural now before it was too late. That contraction convinced me and I rang my nurse right away. Along with fluids they tried to give me pitocin, which I had told them for the second time I was not interested in having. I never thought nurses and doctors would try to push it on me that hard, but they really were! Finally I got my epidural and I was on cloud nine. I had no pain at all, and was actually pretty tired, tired enough to take a nap! My mother-in-law who had all of her children naturally with no medication and two at home thought it was one of the craziest things she had ever seen. I was happy she came to hang out with Clint for the time being, I wasn't much fun napping for the next few hours.
The nurses informed me what I was dilated enough to push, and away we went. Future Grandma only had to leave the room for about 40 minutes when Anna was welcomed into the world. Everything up until that point had been great, I had no real complaints of what I thought this experience would be like. The nurse and I talked about her putting Annabelle right on me to nurse, to create that instant bond every mother hopes for and I was so excited to hold her.
When I saw Anna she was a gray color and not crying, eyes open and flailing around, but no noise, she let out a few squeals but not enough for the nurses to give her to me. They assured me that she was fine and that I would get to hold her soon. As I stared at doctors trying to get my baby breathing correctly I failed to realize that I was hemorrhaging and my doctor was working furiously to control my bleeding. I waited and waited which seemed like forever when they finally handed me Anna, but with oxygen up to her nose. It was so unrealistic that this was my baby, only because it's the once in a lifetime event that makes your new life seem like something you watched on TV and that you are experiencing from memory. But this new life is real, and it is happening, and it is oh so wonderful. I only held her for a few moments before they took her to the NICU to get her breathing where it should be according to what the nurses told me. Clint and his mom went to go grab a bite because they hand't eaten all day, which was fine because they assured me that Annabelle would be back and in our room shortly.
About a half hour went by when I started to worry about where Annabelle was, Clint was still at dinner and I was by myself (besides when the nurses came in to check on my hemorrhaging). Then an hour went by, then an hour and fifteen minutes. A nurse came in to speak with me about Anna and told me she swallowed fluid on her way out and contracted pneumonia. Her oxygen levels were supposed to be at 21% for a normal baby, and her oxygen was at 75%. She said that she needed to stay in NICU until her oxygen levels normalized and her pneumonia was medicated and cured. I sat and cried because of the pregnancy hormones, the fact I didn't get to hold my baby, and that I was alone in a room getting this news from a stranger. When Clint came back and realized that Anna was not ok (his phone was dead which is why he did not find out sooner), he was furious that he left. My childbirth had gone from great to devastating as we didn't know if our daughter was going to be able to come home with us, or if we could even hold her. Clint and I had to gear up to focus on one thing, and that was being there for Annabelle in every way we could.
After things calmed down, we found out the next morning that Anna would only have to stay in the NICU for 1 week, and her oxygen was already normalizing to a point where we were able to hold her that night. My mom had shown up the night before after driving 14 hours from Idaho and could not wait to hold her as well. With both of our moms there with us I think that helped Clint and I from really falling apart. We stayed in a hotel until we got to room in with Anna the last two nights of her week in the hospital, going to feed her every feeding except one in the middle of the night we were there as much as possible. We were able to bring her home on 4/2/14 in a snow storm bundled up in her car seat and ready to be home again.
There were so many more details to my story that I chose to opt out, some because they are too much information for non-moms, and the ones who are moms have already been there. I think Annabelle came into this world this way to show us what parenting is like right away, constant worry about the well being of your child. But also that each moment is precious, like when she would squeeze our hand under her oxygen hood, or stop crying at the sound of her father's voice. It was a tough start for her, but she is already growing so strong in so many ways it hardly seems like she was born only 2 months ago.
Picture of me eating one of the many popsicles the nurses encourage me to eat while waiting.
Our first picture with Annabelle Laura. You can see a nurse holding the oxygen up to her nose to help her breathe.
This was after they got some of the fluid out of her and her color pinked up.
Cuddling with Dad when her IV was in her right arm.
This was when they put her IV at the top of her head so she would't pull it out. The nurses called her a wild woman with how much her arms always flailed around.
This is her waking up from a nap, such a sweet girl :)
