One month Letter

Hello Sarah B,

laying on her billi blanket

It is currently 11:59PM and you are asleep. Sleep. Something that eludes this house on a daily basis. You are a little over one month and sleep is the only thing we really need to work on at the moment. Your first month on the outside was a busy one, we had billi blankets to lay on, doctors to see, lbs to gain. In your first few weeks, its laughable now to think about, but you actually had to be woken up to eat. Oh how we wish we had that problem now. Not really, but girl as soon as the sun goes down you are wide awake.

Enough about how much you DON'T sleep lets get on to the what you do. You are already pretty strong, you love to do baby pull ups and lift your little head up to see more of what is going on. You have tried to see a little to much on more than one occasion and almost flopped right out of daddy and my arms.

You are eating like a champ now! Something that stressed daddy and I to the max your first few days with us. You are officially bottlevfed as much as I hate to admit defeat, I guess it isn't totally defeat, you do boob feed 3 times a day but it is more for comfort than sustenance. I have to keep telling myself some boob milk is better than none.

Yes, we call it boob milk, or say "She needs some boob". I never said your father and I were mature. 

The last doctor appointment you had was your one month check up they were so happy that you had gained not just one pound but a pound and a half! We take bets as to what your weight is going to be at every doc appointment, we were all really wrong. You weighed in at a healthy 7lbs, your head had grown an inch and a half and you had grown a whole inch.

Your daddy and I can't believe how much we are in love with you, even when you are screaming like a pterodactyl (yes I had to google this, and no I didn't know it started with a P).

We love you, our little squeaks.

Sarah's Birth Story: Part two

I was in la la land for the most part now but I wasn't sure if it was the drugs or the fact that I was delirious with happiness that I wasn't in pain anymore. Then the happiness started to feel like nausea, and I couldn't believe that I was going to throw up... I yelled over everyone talking that I needed a trash can and to be propped up NOW because I was going to throw up, what, I didn't know I was going on almost 36 hours of not eating but throw up I did. Dr. Asshole was still in the room and he said "Oh that is totally normal." Is it really?! A little warning next time would be nice... anyway now that I was feeling no pain I was able to sleep and did from about 12:30 in the morning until it was time to push.  They came in periodically and would update me on my progress which was still slow. Then sometime in the 4 o'clock hour the resident came in to check me and I was prepared to hear the worst... like being only 4cm but low and behold I was at a 7! I didn't realize how much my body had been fighting my labor but in that moment all residual feelings I had of "wussing" out for getting an epidural vanished. I tried to fall back asleep but when the doctor said I was at a 7 the air around me became charged with excitement with a side of nervousness.

After being told that I was actually progressing I start to feel....something. A new sensation, like I need to push something out, I have a lot going on down there at this point what with the catheter and the fetal heart monitor wire. Baby girl was terrible at staying on the monitor, we called her camera shy to try to laugh about it but in reality it was annoying as hell. I couldn't move around like I wanted to because it would send the nurse flying in to my room thinking something was wrong, they decided because I was so close and she was being a brat about it to use the FHM. Anyway, back to my sensation. I told my husband and my mom that I was feeling something down there. It wasn't a contraction it was something new, I told them the feeling or pressure was coming from where the FHM wire was but I just felt like I wanted to push out the catheter. I think the catheter thing was because I could feel that better than the wire, but I told them I think I am getting close to pushing.

Husband went and grabbed the nurse and she came in hesitently. She had been with me through most of my labor, or at least the hard stuff, and she knew it had taken FOREVER to get to this point and I could see it on her face when I asked to be checked so soon after her last exam that she didn't want to get my hopes up. She gloved up and the look of surprise on her face let me know what I was suspecting. She said that I was fully dilated and it was time to start pushing. I thought I hadn't heard her correctly, me ready to push? But this has been what seems like the longest labor in the history of labor and you're telling me we are almost to the end? I didn't believe her, then she started to get the cart ready and turned the light on to the warming bed. At 6am she said I could try some practice pushing, and in this part of my story I am going to admit to my naivety. I thought to myself that their will be no practice pushes I told myself I would have this kid out in 3 pushes....

