Let me start by saying it was a perfect and wonderful experience! I wouldn't change a thing! Since Ava Kate was a week overdue, I was scheduled for an induction on Thursday, July 3rd. Luckily, at my appointment on July 1, I had already dilated 3 cm and was 50% effaced, so we did not have to go in the night before. On July 3rd, I woke up around 4 am with contractions, but they went away before we even ate breakfast. I went ahead and got up to take a shower and get ready, as did Parker. We ate breakfast and headed to the hospital. Neither one of us were nervous, but we were super excited. I had been a basket case the day before - anxious, nervous, overwhelmed that life was about to change so much. It was very bittersweet - I was sad to close the chapter of "just the two of us" and excited to become a mommy. We went to Chili's for our last meal as a family of two and headed home to sleep. I cried on the way home. By Thursday morning, however, I was ready to go and there were no more tears... just excitement! Here we are in the parking lot at the hospital:
By 6 am, we parked and I walked in... which apparently expecting mothers are not supposed to do, but I felt fine... then we checked in at registration and a nurse took us to our room on Side B of L&D. We were hoping for Side A, because you get to stay in the room you deliver in, and on Side B you get transferred to a different (much smaller) room after delivery. It worked out fine though because we had an EXCELLENT nurse named Barbara. They asked lots of questions that were routine, and some weird ones like "What's the highest level of education you completed?" and then around 7 am, they started the IV and gave me Pitocin & Penicillin. At my 38 week appointment, I tested positive for Group B Strep, so I had to have at least 2 doses of Penicillin before delivery. After doing some research and talking to a lot of friends who were induced, I was prepared for major contractions to start after the Pitocin. I certainly felt the contractions, but they weren't painful at all. In fact, I remember telling Parker that even though they were every 2-3 minutes apart, if I was having them at home, I wouldn't have gone to the hospital because I could talk through them easily. I honestly would've assumed they were just more Braxton Hicks. Here we are waiting for things to pick up:
My dad & Weston arrived around 10 am and soon after, Mrs. Lydia came. As the day progressed, Amanda, Candice, Jacob, Grandma, Tammy, & Mr. Jack came too. Kelly Weaver stopped by a couple times, Mrs. Lydia, Dad, & Weston were in and out, and Grandma visited during the labor, but everyone mostly waited in the waiting room.
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Around 10ish, our midwife, Carolyn came to check me and I was a "4 or 5," which basically meant I was a 4, but she wanted to be nice. :) Then, she broke my water. I thought for sure the contractions would intensify then, but they didn't. The gushing of water however was very gross and I did not like it at all! I don't know how anyone could mistake it for anything else! It just keeps happening over and over every time you move. The nurse picked on me because that bothered me more than the contractions! I had planned to get an epidural from the beginning because I have vulvar vestibulitis, so the midwife suggested we go ahead and put in the orders for one even though the contractions weren't intense. Fortunately, the anesthesiologist only had 2 patients ahead of me for c-sections, and then he came... so I only waited for about an hour or so.
I was a bit anxious about the anesthesiologist because we had three people warn us about him being "gruff" - the midwife, the nurse, and his intern. They all said he was the best, he just lacked bedside manners. I'm glad they warned us, because they were exactly right. He came in with a well-rehearsed monologue of questions and warnings that went something like "Do you have a history of diabeetus, yellow fever, heart problems, seizures, strokes, yadda yadda yadda..." Well, I'm not exactly sure that's what he asked, but I do remember him saying diabeetus followed by a long list of other things. As soon as I said no, he went on with another list. Then he asked if I was allergic to any medicine and I replied Lorabid... but I was in the middle of a slightly more intense contraction so it came out more of a whisper and let's be real... this doctor was basically deaf, so he was all "Excuse me? What medicine?" and I kept saying Lorabid, and finally the nurse had to shout it to him for me. Then he proceeded to take off his glasses and rub his eyes/head and say, "I'm going to stick you (yadda yadda) and if it goes to your brain, I'll have to resuscitate you and we do not want to have to do that... are you sure you want it?" And then he started giving me the epidural...
Great story occurs about this time... I was hunched over leaning against Parker and the midwife was sitting back in a tall chair waiting for the anesthesiologist to do his thing. Then I hear the midwife, Carolyn say, "Parker are you okay? Do you need to sit down?" and in my head I'm thinking, "Oh he's fine! He's not squeemish at all." Carolyn goes on to say, "You look really pale, maybe you should sit," and surprisingly, Parker said okay. I look over at him as he sits down and then he passes right out. The nurse and the midwife were fanning him and taking care of him while I breathed through a contraction, all while continuing to get an epidural. Fun times! The anesthesiologist was all, "Happens all the time. Get him on the floor with his feet out. Happens all the time." Slowly, Parker came to and they got him on the floor with some crackers and juice. When the doctor was done giving me the epidural they laid me back and proceeded to flip me back and forth like a pancake until I was good and numb.
