finally! it's happening! i am blogging my labor and delivery story just for you. ha...
here i am a few days before i went into labor, just to be sure you all have proof i did get huge
(well, big in my book)
i couldn't believe it...
and here' danny's baby... awe...
boy it would be a funny thing if men were pregnant..right?
okay, enough with the photos-i know you guys want the details, so here goes nuffin.
i was about 35 weeks along when i started to lose my mind from being so uncomfortable with this pregnancy. seriously, i was running out of room-and i don't think anyone believed me! i couldn't get from the side of the bed to the bathroom without saying, "ow!" i couldn't breathe because our poor baby girl had no room, and would shuv herself up under my ribs. that. felt. fantastic. i had heartburn if i ate a tick tac, and was in the bathroom like it was going out of style. laying down hurt because she would crawl into my ribs, sitting up hurt because she would crawl into my ribs, holding my arm to block her hurt because my muscles would get tired, and sleeping was next to impossible. i was only able to sleep in the morning and afternoon from 10am-12pm because that's when the baby would sleep. i waddled like a duck, i REALLY couldn't wear any of my clothes now, so i looked homeless in danny's for a while there. it was scary folks. i finally felt "really" pregnant.
see!
the last appointment i'd had with the dr. they hadn't checked how far along i was because it was still too early, i was only 34 weeks or so along and there was no need. but i did keep telling them, "i feel like i am running out of room!" it was almost frustrating just going to the dr.'s because they never had any news for me. it was like, "hello, how much do you weigh, lets find a heartbeat, k good now go home." really!? i wanted to hear something exciting! like... well anything, how about..hey let's deliver your baby. can you tell i got impatient towards the end? just a little.
danny's cousin's wife kassie was about to have her baby any day too, so we had fun texting each other every day asking questions, and waiting...and WAITING for someone to go into labor. seriously, it was kind of torture, but i was ever so grateful to have kassie to text at 2am. lol.
around week 35 i started having this thing happen where the baby moved into these ridiculous positions and my stomach looked entirely lopsided. it felt amazing! (not) it was hard to breathe through, it wasn't painful, just terribly annoying. here's what it looked like.
by the time i was 36 weeks this would happen very often. i just thought it was no big deal, and that my daughter was just moving around in there! i think the day before my 37 week dr. visit, i googled what it was and found out that these can sometimes be braxton hicks contractions (your body prepping for real ones) and that they aren't really a big deal unless yada yada.. so, i treated them like no big deal. i figured i'd just mention them to the dr. at my appointment on thursday, and that's what i did.
we went to the dr's that day around 1:00 pm or so and they weighed me (a whopping 108 lbs!) i couldn't believe it. this was also the day they were supposed to "check" me to see if i was dilated at all, and so kassie was on edge waiting to hear from me, and i was waiting to hear from her about her appointment to see if her dilation had changed at all. we were also scheduled for an ultrasound, so we went in to do that and while we were looking at the baby she kept doing that weird thing inside my stomach and finally the nurse told me, those are contractions..how long have you been having them? me, thinking..this is no big deal, said, "well about a few weeks, but a lot more recently." after that they didn't say much, the baby looked fine, and they printed off our pictures and had us sit in the hall and wait for the dr.
i was petrified of being checked, i'd read on google about the horror stories of how uncomfortable it can be. eventually, a nurse directed us to a room to take a stress test. i knew what this was because my sister in law esther had just had one, but danny had no idea and started to freak out just a little. no one told us we would be taking a stress test, because it wasn't planned. they gave me a bottle of juice which i asked danny to open for me, and then he drank it all-haha. we both laughed.
after about 30 minutes of watching tv we went in to see the dr. it wasn't my dr. but a different one that day and she was really sweet. we came in and sat down and she said, "have you been having contractions? because on the monitor out there you had a lot." i looked at her and said, "well, that was nothing! that's not near as many as i usually get." and then she said the jaw dropping comment, "well, we think it would be best if we have you deliver the baby now, because she no longer has room to grow inside you and she is stressed." um...(eye blinking) we both went silent, and i think danny choked on his spit when he said, "so wait, what?" then she smiled and said, "go ahead and go eat a good meal and then head over to the hospital." i was shocked, panicked, scared, and excited all at once, and danny couldn't decide if he should laugh, smile, or be concerned. but we were both very excited. of course then she said, "let me check you real quick." okay folks, i won't lie...in my case, getting checked was horrible! the word uncomfortable didn't really cut it for me, it was more like ow, are you trying to get to my throat through there? HA. super fun, but quick and over with-about crawled up the wall. i wasn't dilated, just barely softening. we left the hospital all composed and when we got to the car we started freaking out.
