I promised I'd post a bit more about the birth of my baby girl, so here it is! This is pretty much just a copy/paste of the announcement I made on my pregnancy forums that I tried to edit some of the TMI out of, so I apologize if I left something in I should have removed 
I had my 39 week appointment and still had high blood pressure and pretty bad swelling. My doctor did an ultrasound and estimated the baby to weigh in at 9.5 pounds and wanted to induce due to a combination of both things. My doctor left me a message to schedule it and told me to be there the following day. I went into panic nesting mode and did tons of cleaning, causing my feet and ankles to pretty much double in size.
I went in to the hospital on Friday at 5pm to start on Cervadil. The following morning my doctor came in and broke my water 2 hours after I was started on Pitocin. Turns out I am a much bigger wuss with pain than I realized and could barely stand the contractions so I gave in and got an early epidural. 14 hours later my doctor came to talk to me again about a c-section (she knew I really wanted to avoid it). She told me that after 14 hours of labor not progressing past a dilation of 6 and 60% effaced that it was a better idea to go ahead with the c-section rather than to continue to labor for several more hours to progress then find out a c-section was likely to be necessary anyways because of the baby's size. At that point I was already exhausted, and dying of thirst (they insist on forcing fluids into you via IV but they won't let you have any water or even ice?). So I gave in and agreed just to get it over with. At that point I was pretty terrified of delivering one way or the other anyways. I already had an epidural in so they were able to numb me up pretty quickly. It all happened so fast I was in panic mode.
Next thing I knew I was in a very cold OR and they were pumping me full of medications and pulling the curtain up so I couldn't see the surgery. After I was all prepped they brought my husband in scrubs so he could be there for support. My poor husband is so squeamish they had to ask him if he was okay in the middle of the procedure (he just concentrated on looking at me and nowhere else in the room). There was no pain, but feeling the surgery as it happens was surreal and I started getting nauseous. I let them know and they quickly gave me some meds and brought a bucket. At that point I was shaking from the meds and just trying to focus on not throwing up again and just thinking "I don't want to be doing this, just make it all stop!". I couldn't even look at my husband (I wasn't angry, I just felt so miserable). Then I heard her cry. Tears started streaming down my face and I just stared at the ceiling crying. They they called my attention over to the side of the room behind my husband so I could see her (my husband couldn't even look at her until they cleaned her up), and I started crying harder. I couldn't even speak.
Then was the most agonizing time of just waiting for them to close me up so I could move on to recovery. They quickly got my husband out of there and sent him to the nursery with the baby. They finished closing me up and rolled me into recovery. They called my husband back to my labor room to pack up our stuff so we could be moved into our post partum room. They told me that he went and packed our stuff up and ran right back to the nursery instead of coming to see me in recovery. He said it was just a miscommunication about how quickly they'd be moving me to our room, but I think it's a cuter story that he was so excited he couldn't wait to get back to her.
They rolled me past the nursery on the way to my room so I could get another glimpse of her (since I still hadn't really gotten to meet her yet). My husband was there with her just staring at her while they ran all their little health tests. Shortly after they got me into bed and he came in and showed me the pictures he took on our camera. Then immediately logged in the laptop and uploaded the pictures to everyone! (he posted it on my facebook, and even went through all my email addresses to send it out to those people too). I would've waited at least a day or two, but he just couldn't hold it in he was so excited.
Finally they brought her in and I got to meet her. We didn't have immediate bonding. It just seemed too weird to me still that this was the little person that was inside of me. She didn't really look much like what I was expecting. The bonding came the next day when a nurse told me to try skin to skin contact with her for a while to get her comfortable. She was fidgety but when she layed her head on my chest she became so content and at ease because she recognized me. That's when it really clicked for me. (I'm still shocked at how easily she'll calm down for me when she's upset). We are now definitely bonded and she no longer seems strange to me at all.
My husband has been absolutely wonderful. He wasn't able to stay at the hospital with me because of all our pets at home that needed special attention. He'd come to visit us in the late morning, go home in the evening for a couple of hours to care for the pets, then come back to visit with us some more, then back home again for the night. He never complained about any of it, and has gone out of his way to do whatever I ask of him. One day as we were sitting in the hospital he was holding her and said "She really is cute. I don't know if it's just because she's mine, but I don't really think most babies are cute.. But she is" My heart is just absolutely swelling with pride about how proud HE is.
This got somewhat offtrack because I've been completely on cloud 9 lately.
Anyways, long story short (too late!) Allison Keenan Nelson was born on 1-30-10 via c-section after 14 hours of labor, weighing 8 pounds 4 ounces measuring 21 1/4" to a very disoriented mama, and a very proud papa.
