Arwen's Birth Story Part 2

(Part 1 here)

We got to the hospital around 1AM and once they checked me, I was 4cm dilated, so they admitted me! My plan was to try and go natural, so I requested a room with a tub as I heard that helps with pain. Well, it did help the next few contractions, but at 5AM, I got an epidural and it was amazing.

The hospital room you were born in!

Daddy and I tried to sleep every once in a while, but mostly we just watched Property Brothers. Around 1PM, there were two midwives on call, working together, so they came and checked my cervix again to see if I had dilated any further. I had only progressed a little bit, so we decided to break my water. Apparently it was bulging and was about to break anyway. They said there was a little meconium in it, so we knew you had to be whisked away to be cleaned and examined before you were able to meet mommy and daddy. The midwifes said they would be back around 3PM to check my progression.

Much happier! :)

Once they came back, I was at 9.5cm dilated and they said we would start pushing soon! However, I was starting to feel a lot of contraction pain again and the epidural didn't seem to be helping. The nurses got an anesthesiologist to check it out. Turns out, my line had fallen out and would need to be replaced. This was the worst part of the whole labor and delivery. I was shaking, crying, and dry heaving in pain and I had to sit up and try and sit very still for the doctor to re-administer the medicine.  It was a very scary time and I could tell daddy was pretty shaken up about seeing me in that much pain and agony. Soon after the medicine kicked in and I was feeling so much better!

Around 6PM, the midwives returned and deemed it time to start pushing! If I can give you any advice about having a baby, it would be not to clench down on your face/eyes so much. I pushed so hard it broke many blood vessels in my face and both of my eyes were beet red for at least a week. However, the extreme amount of pushing resulted in you being born about an hour later at 7:21PM.

My face all swollen the next day

Apparently while I was pushing one of the midwives predicted you would be 8 pounds, 14 ounces because she didn't want to scare me with 9 pounds. I didn't hear her - I was completely in my own little world. You were born at 9 pounds, 1 ounce!! They let you rest on my chest for a tiny bit, then took you away to clean you up, weigh you, etc. and to fix me up. Once you were across the room, all of us (midwives included!) realized we didn't know whether you were a boy or a girl, so daddy went over to check you out. He asked me to guess and I said "A boy!" and he just went "Wrong". We were so excited to have a little baby girl!

Once I got you back in my arms, you pooped everywhere!! The nurses were highly impressed by how much and how it got everywhere! This is probably too much information, but when I went to take my first shower, I found more on my side. Very impressive.

You were the first baby daddy ever held and the first diaper he ever changed, so I had to get a picture of course!!

You were born Wednesday night and we went home on Friday. Getting home was quite the adventure as we had a prescription to be filled, but couldn't find the prescription the doctor gave us. We went back to the hospital, but there was no one that could fill it again. We ended up leaving an hour later than we had planned, hit rush hour traffic, and going to our doctor's office, but we finally got the prescription filled.

This whole adventure has been great so far and only going to get better. The recovery has been the hardest part, but it has all been so worth it. We love you Arwen Mae!

Arwen's Birth Story Part 1

Although you were born on Wednesday, June 3rd, this story starts the Saturday before. That Saturday was the day before your due date, May 30th. Your daddy and I had a weekend tradition before you were born of getting "special drinks", which were usually a Monster for your daddy and an Arizona iced tea for me. So, that morning, we got our drinks from CVS and decided to see if Uncle James would want to get dinner and hang out for the night (daddy's code for go to the computer superstore).

James took this picture that Saturday - the last picture of me pregnant with Arwen

About a half an hour before James came, I started having consistent contractions. I had been having some contractions, but rarely and never consistent like this. I was excited, especially that you may come on your due date, but I didn't want to get too worked up as I had heard many stories of contractions going away after an hour or two. James came out and we went to dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant, then went to the computer superstore. Through this time I was having contractions about every 10 - 13 minutes and they were lasting about a minute - the doctor says to go to the hospital when contractions are 1 minute long, every 5 minutes, for at least an hour. After James left, I told daddy (yes, I hadn't told him this whole time as I knew he would get too excited and get me worked up too), but they ended up fizzling out later that night.

After that Saturday, I barely had any contractions, let alone ones that were consistent. Daddy and I decided we would work from home pretty much until you came. At that point, we were desperate and thought you would come like 2 weeks late! It was especially nerve-wracking since Daddy had accepted a new job and it would start at the end of June. If you were born 2 weeks late, he wouldn't get his two weeks of paternity leave!

On Wednesday, we were working from home and I was thinking about what the difference between Saturday and the following days were to try and start contractions again (like I said, we were desperate to meet you!). I remembered I had an Arizona iced tea, which has caffeine and I hadn't had it or any caffeine since! We got a can of the tea and contractions started again! We decided to go grocery shopping (excellent idea by the way) and got gallons of iced tea since we assumed the contractions would taper out again. By 8PM, since the contractions had been happening for about 3 hours, 7 minutes apart, lasting 1 minute, we called Amma and Grandpa to get Moose. We called the hospital and they said to wait at home as long as possible. 

The contractions got closer and closer. We tried to sleep, but I was in some pain every 5 minutes and daddy was too excited and hyped up. I took a nice, hot shower, which helped with the pain a lot. At 1AM, we called back and said the pain was getting much more intense and the contractions were now about 3 minutes apart. They said to come in!