I'm sorry I'm so slow in getting this posted, but baby Megan is here!!!! We LOVE her!
She was born on March 21, 2011 at 3:22 PM (Yup, she was born on 3-21 at 3:22, oh, and she's grandchild 23 on Norman's side...gotta love the nerdy numbers)
Ok, so I'm going to go through the details of everything and feel free to skip to the pictures, but I want to make sure I have a history for Megan.
On Tuesday March 15th I went for my final dr's appointment. I was soooooo nervous! I figured that I hadn't made progress and I was worried they were going to make me wait at least another week. On the other hand I'd heard stories of people being induced and how horrible that was, so I was petrified of that too. Plus, I had started having nausea/vomiting issues really really bad again and frankly, I just felt like crap. Her head was low and blocked my innards from working right and I couldn't sleep and I just wanted to be done. Anyways, so I went on Tuesday and I'd lost over 5 lbs from the previous week. When I got pregnant it was at the peak of my "happy pounds" that I'd put on since meeting Norman. We have such an amazing marriage and it's been quite a shock to both of us that it could be so fun and well, I guess when we're happy...we eat! LOL! When we decided that we would no longer prevent having a baby (note, there was no "try" because I was so positive we'd have problems that I said we'd just go off the pill and see, but not stress when it didn't happen for a while because I was positive we'd have problems) I thought that I should start loosing weight. Well, I lost like 2 lbs before finding out we were pregnant, GAH! I had heard all of the pregnancy weight gain stories and was thinking it wasn't fair, I already had over 50lbs to loose and now with this I'd have another 50. At the first Dr's appointment they told me I'm fat (well, duh!) and that I shouldn't gain any weight until week 20 and then only 1 lb a week up to 20 lbs total. Luckily morning sickness kicked in and I had no desire to gain weight. At my last Dr's appointment I actually weighed less than I did at my first appointment and my blood pressure was lower than my first appointments. I guess the more miserable I feel the more healthy I am. Anyways, so at my final appointment she sad that because I had been diabetic they didn't want me to go a full week over my due date. She told me she doubted I'd go on my own any time soon, so if I hadn't gone in to labor to plan on going to the hospital Sunday night and they'll start me. I will say I was so happy to know that it would be done soon, but I was petrified of what was going to happen. There were a couple of things that were making me extra nervous about this whole thing. First, I'd heard being induced with your first baby is much harder on your system and makes for a long hard labor. Second, during the last ultrasound we could see the cord around her neck and I was worried about it getting tight and causing issues during delivery. The only thing making me feel better was that when you're induced they have the monitors on the whole time vs if I were to go in to natural labor who knows what would happen to baby while the contractions were building up. We waited the week and on Saturday my mom came down and helped me get a few final things (like a nursing bra...lol...I didn't realize I needed to have one before going to the hospital). On Sunday I was stressed and nervous so I slept, then I slept some more. We did meet my mom in Ogden to give her the dogs earlier that morning and stopped and visited Norman's sister Lilly and family. It was good to see everyone before we went to the hospital. At 6 I called labor and delivery and they said that yes I could come at 8 and they would get me started.
We arrived at the hospital about 8 and registered and walked to labor and delivery. The whole time I was thinking "I can't believe we're here!!" The staff was AMAZING! I have to say that first because the first nurse we had was a little interesting. She wasn't our real nurse, but for some reason her other patients just didn't need her for anything so she was just looking for something to do. She's the one that did my IV and it wasn't her fault that it hurt, I'm not trying to say that at all, but when she was putting it in I almost passed out and then she was telling Norman and me how she does much better with IV's and pokes in babies because they don't really react and tell you if it hurts. Yah, I was thinking "oh great! this is going to be a long night." They came to do an ultra sound to check baby's position and they couldn't find her head. That same nurse was going on about how fascinating the ultrasound was and how she could watch all day. The resident was embarrassed and kept telling me that he'd never had this problem before. Essentially the problem was that her head was so low in my pelvis they could only get a little bit of the back of her head and we did finally find an ear and could see that. Then I was set, they started me on the medication (I had to let it dissolve in my cheek) and I was supposed to sleep...ha ha funny!!! The bed was wretched uncomfortable and my hips were killing me. Plus, every time I'd roll or move the monitor would have to be repositioned on baby.
