Saturday, January 29, 2011

Blogging & Motherhood

Okay, either I'm a terrible blogger or I'm being a great mother instead. I like the latter of the two, of course! I say this because I was supposed to post pictures of our princess like 2 weeks ago, and yeah, well! Being a mom is a little more time consuming than I could have imagined! But I can't complain. Overall, we are blessed with a wonderful baby! Emma sleeps VERY well at night for 2.5 week old. She's sleeping about 4 hours at a time, which is completely fine with me! She, however, doesn't sleep at all during the day, so it's hard for me to get anything done around here at all! (Hence the reason I haven't posted pictures!) We are establishing as much of a routine as we can, and things are calming down around here a lot!

Emma is doing great! We've been to the doctor twice because he was originally concerned about her weight loss, but now, she's gaining more than average! This is good news for me, since I can't really visually tell if she's getting enough to eat since I'm breastfeeding, which leads me to my health. I am actually recovering from birth very well. I'm almost back to normal from that whole escapade, besides about 7 pounds I need to lose to be back to pre pregnancy weight. (But then I want to lose about 5-10 more, just to be in really good shape!) However, breastfeeding brought on a whole new issue, mastitis, which, if you didn't know, is an infection of the breasts. Yes, no fun. I had a 103.6 fever, chills, aches, etc., and now I have to take an antibiotic four times a day! I am starting to feel better though. Fever is gone, but I'm still a little sluggish! This is all for now. Promise I'll try and update again soon!

Thursday, January 13, 2011

She's here!!!

Yes, that's right! Baby Emma has come! She made her debut on Monday, January 10th! Here is a little recap of our day:
As, you know already, I was induced, so we had the day planned, but not the time, so:
6:00AM: Call to Labor and Delivery. We were told beds were full, and that they would call as soon as one was available.
9:30AM: Call from Labor and Delivery for us to come in at 10AM. 10AM? Really?!?! It's a 20 minute trip, and you want me to be there in 30 minutes?! Well, not hardly, we had to stop by McDonald's on the way because I knew that there was no telling when I'd get to eat again.
10:15AM: Arrival! We checked into the room and got settled. The nurse checked me and still no progress! Only 2 cm, but I was having very irregular contractions on my own.
11:00AM: Pitocin was started (In other words, bring on the pain!)
11:30AM: My water was broken, and I can tell you, I won't be upset if I never have to go through that again.
12:30PM: After my water was broken, the contractions started coming regularly, and they HURT! I went into the whole situation saying I did NOT want IV Pain meds that I would just stick it out to 4cm until I could get the epidural. Well......
1:30PM: I had it with the contractions! I got IV Pain Meds, and was able to rest for about an hour, and then the pains were back!
2:30PM: I was in tears from pain, and thankfully my nurse was nice enough to call the anesthesiologist a little bit early since I was only about 3.5 cm! He came, and was a TOTAL JERK! But the epidural itself was not nearly as bad when you don't have to actually watch it go in. It was like a pinch. That was certainly the LEAST of my worries!
3:00PM: The epidural was kicking in ,and it was a very weird sensation to not feel my lower half, but whatever gets rid of the pain!
4:00PM: 4.5 cm dialated (slowly, but surely, I guess) At this point, I am getting RESTLESS! Oh, and hungry!
6:00PM: 6.5 cm dilated (woohoo, progress!) At this point, I was starting to feel my left side again, and the pain started to get more and more intense! They thought that maybe the epidural was slightly off center, so I was propped up on pillow, but that wasn't working, and it just kept getting WORSE! This was the most pain I've experienced EVER.
6:30PM: The nurse decides that she should check me again, and guess what?! MAJOR PROGRESS! I was 10cm, and Emma's head was already busting through! That was a very quick transformation there. This is about the time that it started to get a little CRAZY. There were people in and out, in and out, and prepping things, etc. It was also the middle of a shift change, so my nurses were changing also. At some point during this time period, apparently Emma and I both stopped breathing and our hearts stopped beating. All that I faintly remember of this was being flipped from one side to the other and back and an oxygen mask being thrown on my face. Whew! Now, that we got past that fiasco, it was time to push!
7:30PM: I started to push!
7:50PM: Dr. was called, arrived, and delivered Emma! I pushed for less than 30 minutes!
Baby Emma arrived at 7:59PM on Monday, January 10th, 2011. She weighed 8lbs 12 oz, was 20 3/4", and had dark hair and blue eyes!

Overall, I think my labor experience was not too awful. I feel blessed that I had less than 12 hours of labor for a first baby! Also, less than 30 minutes of pushing felt like a huge accomplishment! The whole fiasco about losing conciousness was very scary once I heard about it later, and Aaron was very worried during, but we all came out okay! And now we're home and figuring out life together! I will do another post tomorrow or the next day with just pictures of her! :)