Written on September 29th, 2010:
Are we giving it away, ruining the surprise, if we say right off the bat it's a girl? No, we don't think so. She's showing us new surprising things every day. And we can't wait.
Today she is a month and two days old. It's been an amazing month. We see her develop every day, and we feel so very lucky we get to wake up with her every morning.
But to the beginning of the all. At 3 days overdue I firmly believed we were going to be pregnant for another month or two, it really seemed never ending. Then on Tuesday night, 8/25 we were watching TV and I was feeling this weird cramp. We continued watching our movie, and I loosely timed the cramps to about 20 minutes apart. Hrm. Jacob looks at me and says "let's go to bed and try to get some sleep". At 5:30 I woke up, not, as usual, because I had to pee, I really had no idea why I woke up. Jacob was supposed to get up to go to work, and we were talking for abit, the cramps were there, we started timing them, and they were about 4 minutes apart. Jacob said "are you in labor?" I said "I don't know." He decided to wait for an hour and not go to work to see if things progressed. Since we had a Doctors appointment at 3 pm that same day, we called and they said "you can come in now". We got there. Did the NST, the Nurse saw the chart and said "oh yeah, you are having contractions. you are in labor." At this point they weren't bad, just uncomfortable. We chatted with the Doctors, one of our OBs came by "oh, that's nothing, you can still talk!" They checked me, 2-3 cm, 70% effaced. We decided to go home and then come back in two hours to see progress. This turned out to be a day of a lot of driving for Jacob. I decided to hold out for as long as I could, (showers are MIRACULOUS )or should,without their offices closing. so at 4 pm we went back again. We were pretty much stuck at the same progress. Dr Sukhdheo walked by when I was having a contraction, he laughed and said "that's more like it!" This whole day was a blur. The sun was shining, people were going about their every day things, walking down the street, and all I could do was breathe and try to deal with each contraction as it came.
Finally when we got home I think my water broke, the contractions got stronger, and Jacob decided he was done standing in the shower with me! He would sit outside on a chair and talk to me as I was leaning up against the wall. Eventually the water and the heat stopped helping, I started vomiting, and we decided to go to the hospital. I think Jacob spent alot of time on the phone this day too, even Wells Fargo called apparantly (he thought it was the nurses) and said "she can't talk, she's having a contraction". To this day I wonder what they wanted, because they never called back.
I "sprinted" down the stairs between contractions, and almost made it to the car before the next one started! We brought the vomit bucket with us, but I didn't have to use it in the car (THANKFULLY!) Got to LPCH and decided to park. No stinking valet parking for us, we're no sissies. I don't remember how many times I had to stop walking because the contractions were coming about every minute, to a minute and a half. We were standing about 30 yards from the doors once, and this woman was trying to give us a wheel chair, it was very nice, but I detested sitting down while I was having contractions, so we made it through the doors walking. The Security Guard took one look and said "Labor Delivery? Second floor!" Still remember the poor Chinese delivery guy in the elevator, I kept saying "I'm sorry, I can't get out of the elevator right now" *PANT*PANT* and he said "DON'T WORRY, TAKE YOUR TIME!!"
We made it. It was probably about 6:30 pm (things are quite fuzzy.) Got checked in, and shoved in an ultrasound room because there were no rooms available yet! Our nurse checked me 4-5 cm, and they put the fetal monitor on me, and gave me that really pretty night gown I got to wear for another 2.5 days (not the same ONE the whole time of course). Decided at that time between contractions and shakes that an epidural sounded like a FABULOUS idea. We finally got a labor room, and the anastesiologist (I can't spell), showed up and the epidural was done in lighthing speed time. I felt a little like I had failed, I wanted to do it natural, but I just couldn't handle the pain. At that time the nurse checked me again and I was 6-7 cm and she said "I thought you could totally have done it natural, you were doing great!" I didn't really know what she meant until a few hours later I heard this scream from some other room and thought "woah, that sounded painful". The epidural started working within 10 minutes. Then it was all cake. Jill and Tina showed up, we hung out, we chitchatted, and labor completely stopped. They left us alone for a few hours then decided to help nature along with some pitocin, so we kept chitchatting and hanging out. Our nurse Gina was great, she kept checking me, no progress, so we waited. And waited. And I think I even napped here and there for a minute or two. At around 2:45 am she checked me again, still around 8 cm. She also said "when you feel pressure that is there when you don't have a contraction, let me know". So it took about 20 minutes and I was like "woah, now I feel it". She came in and I was about 9.5 cm! They decided to "stretch" it out so I could start pushing soon. It was so exciting to see when they set up the "baby table" as we liked to call it.
Then the pushing started. Push without breathing for a 10 second count, hold it, catch your breath, then do it two more times. Then you can breathe, and wait for the next contraction. The counting helped immensely, this was all new, I had never done this before, and everyone was great! Jacob was on my left, Tina on my right, Jill the photographer, nurse, and doctor! I have to say we had a pretty good time. It was so exciting waiting for our little miracle!!! And more than anything, unreal.
After about 45 minutes of pushing Dr Clausen said "you can feel your baby's head if you put your hand here" I said "I can't!" I was so tired, and then I decided I had to feel it anyway. A head and some peach fuss. It does make you motivated to push more for sure! At 5:10 am the Doctor said "another 20 minutes" , our nurse looked at her and the Doctor said "well, I would say 10 minutes, but then I could be overly optimistic", and she looked at me. At 5:15 am after my first push of three Dr Clausen said "ok, stop pushing! Baby is out!" I felt her slip out and they put her on my stomach. I will say her but I didn't know. "What is it, what is it?!" I yelled in the commotion, nobody was answering me, and I moved the umbilical cord and saw it, and Jacob said "it's a girl!"