A Baby Story… Alternatively Titled “eyeballs”

My baby has blue eyes.  I know, because they are looking at me from her swing where she is supposed to be sleeping =)  She was asleep till I put her down there, which is incidentally, the only place she will sleep as it is  –  unless you count the 15 cat naps she takes in her bassinet/crib before waking herself up by slapping herself in the face with the arms I pointless attempted to swaddle by her side after re-changing her diaper and her onesie (she doesn’t sleep well with pee up her back).

On to the original title… it’s funny how I can watch HOURS of a baby story prior to giving birth and then not want to watch a second of it once I’ve been through my own.  But for posterity’s sake, here’s a quick recap.  I can make it quick because it was!  WOW.

I don’t think I’d blogged about it, but we were scheduled for baby eviction on Thursday morning at 7:30am.  So on Wednesday we ran our last minute errands, installed the car seat base and went out to lunch.  I was tying up loose ends with work and was still emailing clients at 2:30pm.  At 3:30 we decided we should probably take a nap since we weren’t sure we’d be able to sleep Weds night.  At 3:34pm I had my first ‘real’ contraction.  And then another one 5 mins later.  And by 4:30 breathing through them was NOT pretty.  I woke up Brent who was dubious as to whether I was “really in labor”… it only took about 5 more minutes to convince him 😉  But the Dr. and everyone else had said not to go to the hospital till I had contractions every 5 mins for 2 hrs.  And I was only an hour in… (and already sure I would be getting in epidural thank-you-very-much).  So I took a shower, helped Brent give the dog a bath (my mom was coming to stay) and get the rest of my stuff together.  We left for the hospital around 5:30… and I had at least 3 contractions on the 10 min drive (I’d stopped timing them, it irritated me).

Brent dropped me off at L&D where I seriously debated even bringing up my suitcase… I did NOT want to be that girl lugging her suitcase, pillow and still pregnant self back down to her car 30 mins later.  We comprised by bringing in my things, but not Brent’s.  He parked the car and met me up at L&D.

10 mins of monitoring later and the skeptical nurse was much more sympathetic to my ‘5 centimeter, contraction every 90 seconds’ self.  I was not going anywhere!  I got a real room and a gown and it was time to talk meds… and yes, I did still want an epidural!!  The L&D staff was PRMC was AWESOME.  They were just so great… everything was really efficient and professional but also relaxed and accommodating.  They started the process for the epidural right away and got it going the second they got the OK back from the lab (blood draw… platelets… ). They let me labor standing up for the 45 mins until I got the epidural which made a huge difference.

So… brief recap… 3:30 – contractions 6:00 – admitted 7:00 – epidural.  Checked after the epidural around 7:15 and am 8 centimeters!

My OB broke my water at 7:30 and things got interesting.  I guess the pressure on the baby was a lot without the fluid around her and we had about a half hour of quick position shifts and O2 trying to get her heartrate to stabilize.  It was a little scary but again the staff seemed so confident and calm that I was never really panicked.  I just stopped talking and breathed in as much O2 as possible.  She seemed OK by 8pm but the doctor stayed pretty close and let me know that she thought it would go pretty quickly.

8:35 – “Do you want to push?”  Um … ooooook.  Kind of weird question.  Do I WANT to? Nope.  Do I know I have to at some point? Yup. So, let’s just do it.

9:02 – We have a baby!!  God was definitely in the details… Cadence was born with a short umbilical cord wrapped around her neck.  I am sure that her fast labor protected her from complications due to both issues and am so thankful for His providence.  Brent still got to cut the cord (the Dr. had actually offered to let him deliver her since he’s trained to do it, but he passed… a decision I fully supported!) and they quickly started working on her on the warmer.  She did need some help but we weren’t panicking and once they got her breathing well and cleaned up we got to meet her!!

Her dad made the final decision on the name and we spent some time just looking at her and talking to her.

So… if you are doing the math… that’s 5 and a half hours from first timed contraction to baby.  It was completely surreal.  I’d been mentally preparing all week for an all day induced-labor marathon.  I think I was still in shock at about 10:15pm when my sister called to let me know they were in the waiting room and anxious to meet her!

And now she’s two weeks old!  WOW. Time flies when you’re sleep depriv… er, having fun 😉

…… And back to the eyeballs, or at least an escaped hand thwarting my naptime efforts! Here’s a few pics, but I’ll upload some newer two-week ones from my phone in a post later today.

Getting ready to go home!

Pretending to sleep in my crib… don’t be fooled!

Still a newborn… 2 days old.