Hi and welcome back! It has been a long time since I've blogged. Besides having my life taken over by a tiny human, I honestly couldn't think of anything to write about. The days of delicious meals that were made from scratch have been replaced by microwavable pulled pork on Hawaiian rolls. That and homemade street tacos. Homemade meaning we heat up the meat and assemble completely non-authentic tacos. It works though, food has much less importance now. I thought I should write about how my sweet Isla Grace came into the world. She was born at 9:04 pm on January 30, 2014. Weighing in at just 6 lbs even, and was a compact 18.5 inches long. Thank goodness she was small, because it made the whole experience more enjoyable. To find out why, keep on reading ;)
If you're new to the blog and baby updates, I'll fill you in. When I was 36 weeks I started having regular contractions. It was my last day of work, and I had to leave about an hour and a half into work to go to the labor and delivery triage. I was 3 cm dilated and 70% effaced. They sent me home to rest, and I continued to have contractions throughout the day and night. The next morning at my 36 week checkup I was 3.5 cm dilated and 80% effaced. My OB said I would probably have the baby within the week, same thing the on call OB said at triage. Well, a week came and went. And then another week. All the while I was having contractions that would come regularly for about 1/2 an hour, then stop. We were playing the waiting game. At my 38 week checkup my OB scheduled my induction day, which would have been February 4th. Because my cervix was fully effaced and I was 4 cm my OB said it was better to go ahead and induce me at 39 weeks because it would be a controlled environment. He was worried my labor would go quickly. Oh, and it did.
Just three days later I started having contractions at 4 pm. They were very strong, but I was able to shower and do my hair and makeup. Which later was a complete waste. By 6 pm I was on the couch crying out in pain, and off to the hospital we went! I was unable to go to the hospital where my induction was planned, because it was rush hour traffic. Instead we went North against the traffic to get to a (better) hospital specifically for women. It's a great hospital with a fantastic reputation. I was contracting about 2-3 minutes apart in the car. They were pretty painful, I wasn't talking much. I was in a triage bed by 6:30, where they checked me and said I was 4.5 cm dilated and fully effaced. I figured this would be a quick process and I would be upstairs in a labor and delivery room in no time. Two hours later I was still stuck in that triage bed. I had completely transitioned to the full 10 cm without any pain medication and just as I was feeling ready to puke all over the floor, the nurses decided that finally there was a bed ready for me upstairs. Who knew it took the hospital staff, who do this round the clock every day, two full hours to get me admitted. It was ridiculous, I was so upset. Although looking back I'm not sure how much it showed.
The pain was so great I could barely breathe through my contractions. Breathing is great when you're starting to dilate and can still talk. When it feels like your cervix is ripping open and you fully dilate that quickly, breathing does absolutely nothing. If I had been able to move, what I should have done was get out of that bed and scream at someone in the hallway. Although I couldn't really move. I didn't have any bottoms on, just a towel draped over me. As they were wheeling me upstairs I could hardly focus. It was the craziest thing knowing it was time, and I thought I would get upstairs to get that epidural I had been wanting for hours. I was excited to feel the euphoria of the epidural while I waited to dilate the rest of the way. Because of course I had no idea what was going on since the nurse hadn't checked my cervix in quite some time. I get up onto the delivery bed and the nurse was trying to start my IV. She kept telling me to hold still, and I kept telling her I couldn't because it hurt too bad. I was squeezing my legs together trying to keep the baby in, because with every contraction it felt like she was going to pop out.
At 8:45 I was up in the room, and I was pushing 15 minutes later. I had to wait to push because there wasn't a doctor in the room yet. Three pushes later out came Isla who let out a glorious cry and was instantly pink! She scored a 9 on the 1 minute Apgar test, and another 9 on the 5 minute test. She was the cutest little thing, I couldn't believe how tiny she was! I'm so thankful she was a small baby, because I didn't get my epidural. I didn't get anything. After delivery I got a couple doses of local meds in my IV to help with the pain. And honestly, I would do it again. 100 times over. She is the most amazing gift I will ever receive. The process of getting her here wasn't anything like I imagined it would be, but when it's all said and done the only thing that matters is having a healthy baby.
Isla is now 10 weeks old and 12 lbs! She has surely grown, and is much longer too. She started off way on the the bottom of the growth chart, but is up in the middle range now. She is exclusively breastfed, and only receives a bottle when I am at work or gone for more than 2 hours when daddy is watching her. Breastfeeding has been quite the experience. We got off to a rough start, but everything is better now and going well. I plan to do a separate blog on breastfeeding to raise some awareness of the issues we had. Thank you for stopping by and reading this extremely lengthy post!
(all of the above pics were taken either right after birth or before we left the hospital, the one below is of us last week)
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