From then on we just rested and waited some more. About 2 pm, Carolyn checked and I was about 8 cm and 100% effaced. We waited some more. I started to feel the contractions pick up intensity, so they gave me more meds for the epidural. Then, I didn't feel a thing. About 4:15, the nurse was like, "Hmm... I think I'm going to get Carolyn to check you again," and turns out that I was at 10 cm. The midwives changed shifts at 5 pm and I didn't feel any urge to push yet, so we decided for me to "labor down," which basically just means, wait some more and let Ava Kate do her thing.
Sadly, Carolyn left at 5 pm - she was so, so, so wonderful and we were sad to have her leave. Michelle (who we also love!) came in and checked me. She decided we should do some practice pushes to see how I did. Everything went well so we just kept going... and an hour and 15 minutes later, Ava Kate made her first appearance! It was absolutely perfect! I didn't feel pain, just pressure of the contractions and her coming out. I could feel in my abdomen and ribs when I was having contractions, so I knew when to push. The only "problem" I had was nausea that lasted for about 20 minutes. Once I threw up (a lot), I felt a ton better and was perfectly happy to meet my baby girl! Here's her first picture:
I had normal swelling and bruising and a first degree tear that needed stitches, but other than that, everything went well after delivery. They cleaned her up, we snuggled her, they cleaned me up, we had our first attempt at nursing (which was not so smooth haha) and about 2 hours later we were moved to our new room.
Our first picture as a family of three:
Parker cutting the umbilical cord (he did great during the delivery by the way - no more passing out haha!)
And the big news of the day... Ava Kate weighed 8 lbs, 14.8 oz and was 20.25 inches long! Holy Moly! I only gained 25 lbs during pregnancy and I did NOT expect her to weigh so much! Still can't believe I delivered a baby that big!
Parker's first time holding her:
Some special visitors... Her Granddaddy Mark:
Grandma Lyly & Granddaddy Jack:
Uncle Preston, Uncle Jacob, Aunt Candice, Grandma Margie, Lauren, Amanda, & Amber:
Uncle Weston, Tammy & Aunt Martha Lynn were also there that night. Did I mention that during this time Hurricane Arthur was coming through Eastern NC? I was oblivious, but apparently it wasn't too bad - just lots of wind and rain. Soon, everyone left and we settled in for the night. Our night nurse was not so great, especially in comparison to our awesome day nurse Barbara. Our night nurse came into our room maybe 4 times all night and we called her all but 1 of those times probably. She took Ava Kate out to give her her first bath and when she brought her back I looked up to see AK spewing out clear liquids... and when I say spew, I mean like projectile vomiting. Freaked. Me. Out! I asked the nurse what was wrong and she said matter of factly, "Oh she's just throwing up. She probably swallowed a lot of amniotic fluid." Um. Ok? So what do we do? Glad I asked, because she had to show us how to suction her out, which we had to do all. night. long. Neither of us slept at all. We got maybe 2 hours of sleep the first 48 hours. It was rough. The first night was WAY worse than labor and delivery. I'd do L&D over and over again before doing that first night over. Getting up to go to the bathroom after the epidural wore off was intense. I could not stop shaking and it felt like my bottom was going to fall off. I'll spare you the details, but just know it was rough. Additionally, the nurse was NO help at all when it came to nursing... and nursing isn't exactly the most natural thing (though it seems like it would be.) Finally, they gave me some Percocet (I had already been taking 800 mg Motrin), which helped, but it was still no fun. Between the pain, no sleep, panicking over our brand new baby girl throwing up all night, and the thought of being totally responsible for her... yikes. But hey, we survived!
Here's a picture of her on day 2... so stinkin' cute!
We had lots of visitors and survived day 2 and night 2. We had to stay 36-48 hours because of the Group B Strep. Night 2 was better than the first night, but baby girl had gas all night so she didn't sleep much again... Fortunately, we had a wonderful nurse, Iva, who was a tremendous help and super encouraging. She even took her for like an hour or two so we could get some sleep. Praise God! Bless her! Anyways, by day 3, I was feeling like a new person and so ready to go home! We finally got our discharge paperwork and headed home! I thought I'd at least get a wheelchair ride out seeing as the furthest I had walked was to the bathroom, but nope! I walked right out down the hall, through the lobby, to the round-a-bout in the parking lot... and it was HOT! Like 90 something degrees outside. We drove home and rested. The Morgans brought steak, potatoes, and salad, and grilled out at our house. It was delicious and perfect. Mrs. Lydia stayed with us our first night and we made it!
Here's our baby girl in her carseat. She wore one of my baby dresses home. So sweet!
Our sleepy family of 3!
Welcome home Ava Kate! I'm happy to say that we have now survived the first week and nursing is 100x easier. I'll do a post on the first week soon!
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