Clara Elizabeth: Part 2

As I mentioned in my last post, I didn't much enjoy being pregnant, and it got worse as my due date grew closer. At 35 weeks, I went in for a doctor's appointment and my blood pressure was too high and they made me lie down on my left side for 15 minutes to see if it would go down. It did, but my doctor told me she wanted to see me again sooner than she normally would just to monitor my blood pressure closer since I hadn't had a problem with my blood pressure until that point. She also checked me before I left and I was surprised when she told me I was already dilated to a 2 and 70% effaced and she told me that I probably wouldn't have to wait too much longer for this baby. That kind of put things into perspective for me and I started getting the last minute things done that I needed to, although I still didn't pack my hospital bag. Packing my bags made it feel too real, and I wasn't quite ready to accept the reality that like it or not, our baby girl was on her way. Haha.

At my next appointment my blood pressure was still too high, but it wasn't as high as the appointment before, so my doctor wasn't as worried about it. She checked me again and I was still dilated to a 2 and 70% effaced, so no progress there.

At 37 weeks I went into my appointment, and although my blood pressure was still elevated a little, it was still lower. I had progressed to a 2 1/2 and was 80% effaced.  I packed my hospital bag that week. Haha.

Side note: Brian got a jury duty summons for the last half of November... right when our baby could come any day. He tried to get out of it by claiming undue hardship explaining in writing that he was working two jobs to make ends meet and that his wife was due to have a baby anytime. It didn't work. Looking back now, I'm surprised at how calm I was about it, but I guess I just knew that something would work out. He went to the courthouse to report for jury duty on the Tuesday before Clara was born, and explained to the people picking the jury his situation and thankfully they let him leave! If they would have chosen him for the jury he would have been in court the day Clara was born!

The weekend before Clara was born, I was absolutely miserable. Beyond being uncomfortable, I was anxious, I couldn't sleep, my feet and legs were super swollen, and I just felt awful. I just couldn't take it anymore and Sunday I broke down and bawled to Brian. And can I just say, I absolutely Love the man I married. I seriously Love him so much. He just held me and let me cry and then he gave me a blessing. I was told a lot of things in the blessing that put my mind at ease, and was also blessed that I would give birth to a perfectly healthy baby. I was also told that she'd be on her way soon. I, of course, knew what "soon" probably meant. I mean, in all reality my due date was "soon"... but I was sooo ready to be done. Haha. I didn't feel any better physically after the blessing, but I did feel extremely calm afterward, and that was enough for me.

The next morning (Monday, November 19), I woke up as usual and made breakfast for Brian and myself. After he left for work, I watched a morning talk show or two, and then laid down for my usual morning nap. I slept for an hour or two and when I woke up I had the worst headache in the world. I immediately took some Tylenol, and then tried a few things to try to lessen the pain waiting for the Tylenol to kick in. It never did. I tried everything to make that headache go away and nothing was working. So, I cried. And that just made it worse. Haha! I knew that having a severe headache was something that all the books say to watch out for because of how swollen I was and my recent problems with my blood pressure, but I had my 38 week appointment later that day, so I decided to just wait it out until then. Brian wanted me to go in early, but that's just not my style. Haha.

So, I went to my appointment still feeling absolutely miserable. The nurse could tell that I didn't feel well, and I told her that I woke up from my nap with a headache and she was sweet about it and apologized and made small talk and such. Then, she took my blood pressure. "Oh, dear. That's probably what's causing your headache." She hadn't pumped the cuff high enough to even get a reading and had to do it again. "Your blood pressure is sky high. Why don't you lay down on your left side and the doctor will be right in." Yeah, yeah. I'd heard "the doctor will be right in" so much, I figured I'd be there for awhile, but this time, she really was right in. Not even a minute later after the nurse had informed her of the situation, my doctor came right in. "So you have a headache? How bad is it? Have you taken any Tylenol?" I told her it was pretty bad and that the Tylenol hadn't helped, and that nothing I had tried helped at all. After she had checked me and told me I was dilated to a 3, she said she was uncomfortable with how high my blood pressure was and wanted to do an ultrasound to make sure the baby was okay and then was going to send me over to labor and delivery to be monitored to keep an eye on my blood pressure for a few hours or so.

