I am behind on my blog. Oh so behind.
But for good reason. Adelyn Mae joined our family at the beginning of December, about a week before her due date. I'm going to do pictures from my phone for this post just simply so it gets done. :)
I was nervous of the consistently increasing size of my babies (each has gotten considerably bigger, with the last being 9 lb 12 oz! I was on track to have a ten pounder!!). So when I went to my 39 week appointment I asked Dr. Crandall if he would strip my membranes. He did - very roughly I might add, haha. That night I went to the Christmas program for the women's group at our church. Afterward Jaron and I watched a movie and went to bed. At 11:15pm, Dr. Crandall's magic worked and my water broke.
Because we had seen excess amniotic fluid at the ultrasound that day and baby's head was not yet engaged, the doctor had told me to come to the hospital right away, just in case the cord dropped down into the birth canal. We packed a hospital bag (nothing like the last minute!) and called our awesome friend Melisa Hiatt (we're so selfish - she was 8 months pregnant at the time!), who came to sleep on our couch.
We got to the hospital after midnight and pretty much broke in. We entered in through the doctors' entrance and everything down there was dark and closed up. We climbed the four flights of stairs to the L&D floor (contractions were getting stronger but still not bad yet) and they were definitely surprised that they hadn't been told by the ER that we were there. Haha. I told the nurse I was interested in doing a natural delivery and she was super supportive. This was our first baby on the insurance that we have with the residency and according to the "cost estimation" sheet the hospital had given me, I could save approximately enough to buy a treadmill if I didn't have an epidural. Nothing more motivating than saving money, right? Haha. Jaron said he had never seen a woman go without an epidural who was not absolutely committed to it. When I talked to a good friend, who has had four natural deliveries, she also said that she didn't think money was going to be motivating enough. I decided that I wanted to try to go without an epidural but I wouldn't be too hard on myself if it didn't go that way (especially since we'd found a treadmill on sale during the after Thanksgiving sales and it was already ordered and on its way. :D ).
They called the on-call doctor, Dr. Coleman, right away since I'm a VBAC. When he came in to introduce himself I liked him immediately. He was so calm and reassuring. He watched me go through a few contractions and stated that he absolutely thought I could do this. Contractions got pretty bad around 1:30 am, when I was 4 cm along. At 3 am things were BAD. Haha. No fluffing the truth on this blog. I was checked and was told I was only 5 cm and I got totally emotionally deflated. One centimeter after 90 minutes of crazy intense pain?! I begged for an epidural at that point. BEGGED. Haha. Not proud of it but in the moment I did NOT care.
The nurse was great. And I can't even remember her full name, just Marie. She said she thought I was going pretty fast but that she would call the anesthesiologist. She also said that I should decide if I wanted an epidural once he got there. When he got there 15 min later I was 8 cm dilated. She told me I may have only two contractions left and I decided I could do 2 more. Sure enough, after two more contractions I was ready to push.
The pain subsided considerably after I was dilated (and then I felt bad for getting the anesthesiologist out of bed for nothing) but it still wasn't pleasant to push her out. Dr. Coleman was awesome and really encouraging. He told me to just pay attention to what my body wanted to do and the baby would come. When she got here (just before 4 am) and they placed her beautiful purple body on my chest, I couldn't even fully appreciate it - I think I was kind of in shock from the whole thing! But she was here! A beautiful, perfect, 8 lb 11 oz baby girl!
My most favorite part of the whole experience was how involved Jaron got to be in the delivery. With my other deliveries, I haven't really felt like he's had much of a role. This time around I relied on him so much. He ran my music for me. He rubbed my back. He gave me encouragement. It was awesome.
That afternoon, they bathed her and brought her back in a stocking. CUTE!!
Dr. Coleman released me that afternoon but the hospital's policy is that newborns stay for 24 hours. I just love newborn-in-the-carseat pictures. So, so tiny!
She is our first baby not named after somebody. We just liked the name Adelyn and I liked how Mae sounded after it. So she is our sweet Adelyn Mae, but we call her Addie too. Welcome to the world and to our family, sweet girl! We are so unbelievably blessed.