Oh silly, dumb Mrs. G...

I start my practice pushes and realize that I have no idea how to push this kid out, they say I am doing a good job but after about 30 minutes and no baby I realize... wow, this is hard. The nurse checks me to see where I am and she says that I still have a lip of my cervix and I need to lay on my left hand side to get it to go away. At this point they have turned off my epi so I can start to feel the contractions to push. I feel everything and through all the new sensations I had the pleasure of feeling during my labor this was the worst. The was the beginning of me begging for a c-section or what I like to call.... Transition.

I was on my left hand side and was begging for this kid to be out of me. I believe I asked for a scalpel so I could do it myself when I was told we were past that point. I finally laid back on my back and refused to lay on my left hand side. My dear husband said to me "but, honey the nurse said..." and I very "nicely" told him to Shut the eff up, I wasn't laying on my left hand side and the nurse could get over it.

What little time I was on my left hand side must have done the trick because she came back in and I resumed "practice" pushing.  After about another 30 min their was a shift change and I got my new nurse, who thought the best way to make a first impression was to fiddle with my nethers while I was having a contraction.

"GET YOUR FINGERS OUT OF ME."

The voice that came out of me was not my own, but came from a place, deep inside me that I guess only shows itself when in extreme pain. The nurse very promptly brought her hands up in the "I surrender" position and said "OK"... like I actually had a loaded gun pointed at her, which if I you think about it I kind of did (ba-doom tiiiiish). After the contraction ended I profusley apologized to her for yelling at her and she said "Please, yell at me if you need too." It is hard to remember that there is nothing you can do or say to L & D nurse that 1. they haven't heard before or 2. they take to heart.

So there I am, pushing and pushing and pushing and nothing is happening. I say that I know I said I was against foreceps and a vacuum but if they brought me a dyson I would have sucked her out myself.  That was about the last witty thing I said because in an instant shit got real. I kept pushing and everyone kept telling me that I was doing such a great job but to me nothing was happening, I had been pushing for an hour and half and still didn't have a baby. I told my mom and husband to "SHUT UP"  when they kept saying how awesome I was doing. The next push I gave I felt the room begin to spin and I yelled " I AM GOING TO PASS OUT, I AM SO HOT, I AM GOING TO PASS OUT" They thought I was over exaggerating but after the next contraction I hit my mother's and husband's hands off of me, ripped off my blood pressure cuff and started to literally rip off my gown almost pulling my IVs out in the process. My mom and husband helped me out of my gown and I hear a little voice from my left hand side say "Hi can we get a fan to room 676?"

It was one of those super fancy dyson ones, and let me tell you, those things pump out some serious arctic air. The issue was my mom who was holding my leg kept standing in front of it and my husband and I kept yelling at her to move because the instant the cool wasn't hitting me I felt like I was going to pass out again.

The doctor finally comes in and checks my progress you can see about a dime size portion of her head when I bear down and push. The doctor checks me and I ask if I can change position and she tells me that Sarah is lodged in my pelvis and if we weren't careful what position I was in it could lodge her further in. I don't fight this because at this point I have the shakes and in between contractions I am begging anyone who will listen to get this baby out of me because I just can't anymore. I was convinced that I had nothing else to give and that I was done pushing and that this next contraction I wasn't going to push I was just going to stay pregnant forever. Yeah right, that's laughable. If you hear a woman say that when there is that urge to push you push, I didn't even want to push but damn it I had no control over my body. So I pushed and the doctor realized that I wasn't doing an awesome job the way I was doing it so she said we were going to get medieval. I think "great they are going to have me bite down on a leather strap or something." Not the case, the nurse comes back with a towel that she has twisted to look like a rope and tells me to grab the other end. I am told to pull as hard as I can when I have a contraction and the nurse would pull back (think playing tug of war). The issue was I wasn't rounding in enough on my self to push her out. Does that make sense? There is a reason why you are slightly sitting up with your legs in stirrups, its because it puts all the pressure right in your groin area and I wasn't in the right position.