The doctor came in the morning and I was dilated to a 4 so they broke my water. Ok, that was a WEIRD feeling!! Essentially it felt like I wet my pants and couldn't stop. I could hear the water gushing at first and was worried I'd made the biggest mess on the bed, but they had it pretty well covered. I will say that getting the water popped relieved a great amount of pressure off of my bottom and I actually felt pretty good again there for a bit. They started the pitocin and I was having really random contractions. They were actually every minute and about 30 seconds long. I was still only dilated to a 4 so I was worried this would be a long day. The nurse suggested I get the epidural. I didn't know what to do. I was so worried how I would react to it, but my labor patterns were off and it was going to take some work to get them going better. I agreed to get one and was crying that I couldn't believe I wimped out so quick. I was frustrated because the pain wasn't bad, but they were worried this would go on for hours and weren't expecting me to have baby until late in the day. The anesthesiologist came and I was lucky we called when we did because she was just about to go to a c-section and I would have had to wait almost 2 hours if she had gone in before I'd asked. They let Norman stay in the room which was the best! I got to hug him the whole time and within 15 min she was done and I was all set up. I will say that the epidural was great! I couldn't really feel much, but could kinda feel things and it allowed me to relax and just go with the flow better. They did the epidural about 11:15 and my parents got there just as they finished up. Now for the scary part, about 30 minutes later baby's heartbeat dropped from the 140's to the 80's and there was some quick movement to get it back up. My blood pressure also dropped significantly it was something like 80/40 ish so there was a bit of running around as they pumped me full of fluid and put the little monitor into baby's scalp to be able to watch her more closely. They also stopped the pitocin. Her heart rate did come back up and so then we were back on wait mode. We sent my dad and Norman for a late lunch and I told them not to worry that we'd be here for a while. The nurse came to check me just before they got back and I was dilated to a 9...holy crazy!!! I don't know if I was more shocked or she was. My parents left and we did a test push and the nurse said things looked great and they called for the Dr. She came back in and had me do one more test push just to make sure and so we got ready and she was all "push push push push push...stop stop stop stop stop...gotta wait for the Dr." I will say that things as far as time lines are a blur for the day. I know there was a clock in the room and I'd look at it, but I don't really know exactly when everything happened. I will say that I did send my mom a text at 2:50 saying "just did a test push and things look great! We're just waiting for the Dr" and Megan was born at 3:22 so I didn't push for all that long. The Dr. got there and there was her, a resident, 2 nurses and Norman in the room. They got everything set up and I remember them turning on the little warming bed and thinking "oh my gosh! This is happening...I'm having a baby!!!" They got me ready to push and said "Ok, push with the next contraction." Well...wouldn't you know...my contractions really slowed down at that moment. There were 5 people intently staring at a monitor while I was laying there legs up and ready to go. Finally the Dr said "are you sure the monitor is working? Feel her belly." The monitor was working, but since the pitocin stopped, my contractions slowed down. Finally I had one and began pushing. The Dr. was impressed that I could push her out so well and later said that I'm a birthing machine...LOL!! I guess I have the pelvis for pushing out baby. I ended up pushing between contractions because it scared me that baby's heartbeat had dropped again. Norman's the best and was standing next to me and would "push" with me. The resident said to him "dad, you breathe, she needs to push, you need to breathe" or something like that. The funny thing is that he was holding his breath and pushing so hard that he had blood at the top of his fingernails. Then at one point he goes "oh! The head! I can see it! It's so tiny!!!" the nurse replied with "That's only the tip of the iceberg, you just wait." Her head came out and sure enough the cord was around her neck. They got that unwrapped and as she came out the rest of the way it seriously felt like HEAVEN!!!! So much pressure and weight was removed and I felt like I could breathe again and oh! it felt great!!!! They put her on my chest with her face facing them. I was in SHOCK that I had a baby!!! She started to cry and they were wiping her down. I'll never forget them turning her to face me and her cute little gums in her mouth and her letting out her cute cry. It seriously was amazing! They took her to get her cleaned up and the Dr. went to work on me. I had torn and my uterus wasn't contracting so she was a little worried about the bleeding that was still going on. She was massaging my uterus and it hurt worse than anything else so far. Ouch!!! She actually had the one nurse stop helping with baby and come over and massage me full time while she finished the stitches. Generally I like a good massage, but this killed! Plus, even after that first time they had to massage it for a few minutes every 10-20 minutes or so...oh geesh...that wasn't fun. They got baby weighed and her footprints done and even put a print on Norman's arm, which was the cutest thing ever. Here's the first picture we have of Megan.