Wearing her daddy's going home outfit and blanket.
I had my 39 week appointment and still had high blood pressure and pretty bad swelling. My doctor did an ultrasound and estimated the baby to weigh in at 9.5 pounds and wanted to induce due to a combination of both things. My doctor left me a message to schedule it and told me to be there the following day. I went into panic nesting mode and did tons of cleaning, causing my feet and ankles to pretty much double in size.
I went in to the hospital on Friday at 5pm to start on Cervadil. The following morning my doctor came in and broke my water 2 hours after I was started on Pitocin. Turns out I am a much bigger wuss with pain than I realized and could barely stand the contractions so I gave in and got an early epidural. 14 hours later my doctor came to talk to me again about a c-section (she knew I really wanted to avoid it). She told me that after 14 hours of labor not progressing past a dilation of 6 and 60% effaced that it was a better idea to go ahead with the c-section rather than to continue to labor for several more hours to progress then find out a c-section was likely to be necessary anyways because of the baby's size. At that point I was already exhausted, and dying of thirst (they insist on forcing fluids into you via IV but they won't let you have any water or even ice?). So I gave in and agreed just to get it over with. At that point I was pretty terrified of delivering one way or the other anyways. I already had an epidural in so they were able to numb me up pretty quickly. It all happened so fast I was in panic mode.
Next thing I knew I was in a very cold OR and they were pumping me full of medications and pulling the curtain up so I couldn't see the surgery. After I was all prepped they brought my husband in scrubs so he could be there for support. My poor husband is so squeamish they had to ask him if he was okay in the middle of the procedure (he just concentrated on looking at me and nowhere else in the room). There was no pain, but feeling the surgery as it happens was surreal and I started getting nauseous. I let them know and they quickly gave me some meds and brought a bucket. At that point I was shaking from the meds and just trying to focus on not throwing up again and just thinking "I don't want to be doing this, just make it all stop!". I couldn't even look at my husband (I wasn't angry, I just felt so miserable). Then I heard her cry. Tears started streaming down my face and I just stared at the ceiling crying. They they called my attention over to the side of the room behind my husband so I could see her (my husband couldn't even look at her until they cleaned her up), and I started crying harder. I couldn't even speak.
Then was the most agonizing time of just waiting for them to close me up so I could move on to recovery. They quickly got my husband out of there and sent him to the nursery with the baby. They finished closing me up and rolled me into recovery. They called my husband back to my labor room to pack up our stuff so we could be moved into our post partum room. They told me that he went and packed our stuff up and ran right back to the nursery instead of coming to see me in recovery. He said it was just a miscommunication about how quickly they'd be moving me to our room, but I think it's a cuter story that he was so excited he couldn't wait to get back to her.
They rolled me past the nursery on the way to my room so I could get another glimpse of her (since I still hadn't really gotten to meet her yet). My husband was there with her just staring at her while they ran all their little health tests. Shortly after they got me into bed and he came in and showed me the pictures he took on our camera. Then immediately logged in the laptop and uploaded the pictures to everyone! (he posted it on my facebook, and even went through all my email addresses to send it out to those people too). I would've waited at least a day or two, but he just couldn't hold it in he was so excited.
Finally they brought her in and I got to meet her. We didn't have immediate bonding. It just seemed too weird to me still that this was the little person that was inside of me. She didn't really look much like what I was expecting. The bonding came the next day when a nurse told me to try skin to skin contact with her for a while to get her comfortable. She was fidgety but when she layed her head on my chest she became so content and at ease because she recognized me. That's when it really clicked for me. (I'm still shocked at how easily she'll calm down for me when she's upset). We are now definitely bonded and she no longer seems strange to me at all.
My husband has been absolutely wonderful. He wasn't able to stay at the hospital with me because of all our pets at home that needed special attention. He'd come to visit us in the late morning, go home in the evening for a couple of hours to care for the pets, then come back to visit with us some more, then back home again for the night. He never complained about any of it, and has gone out of his way to do whatever I ask of him. One day as we were sitting in the hospital he was holding her and said "She really is cute. I don't know if it's just because she's mine, but I don't really think most babies are cute.. But she is" My heart is just absolutely swelling with pride about how proud HE is.
This got somewhat offtrack because I've been completely on cloud 9 lately.
Anyways, long story short (too late!) Allison Keenan Nelson was born on 1-30-10 via c-section after 14 hours of labor, weighing 8 pounds 4 ounces measuring 21 1/4" to a very disoriented mama, and a very proud papa.
Wearing her daddy's going home outfit and blanket.