The contraction came and I pulled with all my might and everyone shouted how awesome I was doing and that they could actually see the head. The doctor asked if I wanted to mirror as motivation but I said no because I was afraid I was going to be to focused on what I was seeing and not on actually pushing. My husband who swore up and down that he wasn't going to watch was transfixed and couldn't look away. Another contraction came I pulled but my arms gave out and I shouted at someone to catch the poor nurse on the other end. When the contractions would end my whole body would be shaking uncontrollably,so getting a grip on the towel was hard. The next few contractions I was determined to get this kid out, I had been in labor long enough and was convinced that if I had to push for much longer I would actually go insane. So after the obligatory 2 hard pushes while counting to 10 I realized I still felt the urge to push so I yelled " CAN I KEEP PUSHING." The doctor responded calmly "If you feel like you need too" it was those extra pushes that got her out. I had 2 or 3 contractions where I did the extra push and after every contraction you could see more and more of her.

Once she was finally crowning I felt the contraction coming and with everything I had left I pushed and that was it. The whole room exploded and shouting about how she was out and what was I doing? Still pushing... She came at the very beginning of the contraction and my body was still telling me to push,  I was told to stop pushing she was out, and I gave a "huh?" then they placed her on my chest and there she was, my daughter was here.

Husband cried and kept telling me "you did it, she's here" and my mom was just a mess. I was silent, my body was humming but when they put her tiny, warm body in to my arms, they stopped shaking and were powerful and steady. The weight of her on me felt like it was meant to be there, like this little plot of skin was always hers to lay on and it had just been waiting. She was born with her eyes open and when I began to talk she searched her small little eyes for me. She knew me and I knew her, I knew all 5lbs 8oz of her ( I guessed her weight spot on, I guess mother knows best.) They whisked her away to make sure she was ok and I delivered my placenta. This was such a weird sensation, and thankfully it was intact and their wasn't any visible problem with it.  We told the doctor that I wanted to encapslate it but she said that because she was so early they were going to want to do some tests to make sure there wasn't an infection or something along those lines as the cause for her early arrival. I didn't care, I was tired and high on my baby. They said she was perfect just petite and that she could go to the normal nursery and not the NICU which was huge relief for me. Her glucose was really low so while they took her to the nursery husband went with her and I stayed behind to get stitched up. I actually stayed in the L&D room for a few hours because they had to run some tests on me. I guess my blood pressure sky rocketed during delivery...hmmmm wonder why? But they took my cath out and took some blood. Everything turned out ok in the end and I was finally taken upstairs.

The first few days were filled with Sarah having to be on a billi bed because she was jaundice, being told I may not be able to breastfeed and that I was this close to getting a c-section.

All and all this was a huge lesson for me in letting go of control and just going with the flow. I am so happy that she is here, happy and healthy and that I made it out not to emotionally scared to consider having more children.

Sarah's Birth story part one

Saturday June 1st was just another day, isn't that what people always say? That this one day before your life changed forever was like any other day? I hadn't slept well that night and I was getting increasingly uncomfortable and realized I probably pushed myself to hard from cleaning trying to get the house ready for my baby shower so it was a lazy day for me.

My mom had been out ordering food for my shower and I had been laying on the couch when husband got home and we decided to go out and pick out my glider for the nursery. We walked around a lot and I just felt off, tired and just plain worn out. But we found the one we wanted and when they said they didn't have it but would by the 14th we said that was fine because "we had 5 weeks."

Feeling exhausted and not wanting to cook, we decided to hit up a little Mexican food cause baby wanted chimichangas. When we got our food I just wasn't hungry and we boxed up everything and headed home. I tried to relax and husband and I headed to bed around 9:30, I was restless but was able to sleep from about 9:30 until I rolled over around 2:30am with an uncomfortable amount of pressure and thought to myself " good lord I have to pee!" I stand up and immediately start "wetting" myself. I couldn't believe it, how embarrassing, I waddled to the bathroom trying to hold it but I just kept "wetting" myself. I finally get to the toilet and I am still gushing what I thought was pee. I think it is over and I wipe and there is blood....