So I called Brian and told him the situation and that he needed to leave work early, and that I'd call him after the ultrasound. The ultrasound showed that our baby was just fine and they estimated that she was about 7 lbs. Before I left, my doctor told me I probably should go home and get my stuff because if my blood pressure didn't go down, she was going to induce me since I was already dilated to a 3 anyway.

So, I called Brian and told him to meet me at home, but he told me he'd already been home and had gotten our stuff and was on his way to the hospital. Hahaha. He was freaking out and it was funny to me because besides still having to deal with a splitting headache, I was still feeling very calm about everything. I told him to go back home because I wanted to pack a few last minute things that weren't in my bags and also, I wanted to drop off my car at home so we didn't have two cars at the hospital. It took some convincing because Brian felt like I needed to get to the hospital as soon as possible, but I assured him that my doctor had told me to go home to get my stuff first anyway, so we didn't need to rush over there. Hahaha! Oh, my. It still makes me laugh thinking about how he was acting. We always planned on him being the calm one and me freaking out because that's just generally how it works in our relationship, but this time it was completely opposite. So amusing.

So, we headed to the hospital and I texted our parents to let them know what was going on and told them we'd let them know more when we knew more. We walked into the hospital, took the elevator to the 3rd floor and down the hall to Labor and Delivery. My doctor had already told them I was on my way over, and they took me right into an exam room and got me all hooked up to the monitors and stuff. I don't actually know how long they monitored me, it's all kind of a blur, but I do remember at one point the nurse came in and told me that I actually had been having contractions about every 3 minutes. Not super strong contractions, but they were there. Turns out I had been having contractions for a few days by that point,  but I just hadn't known that's what I had been feeling. They felt so different than I imagined they would, and at that point they weren't really all that painful, so it just didn't occur to me that I was having contractions.

At some point the nurse came back in and said that she'd called and talked to my doctor and because my blood pressure was still high, they were going to keep me and induce me that night. It was game time.

It was all surreal from that point. They took me into a delivery room and started an IV with fluids and Pitocin and all that fun stuff. My nurse asked me if I wanted an Epidural. Yes. Yes, I did. She asked me if I wanted it right away or if I wanted to wait awhile. I decided to wait, I think mostly because I was nervous, but yeah. Not long after that a doctor came in and explained that my doctor had told him to come break my water to get things moving along a little faster. Gushhhh. That was gross. And it wasn't just one big gush like they make it seem in all the movies. Haha. There was a gush with every contraction. Not the most comfortable thing in my life. But I suppose labor isn't supposed to be comfortable. After my water was broken, the contractions got bad really fast. I was ready for that Epidural pretty quick. I don't know how anyone does it without it. I couldn't even breathe through them. The pain took my breath right away, and I still had quite a few hours of labor left. Yeah, kudos to those women who do that, but I am SOOO grateful for that epidural. It made the whole process a lot more enjoyable for me. Getting the epidural wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. The hardest part of it was trying to hold still during contractions. The anesthesiologist told me to let him know if I felt any pain in my back where he was putting it in, and Brian kept thinking I was in pain and not telling him because I kept grimacing during contractions. I finally explained to Brian that it wasn't the epidural bothering me but just me trying to hold still while being in pain because of contractions. Haha! After that it was just a waiting game.

My mom showed up sometime after that and hung out for a few hours. My heartburn medicine that I had taken earlier began to wear off at some point and that was pretty miserable, and also, all I wanted was a glass of ice cold water... but they wouldn't let me drink anything. I had to chew on ice chips... but that just wasn't satisfying my intense thirst. I wasn't dehydrated or anything because they were pumping fluids in me... but man, I just wanted water so bad! They were able to give me heartburn medicine at some point and they allowed me some water to swallow the pill. Bad idea. I vomited almost immediately after that. My poor nurse had to search through my vomit to make sure the pill I swallowed hadn't come up with my throw up. Surprisingly it didn't, and my heartburn went away! After I threw up they gave me some Zofran to help with the nausea and to hopefully keep me from throwing up anymore. I was still so thirsty. I'm pretty sure I told Brian a gazillion times that all I wanted was ice cold water to drink. So... he went and got me a big smart water bottle and said I could have it after the baby was born. That was my reward. Haaaa! Kind of funny, but I was seriously looking forward to drinking that water!