thankfully, 2 days earlier i had JUST finished packing my hospital bag and organizing everything for delivery. i had finished the birth plan (which is a joke-i'll get back to that) and the car seat had just been installed. whew! we were ready, even though mentally we didn't feel it! we stopped by the house and i watched danny panic about the 3 things he needed to do..."um..dear, grab your cell phone, charger, and a change of clothes." we were frazzled and i was very thankful that at that moment my brother had reminded me to ask for a blessing-so we stopped everything and danny gave me a beautiful blessing. we hadn't thought about what to eat before labor so we just thought of the biggest meal azlyn could handle that involved a crud loan of protein! ha.
so naturally, we went to tgif's and ate steak-so. much. steak. whether that was wrong or right i'll never know, but it worked for me! we actually enjoyed our meal, we called our family to let them know, and talked about how our lives were about to change, and i said sorry ahead of time for anything i might say or do in labor-haha..
(here's a nice, orange, blurry photo of my food)
we arrived at the hospital around 6-6:30 pm-ish on Thursday, February 6th, and got checked in with the hospital. while in the waiting room we ran into brother haygood, and brother brock from the ward. we were so excited to tell them we were about to have the baby. once we got all situated at the hospital we snapped a few quick photos. they decided to give me the biggest hospital gown on the planet, just for fun. i was drowning in it. i was hoping for a child size gown-rats!
we were so excited to meet our little one! (ignore my husbands giant sized dinosaur phone)
see that dumb thing on my arm? ugh...the blood pressure cuff that isn't the child size one! it would go off every time i had a contraction making it rather difficult to "relax," i took it off 5 times on purpose. the nurses were getting a little annoyed with me removing it-but danget, i had bruises from it afterwards. that thing was worse than the contractions.
okay-back to the story azlyn.
the nurse came in and said in that sweet little voice of hers, "okay, so now i'm going to start your iv and give you some cervical cream to get things ready." "okay, go for it," i thought. the iv was cake, and i was just thinking, "bring it on, get this sweet thing out of me." they gave me a numbing shot before the iv so that was AWESOME. the cervical cream,...eh...not so much. i had to focus on a metal pole in order to get through that-it was super dooper fun. super.
we were told to just hang out until 6 am, for them to come and break my water and start the pitocin. so what did we do? we watched the olympics, and gilmore girls! who better to focus on than lorelai during labor!? the nurses loved gilmore girls too, so i didn't feel like such a weirdo.
contractions were frequent now and even though i hadn't been given the pitocin i started to notice they were getting stronger. you know? i spent my whole life thinking contractions were this stabbing, twisting pain, that made you want to die..now, it may be that this is how they are for some women, but it wasn't at all how it was for me. i knew first off, that i was being blessed immensely, and that my mother was there holding my hand through it all-but my contractions felt like strong pressure. they would however make it hard to breathe. it really is true though when they say, relax and breathe through them-it helps a ton (or it did for me).
don't take my word on anything though, because labor truey is different for everyone.
contractions started to get so intense that i couldn't relax very well, but i did my best and rolled over and tried to get some sleep. about then the nurse came back to check me, this time being checked wasn't so bad because i knew what i was in for-but man was i getting sore. i was 1 1/2 centimeters dilated.
i decided to ignore the numbers and just try to get some sleep. danny and i dozed off for about 2 hours and then suddenly i woke up to my water breaking at 3:30 am. it was crazy. that part was how i imagined it-haha, it startled me awake. i remember sitting up saying, "my water broke!" i was panicked about it because i'd read contractions really intensify after this, so i got nervous. the nurse came in and told me they were going to start my pitocin in one hour. the time in-between that was sort of a blur. an hour later i was hooked me up to the iv, by then i think i was around 3 or 4 centimeters. the pitocin wasn't too bad, the contractions did get intense; i had to be holding danny's hand in order to get through them calmly. danny was AMAZING. he coached me through it, he told me i could do it, he helped me focus on each contraction and only what i was going through at the moment. i love that kid.
