[originally posted on 1/19/15]
Jon and I tried to keep track of the details of our baby's birth by taking time to write out what was happening. we actually each only wrote one time. this is Jon's account:
"On Nov 15, AJ woke me up and was having contractions. We woke up, and decided that they were very serious. So we got in the shower (because we smelled like campfire) and washed up for the hospital. Aj's contractions were getting more and more severe and were very painful. We got out of the shower and called the on call doctor. She was supposed to call us right back but my phone was on do not disturb mode so we didn't hear it! She called twice more that we missed and by the time we got ahold of her it was almost 0200. When we finally talked to her she told us to go to the hospital so we gathered a few loose ends and John, Kathy and Katie sent us on our way.
The drive was slow, not another car on the road. Contractions were very bad and very close. We got to the hospital and parked and as we were walking in, AJ wasn't able to walk anymore and sat on the ground. Luckily someone was in their car outside the ER and they went in and got a nurse with a wheelchair. She brought us up to the second floor and we got checked in to triage. By this time the contractions were very bad and Aj's back was hurting very bad. In triage she was dilated to 3cm.
We got a room soon after and AJ really wanted the epidural. She got hooked up to an iv and soon after the anesthesiologist came in for the epidural. The first time she placed the catheter it was in a blood vessel so she had to do it again. Once she got it placed and the medication flowing I almost passed out. I was standing with my knees locked and supporting AJ and all of a sudden my vision started blurring and I had to step back and put my hands on my knees. By this time it was about 0415/0430. Everything since then has been uneventful. Current time 0501."
and mine:
"The epidural was the best thing ever. When she put in the first numbing shot, I was tingly all the way down to my legs. I told her I didn't want her to tell me anything she was doing, so we mostly talked about Jon's pram from Germany. The nurses loved/acted like they loved it. It was scary when Jon almost passed out, he was white as a ghost. He sat on the sofa and the nurse sat in front of me and rubbed my legs until the anesthesiologist was done. It made me very sleepy and jon and I both fell asleep until about 7. The new nurse came in and checked me at 8am. She said I am 6/7 cm dilated and the sack is bulging. The baby was also right there! She said she could have broken my water with her finger nails. She will send the doctor in around 9am to break my water and thinks it'll be about 2 hours after that when we have the baby. I am so excited!"
when the nurse came in to check me again she let me know that my water had broken on its own and that she saw meconium in it. because of that, they would have NICU nurses on hand when the baby arrived and i wouldn't be able to hold him or her right away. that made me pretty sad but i journeyed on. i didn't progress as fast as the nurse had thought that i would. Dr. arya came in and introduced herself as the doctor on call. we let her know that we had hoped our doctor, dr. simpson would be able to deliver our baby. she said she'd call dr. simpson and see if she'd be able to come in! we were so excited because we had felt a special bond with our doctor, she'd been so kind to us the whole pregnancy.
i started to push around 11am. i decided to have only jon and i in the room when i delivered, it just seems so personal to me and i wanted to keep it the two of us. i'm really glad i did because the whole time i pushed the only people in the room were me, jon and one nurse. it was quiet and the three of us just chatted and went back and forth about whether the baby was a boy or a girl. the nurse, jessica, kept calling it a 'he' and told us she did that because she has two boys of her own. i didn't mind too much but secretly thought it was a girl.
when i started pushing i noticed that every time i'd push, the ribs on my left side felt like they were breaking. i didn't know what the deal was but my nurse kept telling me it was normal although it didn't feel normal. i started to feel quiet a bit of pressure in the downstairs so they upped my epidural. that didn't seem to do anything so they brought the new anesthesiologist in. he checked my epidural and saw that the catheter had been bumped out of place so i wasn't getting the medicine-no wonder! he had to do the whole procedure over again aka i got a second epidural and afterwards i felt so much better. when i started pushing again the nurse noticed that the baby was facing my side instead of facing my bottom. she told us that not all doctors will turn babies but dr. arya is one that will. she came in and tried turning the baby's body. she said when she'd turn its head the baby would turn back. she tried a couple times and decided we would just continue to push and it would be fine. this is about the time they asked me if i wanted to have a mirror to see what was going on. i told them i didn't think i wanted to see but to bring the mirror in anyway. well when they brought it in i definitely wanted to see and i'm so glad i did! it was so motivating to see the top of that little baby's head. all we could see was a pale head with very little hair!! my whole pregnancy i had horrible heartburn so i was excited to see if the old wives tale of having bad heartburn meant your baby would have a lot of hair was true and it wasn't! around 3pm (i'd been pushing for about an hour with a 45 minute break for a new epidural and then for another hour and a half or so) my nurse said that she would call dr. simpson and she would come deliver our baby!!! this is when we really started to get excited. jon and i made our final guesses and agreed that we thought we were having a girl. i never felt like i was losing steam or getting to the point of not being able to push anymore. my biggest complaint was that i was very thirsty. all i could eat were ice chips and my nurse discouraged me from drinking any water (i think this is normal). when she wasn't looking, jon would tip my ice glass and let me drink the melted ice at the bottom of the glass. (*spoiler alert* this is when i started to become very dehydrated which would lead to major health problems, but we will get to that later) Jon was so sweet the whole time. I don't know how many times the man left the room to refill my cup and when he got back he'd pick out the biggest pieces to give me and say "this is a good one!"