It got pretty late and my mom left (well, she went out to the waiting room) and I decided to try and get some sleep, I was exhausted. It had been a long day. I'm pretty sure I was able to sleep at least a little because time seemed to go by pretty fast and I started to feel a lot of pressure and not long after that it was time to push.

Side note: I LOVED all my labor and delivery nurses! The nurse who took care of me for the first half of my labor was seriously amazing! I was sad when her shift was over, but two other awesome nurses took over for her just before I started pushing. I had two nurses because one of them was training or something. I really liked them. They were really helpful when it came down to really delivering my baby.

I didn't expect pushing to be so hard, and unpleasant. The epidural blocked the pain, but it doesn't take away the pressure and the pressure was so intense that at some points it almost was pain. I feel like I only had to push for like an hour, but Brian says it was more like 2 hours. Whatever, it doesn't matter. It was hard work and it was the middle of the night and I'm NOT a night person. I was SOOO tired. And thirsty. Haha! Brian was in charge of giving me a few ice chips between every other contraction to keep my thirst at bay.

Soon my doctor showed up and after a few more pushes and her telling me to reach down and feel my baby's head, I pushed one last time and at 4:17 AM on November 20th (3 years to the day that Brian proposed to me) out popped our little baby girl! 7 lbs 1 oz 19 inches long. I cried. I was flooded with such overwhelming relief and joy and exhaustion all at once, it was insane. After that it's all a blur to me. I remember they took her over to clean her up and weigh her and such and telling Brian to leave me and go over to our baby and watch her and take pictures because that was his job. Haha.

Oh, and no one tells you that the worst part of childbirth is AFTER the baby is born. I don't know if it's because my epidural had started to wear off or what, but when my doctor was pushing on my uterus and stitching me up it was seriously the worst thing ever! I tried to focus on my baby across the room, but I wasn't prepared for how painful that was. Hahaha! They brought sweet little Clara back to me and put her on my bare chest for some skin to skin time. I was able to nurse her for a little bit, she latched right on like a champ, but unfortunately our first bonding moment was cut shorter than I wanted it to because I started to feel light-headed and nauseous and before I knew it, I was throwing up again. Turns out I lost a lot of blood, you see. Yeah, not pleasant. I felt AWFUL. But I guess I did manage to smile for this picture, because here it is. Don't I look absolutely exhausted? I was. (Oh, and take a look at my sausage fingers! I told you I was super swollen! Haha!)

It took me a little longer to recover because I got so sick afterward, and that meant that Brian got a lot of bonding time with Clara, but that made the fact that I wasn't able to hold her a little better because I knew that she was with her daddy. Eventually I started feeling a lot better and they transferred us into the recovery room and my mom and Brian's mom and two of his sisters, Katie and Ally, (the four that spent the night at the hospital waiting) came in to see us and hold our sweet baby girl.

And that's the story of how our sweet little Clara came into this world. At least that's how I remember it. Haha. I'm not a fan of being in the hospital, and I had a mix of good and bad nurses over the next couple of days, but I loved having that time with just Brian, Clara and me, and it was nice having family and close friends come visit. I was extremely ready to go home when we were finally discharged from the hospital on Thanksgiving, though. Haha.

 It was amazing to me how I immediately felt that Clara had always been ours. And that I had always known what she looked like. Strange feeling, but it's true. She is definitely ours. And I was also surprised at how easy the transition was of suddenly knowing I was a Mama, and Brian was a daddy.

And this post is FOREVER long. I think it's time to be done. I'll be posting more pictures in my next post showing how much she's changed in the last 2 months. Wow! 2 months! I can't believe it's been that long. But yeah. We Love our little Clara Elizabeth more than words could ever express and I absolutely love being her Mama! And Brian is seriously the cutest daddy ever. I Love him more than ever. I just love our cute little family.