Saturday, July 12, 2014

38 week bump and birth story {evelyn}

So let's start with the 38 week bump in all its glory...
My appointment at 37w5d was pretty uneventful.  BP was good, weight was good and I was still at about 3cm and 80% dilated (normal for me at this point in pregnancy).

Now let's jump to my appointment at 38w4d....NOPE, can't do that!  There's some story that needs to be told starting at 38w3d.

So Wednesday evening (July 2), my brother's family was in OK for the 4th and stopped by for dinner and swimming on their way to his in-laws.  They have 4 kids all around our kids ages and they all have so much fun together.  We ordered a big tray of Chick-Fil-A nuggets and the kids spent lots of time swimming.  That night when I went to bed, I could tell that my contractions were changing from Braxton Hicks (tightness all over) to a more localized pain (like severe PMS cramps, I suppose, but I don't usually have cramps).  They weren't bad and they weren't worthy of being timed, so I went to bed and got a great night's sleep.

The next morning was pretty normal and I was still feeling the same contractions, but still very irregular and not TOO painful.  I thought I had just overdone it the day before and not had enough water.  I took the girls to school and came back to the house afterwards.  The 3rd was a work holiday so I had lots of things on my to-do list:  clean inside of car and vacuum/wash floor mats, get a pedicure, grocery shopping for 4th of July parties, etc.  So when I got home I got to work on the car.  I was feeling more contractions while cleaning but didn't think too much of it since they can intensify when you are active and then dissipate when you are still.  It wasn't until I went to the bathroom that I realized something might be happening.  No, my water didn't break, but I had a slight bloody show.  It was about 1015am so I decided to head to my appointment a bit early (I had a weekly appointment already scheduled for 1045am).  

I had a few contractions on the way to the office but nothing unbearable.  When I got there I was so happy to see a friend whose due date was a week after mine.  We sat and chatted for a bit and I was able to talk through the contractions but they were definitely not comfortable.  When the nurse came to get her for the appointment, I asked the nurse what it took to get back for my appointment ASAP...it was in this time that another friend suggested by text that I start timing contractions.  So I started timing and........they were coming every 3 minutes.  Not only that, but things were starting to get much more painful.

The nurse soon came to get me (thanks friend, you must have said something to the nurse that made them realize I really did need to be seen) and I weighed in, +33lbs, left my urine sample while having 2 more contractions and got my BP taken 125/86 (about the highest it's been this pregnancy).  The doctor was soon in my room to check me (she had to time it perfectly between contractions).  She started to check and said "I'm going to say......you're fully dilated".  I replied with "are you kidding me?".  But really, why would a doctor kid about that :)  This was 1111am.

At this point she explained that they would bring a wheelchair over and take me directly to the hospital. I started texting and calling Chris but didn't hear back from him. We (me, the wheelchair and nurses) arrived at the hospital and my room was LDR4 and it was completely setup and waiting on me.  Between some more ugly-face contractions, I was able to get my clothes off and gown on (I did get some assistance with the shoes) and climbed into the bed.  I signed some paperwork (1120am) and tried calling Chris a few more times.  The L&D nurse had to go over some questions with me so I answered as many as I could in between contractions.  I must have been holding my breath a few times because I kept getting the reminder to KEEP BREATHING.  You guys, I cant even begin to explain how awesome my nurse was!

So we got to a point where the nurses start asking if there's any other family that I want to call.  Well, my sister lives 10 hours away and my parents are 3 hours away.  Chris' nearest family member was a good 30 minutes away, so family wasn't really an option at this point.  I'm not sure how they expected me to keep the baby inside, but I was asked if I wanted to wait on Chris or go ahead and deliver.  I opted to go ahead and deliver since I had no idea where he was or how fast he could get to the hospital.

And then 1143am happened.  My baby made the grand entrance into this world under the careful watch of the hospital laborist and some awesome nurses.  I had told everyone that we didn't know the sex of the baby and I was so surprised to find out that we had an EVELYN MAE SANDERS!  They placed her on my chest and we started skin to skin time.  My doctor arrived shortly after I delivered...everyone was just not on my timeline that day!  I got to cut her cord and bask in her beauty. It was euphoric.  Oh, notice how I didn't mention an epidural?  Yeah, well- I never planned it to be that way but it ended up working JUST FINE.  I can honestly say that the worst part was the last 30 minutes of contractions.

I finally heard back from Chris at 1217pm and explained that he had a baby to meet...but I didn't let him know if it was a girl or a boy.  I wanted him to experience another round of excitement when he got to the hospital.  I believe he arrived around 1235-1240 and finally got to meet Evelyn.

So that's the story folks.  I thought it was a short one, but apparently it also had lots of details.

Oh, and while we were at the hospital after Evelyn's birth we figured out why he was missing all of those calls and text messages (and why it had been happening for a few days before her delivery).  One of our older children put his phone on "do not disturb" mode. Apparently they thought that their daddy spent too much time with his phone :).  HAHA.  But really- even if he had answered the phone, there's still a chance that he would have missed it.  He was in Broken Arrow working on a job site when I was at my appointment.  That would have left him with 31 minutes to get to the hospital and to my room.  

You've made it this far, you deserve some pictures.  Thanks for reading!