Birth Story Part 1

Bayden is 1 week old today.  Here is the beginning of her arrival.

A few weeks ago at one of our childbirth classes we did an activity in which we were given about 20 cards that had different options and possibilities during childbirth and the hospital stay.  On the back was the opposite (ex. vaginal / c-section, breast feed / formula, epidural / no epidural, early labor at home / at hospital,  etc.).  We laid all the cards around a card that said healthy baby with the sides up that were in our ideal birth plan.  Then, the instructor said that things were changing in labor and to remove 6 cards that we could live without.  She had us do this several more times until we were left with 3 of our choices and a healthy baby.  The point being that things don't always go as planned and all that matters is a healthy baby in the end.  Looking back, this was a great activity for us.  We were just starting to think about our birth plan, we had 6 and a half more weeks.

It all started last Wednesday.  It was a regular day, I went to work early for a meeting, taught all day, and then stayed after school to meet with a parent.  Then, I picked up supper to bring to the hospital to hang out with my sister.  We ate, talked, watched tv, and I painted her toenails.  Then, I went home to hang out with Gavin for a couple hours and went to bed.

last picture of  me pregnant

I woke up at about 10:30 to wetness and ran to the bathroom saying, "what's going on?" "is this my water breaking?"  Gavin followed me saying that I probably wet the bed.  I said I was still leaking and I'm not controlling it.  He went to check the bed and said it was quite a bit.  We asked his mom because she used to be a labor and delivery nurse.  She said we should call in.  I talked to a nurse on the phone and she said to come in just to be sure.  I continued to feel leaking on the drive, but kept praying that I was still peeing my pants.  

They set us up in a little room and a nurse explained the process to check and see if my water bag had ruptured or not.  She said it will be a little uncomfortable because she had to have a qtip like thing inside me for a whole minute.  When she was done, I said that it didn't feel like a minute.  I guess she didn't need a minute, she was pretty sure my water had broke.  She came back about 15 minutes later saying she was calling the doctor, my water had broke.  I started crying of course thinking it was too early and baby was too small.  Gav was calm and just glad that I was home.  I had been traveling across one state and then another the past 2 weekends.  

They moved us into a bigger room and got me set up with an IV, antibiotics, and monitors for contractions and baby's heart rate.  The doctor arrived and we were happy the doc on call was who we had had our last 3 appointments with.  He said that they will monitor me for infection, but if I keep not having contractions I could stay like this for another week or so.  They did a quick ultrasound to make sure baby was head down.  He had a hard time finding her because she was so low, but head was down, but face up.  Gavin went home to get some things beings we didn't bring anythink.  He brought his work computer so he could work from the hospital and things for me to do because we thought I would be on bed rest now like my sister.  Silly us!

They gave me an am.bien to help me relax and get some sleep.  Poor Gavin wanted something too so he could sleep better in that chair that pulls into a bed.  We went to bed around 3:30 am thinking tomorrow we would be hanging out in the hospital.