(jon took this at noon, either right before or right after i got my second epidural)
by the time dr. simpson moseyed in i was very ready to get this baby out! she was chatting with one of the nurses and i remember interrupting them and saying "it feels like this baby is coming out!" dr. simpson is very laid back and never seems to be in much of a hurry. this was obvious during pregnancy when she would be very late to our appointments. all our appointments. that day was no different! she casually put on her gear and got in place. it took three pushes and her coaching me "come on girl, push push pushhhh!" to get that little baby's head out and in the same push the rest of the body! she pulled that baby out, held it up and i looked into jon's watery eyes when he said "it's a girl!" and the doctor and all the nurses yelled "girl!!" it was such a surreal experience, it doesn't even feel like it really happened. as the doctor was holding her in front of me i said "she's so tiny!" Dr. simpson said "she is not tiny! i can't believe she was in you, where was she hiding??" jon cut the cord and she handed our little girl to the nicu nurses and they all asked "does she have a name?" jon and i had been going back and forth on a middle name before i started to push. we were pretty settled on it so i replied "Primrose Teresa" and it sounded perfect.
we were listening to the hunger games over the summer on our drive to carlsbad caverns. of course we didn't know what we were having, so we always bounced around boy and girl names. as we listened, we started discussing how great of a character prim is in the book. i asked jon if he'd consider primrose as a girl name and he very quickly said yes because he loves how kind and compassionate the character is. i looked it up and it was also, coincidentally, a texas wildflower. additionally, there is a little school here named the primrose academy that i would drive past every day to and from work. as i drove by i would daydream about a possible baby girl with the nickname 'Prim'. Teresa was my mom's middle name and everyone said she was very funny. compassionate with a sense of humor, hopefully our prim lives up to that:)
after the brief glimpse of my baby, they took her to get her cleaned up and weighed while i myself was cleaned up andddd stitched. i could hear muffled crying and things like "c'mon baby girl" along with suctioning sounds. they yelled out her weight, 8lbs 4oz and me, the doctor and the nurses all gasped in surprise-big healthy baby! i was definitely expecting a six pounder. i couldn't really see Prim from my bed, i could see jon looking at her smiling and the back of one of the nurses working on her. they had a big balloon that they were using to suction out her lungs, it turns out she had fluid in them as well as low blood oxygen levels. after awhile, probably twenty minutes, they finally swaddled her up and asked if i was ready for her. dr. simpson had finished with me and already left, so yes, i was ready to hold prim.
they handed her to me and told me that they were going to have to take her to the nicu. this was a weird moment because she was totally bundled up and i knew i only had a few short moments with her. i touched her cheeks and said to jon "they are so soft!" i started to cry and the nicu nurse was immediately at my side telling me that i didn't do anything wrong and not to be sad because there is nothing i could have done differently. i understood that, i wasn't beating myself up about it i just didn't want them to take my baby away before i even had a chance to be with her!
we got a quick family photo, i kissed her and they were gone. jon and i barely had time to talk, all i could say to him was "please send katie in." he looked confused for some reason, but he left. when katie came in i told her what happened and she hugged me while we both cried. that was one of the scariest and saddest moments of my life, i am so grateful katie was there with me. she got my phone and on speaker i called my dad to tell him the good news. i had told my dad and my sisters our boy and girl first names, but no one knew the middle name. i told him her name and he got so happy. i could tell he was tearing up as he told me he loved the name. i called lizzie who was overjoyed. i later learned that she was walking in nyc and looked up at the empire state building as i told her we'd welcomed a baby girl. lastly, i called amanda who squealed incomprehensible words then said "that is the most beautiful name i have ever heard in my life!" it was so good to talk to them and hear their excitement, but at this point my head was pounding and my breathing was labored. i could barely keep up conversation because i was in so much pain, the epidural had worn off very quickly. the nurses gave me medicine for my headache and helped me to the bathroom. brittany nunley wrote very honestly about her birth story in this post which helped me SO MUCH throughout my healing process. when i went to the bathroom i was expecting a lottt of blood, so i was relieved to see a normal amount and kept thinking how grateful i was to her for preparing me. jon came back down to see me and i asked him if he'd told his family yet. he hadn't, so he left again to tell them it was a girl! her name was prim and she is in the nicu. by the time he got back, i had already gone to the bathroom and was ready to move rooms. katie packed up all our belongings and moved it to our recovery room while i was wheeled up to the nicu to see our baby.