It takes me 3 screams of husbands name to rouse him from bed and I am still leaking, he walks in, squinty eyed in to the bathroom and asked kind of out of sorts "What?!"  I told him there was blood and he asked what that meant, I told him I didn't know because this being my water breaking was the last thing on my mind. I told him to get my mom, she had been through this before so she would know right?

My husband runs down stairs and grabs her and they are both back upstairs in no time, crowding the bathroom door, trying to assess the situation. I am still leaking at this point and all I of a sudden I remembered my mom talking about her labor with me, her water broke before any contractions and that she had been right where I had been, on the toilet, thinking she was peeing but couldn't stop the flow. I couldn't stop the flow.... HOLY SHIT, IS THIS MY WATER!?!. I knew right then before my mom asked the first question, and I think she did too, my water had broken and I was 5 weeks early.

I told husband to call my OB and I had to clean up a little and get dressed, in the process we called Kelley my doula and she said we should stay home rest and then call her in a little while. I wasn't comfortable with that seeing as my water broke and this just wasn't the start of contractions, so we decided to go ahead and head to the hospital. As I was getting dressed, I lost it, the nursery wasn't done, our bags weren't packed.... we weren't ready, I wasn't ready. I thought for sure I was going to walk in to L & D and they were going to sign me up for a c-section.

I threw on husbands ratty pj bottoms and a hoodie and we headed to the hospital. We got there and after the hour or so assessment it was determined that I was in fact in labor, the issue was my cervix was as thick as ever and I was only dilated to 1cm. I knew right then and there this was going to be a loooooooooong day.


I waddled my leaking self down to my room and it was set up and Husband got the camera  out and started filming. I wasn't having contractions at this point but I knew I was going to have a baby, possibly within the next 24 hours. We called all the family and everyone's reaction was pretty much the same, they couldn't believe that I was in labor 5 weeks early. I was still in a state of shock laying there in the room that would welcome my daughter. It was a little overwhelming to see the warming bed all ready to go, to know that I didn't have "5 weeks" anymore this was happening. I wasn't in any pain yet so after the calls had been made I decided to get some sleep and luckily I was able too.

My family slowly yet surely made their way in to see me, and then the meds started. I have stated I don't know how many times that I wanted a med free birth, shoot I even wrote a damn birth wish list that said so. But when I was on my toilet and realized that my water had broken 5 weeks early I pretty much felt like Elizabeth Banks in the movie "What to expect when you're expecting" when she has to have a c-section she tells her doctor that she has a birth plan...she even typed it. I knew in that moment that it didn't really matter what my "plan" was because Sarah had one of her own. I knew when they said I was at 1cm with little to know effacement that intervention was going to be needed because the chance of infection was so high because my water broke.

I knew to sit back and enjoy the ride. So I watched ABC family, they were playing old school Disney movies, oldies like Cinderella, Peter Pan and one of my favies Pocohantas.... It was glorious.

They gave me over the course of 12 hours a pill abbreviated to meso that was supposed to thin and ripen my cervix in hopes to bring on labor more naturally. It did what it was supposed to do but because my body was totally unprepared for this the pills weren't enough. At this point my contractions were getting to the point where I had to breathe through them. Deep breaths in through the nose and out through my mouth. When they checked me, I thought for sure I would be at a 3 or even a 4.... I was still at 1, almost a 2. I was in shock, I thought for sure my body had been moving forward because the contractions were getting stronger and isn't that what it is supposed to do?

Then the word Pitocin came up and I immedately wanted to talk it over with husband, which the nurses respected. I called Kelley, whom we had been in communication with through this whole process and tell her my progress. To say that at this point, after 12 hours of labor with no clear end in sight I decided something while dialing that I never thought I would. I told her that after the meds to ripen my cervix didn't really work that they wanted to give me Pit and I gulped air to hold back tears and said... "I think I am going to get the epidural." It wasn't because the pain was too much or that I couldn't handle it. It was because I didn't know how much longer I was going to be in labor, it could have been 5 more hours or 15, only Sarah knew. I told Kelley that my ultimate goal was to avoid a c-section at all costs and deliver her as close to natural as humanly possible. She totally agreed with me and I didn't feel like such a puss/failure after all. She reassured me that she was early, my body wasn't ready for this and that getting her out vaginally should be my number one priority and if getting an epidural so I could rest and be ready for the birth then I should do it.

