Wow, it has been way too long!
Guess that is what having a baby does to you :)
Let me fill you in on the last four weeks! My official due date was March 27. But we all know that due dates are rarely completely accurate and less than 3% actually deliver on that date. Our date came and passed. Then another, and another....
I had my 40 week appointment on March 30th. Doc said everything looked good. He did a little sweeping of the membranes to get things moving. We also had a non stress test to make sure baby was good! This is where the put two different monitors on your belly. One of the baby's heart-rate and one for the contractions. It was pretty cool to watch the monitor to see when I was having a contraction (little did I know what a REAL contraction is!)
Joe's Birthday: March 31st. We were curious if our little angel would arrive on Dad's birthday! Around 4 A.M. I woke up with some bad cramps. I decided to take a bath and see if they subsided. I proceeded to clock my cramps and realized they were coming about every 4 1/2 minutes. Since I've never been pregnant/gave birth before I wasn't really sure what was happening! Around 7 I woke Joe up and mentioned I was having cramps. We decided to wait a bit longer and see what happened. I finally went downstairs and Joe started documenting how long the "cramps" were lasting. We finally decided to call the hospital and ask what we should do. After talking with them we decided to get some breakfast then head into the hospital! I was worried I wouldn't be able to eat so off to Daily Bread we went! Can't say I'll ever eat a meal while have contractions again, it was interesting!!!
Around 10:30 we headed to the hospital! We checked in and they put us in an interim room so that I could get checked and then checked in to a delivery room. They checked me out, only 2 cm dialated, so we had to hang out in that room for a bit! Finally around 1:00 we were moved to the delivery room. These rooms were nice and big!!! Got the IV's in and the heart rate monitor and the contraction monitor on. Again it was pretty cool watching the contractions (besides them hurting!) I needed to get to a 4 cm before I could get an epidural! Let's just say I was so ready!!!
Finally I was a 4 and got the epidural! However, they forgot to roll me on my side and about 5 minutes later I thought I was going to pass out! I told Joe to call the nurse. They came in and my blood pressure was about 80/50 (very low!) The nurses got me situated and now we were in for the long haul!
By this time it is about 5 P.M. Thankfully we had a tv with cable and were able to watch the Blazer game in which we KILLED!!!
Around 11:45 P.M. our nurse came back in to check how far along I was and thankfully I was already at 8 1/2!! She said it was time to push! I was thinking to myself, can I push and get her out in 15 minutes? That way she could share her daddy's birthday! I remembered what the first nurse said, the pushing is about a 2-3 hour session. She I wasn't very optomistic! I remembered at one point that the doc said I see her head and there is a lot of hair! He asked if Joe wanted to touch her head, and of course he said no, being the squeamish one! I jumped at the chance and reached down! Crazy!!!
Thankfully I only had to push for 30 minutes and out popped Calais Adeline Shrum weighing 7 pounds 5 oz at 12:15 A.M. April 1, 2010
Welcome Calais Adeline Shrum