i contracted with the pitocin until i was dilated to a 7. This is where it did start to get pretty intense, and i started asking for that epidural. thankfully, i'd checked myself into a wonderful hospital, with amazing staff. my nurse found the anesthesiologist and told me they were getting ready to do a c-section next door, and if i wanted i could have it now before it got too late. i was thrilled.
i had been really worried about getting an epidural the entire pregnancy, the thought of having a needle in your back the size of tim buck two is pretty intense, but hey, for me it was a cake walk. it was less than a bee sting. it was a little sore when they moved it around at the end, but it was fast! and once it kicked in, i was on cloud 9. they were angels sent from above-i think i yelled that twice before the anesthesiologist left the room..haha. they had it turned up to a 10, and had to turn it down to a 8 because i was so incredibly numb. i didn't mind though, and i sat there crunching ice and watching tv. they told me they'd be back in an hour to check me.
they came back 35 minutes later and i was an 8! i think it's because i loved my epidural so much ;) it was so weird to be checked or to have them move my legs around. you can't feel a thing. i remember tapping danny's arm trying to get his attention to ask him a question, and then i realized it was my own leg i was hitting-lol! they came back in and told me i was going to start pushing soon, and that they were going to go find the dr. because the baby kept slipping down really fast-she wanted out!
within minutes i was dilated to a 10 and ready to push. i ended up having a midwife deliver my baby girl because the dr. wasn't there. she did great. at 10:00 am i started pushing. it wasn't hard to push until they asked me to push 3 times in a row...i thought, "are you joking?" haha, i felt like my head was going to explode every time because by the third push my abs were shot. i didn't really know how to push, but i'd remembered doing ab ripper x with p90x and i figured maybe i'd do a couple ab crunches and then push at the same time-worked like a charm! (thanks tony horton) they put a mirror up for me to watch (trust me, i thought this is so gross when they asked) but actually it's a miracle, and amazing, and you don't look at it like that. it was motivating to keep going.
and then it happened, ... at 10:33am little laneah elizabeth solomon came into the world. she didn't cry much, and i don't know how to explain what it was like. i'd heard everyone's stories about how amazing it is when you see your child for the first time, but what i wasn't prepared for..was how personal it would be, and how i would think of my mother. i knew she came straight from liz to my arms. they laid her right down on my chest and she had her eyes wide open, and we just stared at each other. no noise, no comments, ... nothing. danny and i couldn't think of any words, or what to say-we were all just in awe. the nurses kept talking, but i think i tuned them out, i couldn't believe how beautiful my little girl was. she. is. so. perfect.
she weighed a whopping 5 lbs 2.3 ounces, and was 18 inches long. she was incredibly healthy and tested great! she was mine, she was ours, and i couldn't get over that.
she looks huge in this photo, but just imagine a small bag of flour. ;)
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we are so in love. <3
after i delivered her, they had some trouble getting the placenta out. it was pretty scary and nerve wrecking having people pull and pull something that you can't feel and you know should come out. ugh, gives me chills...it took a while-they had to have another dr. come in and do it eventually, but they got it out. they told me it had grown abnormally, which was one reason she could not grow anymore inside of me. she was an IUGR baby (Intrauterine growth restriction) and so we had to keep her very swaddled and wearing a beanie at all times.
they eventually switched us to a new room, and we got situated. i cried like a baby the first night she went to the nursery to sleep, and my heart would get so excited when they'd wheel her back into my room. hearing her cart coming down the hall was the sweetest sound ever. i laughed with danny later at how prepared i was for labor with my birth plan, because nothing went how i had planned. i had decided i was going to sit on my exercise ball and be all calm and distracted-haha...yeah, i labored in bed, drank protein shakes, and watched tv...lol! it cracks me up.
the first night was fun, danny and i ate the cool meals the hospital had (and they were good!) and our night nurse was amazing! my dad flew in on the 8th and so danny stayed at the house that night and i got laneah all to myself. it was so fun! i had to walk the halls the day before i left...haha, that was hard..getting your muscles to function after labor is hilarious. well, it was for me. i left that hospital on sunday evening and came home to a pretty bassinet danny had put together.
and now we have settled in at home, and are enjoying our new little girl. i will be posting another update here soon about how things are going since delivery. until then-you will all just have to suffer the bajillion photos of her on facebook. ;)
i love my little girl.