Proud Daddy with his baby footprint inked on his arm :)
They got me stitched up and the bleeding slowed down and the Dr and nurses left the room. I told Norman to go get my parents and I'd hold Megan. I don't know exactly what triggered it, but I suddenly became nauseous and started dry heaving. Oh geesh, here I was holding this perfect baby in my arms and I got chills, shakes and started to throw up. As they were walking in to the room I was heaving and trying to figure out where best to throw up as to not hurt Megan. Luckily, they walked in and were able to get me a cup before anything happened. I was so happy to see them walk in the room! It had been a long stressful day and I hadn't eaten anything since the night before. It finally caught up with me, and sadly it was when I was alone for a whole 2 min. Here we are with our first family picture. I still have the wretched IV in, I hated that IV!!!
Daddy got to go to the nursery and give Megan her first bath. It was cool because they actually let my mom in the nursery with him so she could take pictures. I'm so glad we have such great pictures of Megan getting all clean. Norman is such a great Daddy!!!
The nurse helping him was Kathy. She was great! She helped us in so many ways. We just felt like fish out of water with this new little baby. We took the classes, read the books and yet when they hand this little peanut to you it's really overwhelming and you just hope you can do it. She assured us we were going to be fine and that we were not the most spastic parents she'd ever met (yes, I did ask if we were the most spastic).
I love this picture! The great part is that my mom had no idea my dad was in the picture until later when we were looking through.
I'm amazed how having Megan has brought Norman and I closer too. We've had a great marriage and things just keep getting better and better! We love you Megan!!
She did calm down though. Here we are at the car.
It's been great being home! Scary, but great!!!!
Ok, so I'm going to go through the details of everything and feel free to skip to the pictures, but I want to make sure I have a history for Megan.
Daddy got to go to the nursery and give Megan her first bath. It was cool because they actually let my mom in the nursery with him so she could take pictures. I'm so glad we have such great pictures of Megan getting all clean. Norman is such a great Daddy!!!
I love this picture! The great part is that my mom had no idea my dad was in the picture until later when we were looking through.
I'm amazed how having Megan has brought Norman and I closer too. We've had a great marriage and things just keep getting better and better! We love you Megan!!
I found me a comfy bench (by the end I'd found lots of comfy benches) and Norman asked how I liked being pregnant, here's my response...
So there was a rhino statue. There were usually kids and people around it getting their picture taken. Once when Norman and I were walking by it was free. I said "Go stand by it and I'll take your picture" This is what we got...
LOL!!! I was laughing so hard!!! I love my husband!
It was a fun day and it was great to see Norman's family. That afternoon the guys had a diaper party for Norman which was a lot of fun for him. They went to dinner and a movie and we got some great diapers and even some more outfits! Thanks guys! We really do appreciate it!!!