I had originally told the nurse that I was going to see how bad the pitocin contractions were and see if I could handle them naturally but that I wasn't against getting the epi. Then after getting the uplifting words from Kelley I decided that I was already pretty tired and why put it off any longer? The nurse came back in and I told her to go ahead and put the order in for the epi, I needed to get some sleep.

Things up to this point were fine, and manageable, my contractions were getting more intense but I was handling it well. Then the anesthesiologist came in and f-ed that up royally.

They started my pit and not even 10 min later Dr.Asshole we will call him came in to administer my epi. I was nervous, I had read how a bad epi can lead to chronic back pain down the road and other problems and I didn't want that to happen, so I said a little prayer that this doc had a steady hand. He comes in and immedately starts to comment on my "dense back tissue" I am pretty sure this is him calling me fat (husband said he heard him tell the nurse that I shouldn't be a problem because his record was 691lbs) but at this point I don't care because I am trying to breathe through my contractions so I don't move too much while a long needle is being inserted in to my spine.

Epidurals hurt. The stuff they give you to numb the area hurts, when they are moving the giant ass needle around in your spine it hurts and it hurts too if they hit a nerve and your back spasms WHILE the giant ass needle is in your spine. While Dr. Asshole is poking around back there and says he has the epi set I tell him I am still feeling everything (and to add to the list I am feeling a giant ass needle in my back). He again tells me that with my dense back tissue it was hard but the meds should take effect in about 20 minutes. I find this information unsettling because he keeps asking me if my legs are numb or can I feel this contraction and on a scale of 1-10 how bad is the pain. I am not going to lie it did take the edge off so the doc leaves after he thinks he has sucessfully administered my epidural.

This is the beginning my of my 5 hours of hell.

My epi was given to me at 7pm, by 8pm I knew it wasn't right. I was feeling everything and by this point the pitocin had really kicked in. The thing was I could only feel it on my right side, the asshole doctor had only numbed my left side. The contractions, granted only on my right side were terrible, I was moaning through them and they had rendered me useless when one would come. Then the nurse came in to give me a catheter. When she did it I lost my mind and started bawling my eyes out. I had been in labor for 18.5 hours, I was tired, in a lot of pain and confused as to why I was in so much pain. I had seen the effects of an epidural on women before, they were so clam, relaxed, joyful that they weren't in any pain, I was not one of those women. When the nurse left my mom and husband rushed over to me and I told them something wasn't right, I was in way to much pain for having an epidural and I was so tired and done being poked and prodded.

Husband told the nurse when she came back in that I was in a lot of pain still so she put a call in to Dr. Asshole who sent one of this minons down to give me a straight shot of pain killers. This would be the routine for the next 5 hours.

After 5 hours of being on the strongest setting for pit, feeling it on half of my body someone finally said "You know this doesn't seem right." And called Dr. Asshole and in he came and he watched me for 20 min and said that the epi catheter probably had shifted and when he dug around my spine some more and realized that no, he had just plain effed it up he stayed and re-administered ANOTHER epi. I cried the whole time. Husband just held my hands and put his forehead to mine and told me how amazing I had been through all of this. I found strength in his words and rounded my dense back tissue for Dr.Asshole.  I was so beyond exhausted,when he finally hit the sweet spot and I went all tingly and exclaimed "This is what it is supposed to feel like" I just wept tears of joy.

They got me positioned in bed and then I sat up for some reason and then it happened....

My eyes got wide, my arms flailed searching for the sides of the bed, I yelled

"I AM FALLING, I AM FALLING"

My mom and the nurse caught me and got me nestled back in to bed.

In an instant the epi had rendered my core muscles useless and I couldn't have been happier.