I *heart* postpartum hormones!

Please, do excuse my lack of posting these days...I've been a little busy:

Apparently, we ALL must be present to witness Delaney's first bath.


And please know that SOMEDAY, I will write about other things than BAYYYYY-BEEES. But seriously, could YOU focus on anything else if you had THIS to gaze at all day long?

Please ignore my many chins. Thank you.

So for now, just a quickie update...

I am in baby heaven. Seriously, total bliss. If you're considering a third child, it's really not that bad - not yet, anyway. Delaney has been really easy and mellow so far, Garrett and Laura really haven't done anything out of the ordinary, and my husband has been wonderful.

I did recently wake from a nap to find Laura had painted her lips orange with acrylic paints, and Garrett had eaten his way through most of the snack cabinet, but that IS normal for them. Preschool starts Monday, thank you God for small mercies.

I'm still a little sore and have a minor infection of my C-section incision, but I've lost every pound of baby weight (plus an extra three) and am feeling really well. Nursing is going great, and I'm even off the Percocet.

I'm still on my Lexa*pro, which is probably helping to keep me on an even keel. And to top it all off, I bought pants and a shirt today that do not say MATERNITY on the tag. Oh, fine, they are elastic waist pants, but STILL. Ooh, and lest I forget, I got together with friends last Saturday and had BEER. Life is good.

But have no fear...the drama is coming. Laura starts preschool Tuesday, and this is how her Meet The Teacher day went:

Ha ha. Stay tuned.

Hungry?

What's for dinner the week after you have a baby?

First, a nice appetizer of Milk of Magnesia, followed by a Prune Juice Chaser.

Next, a three course meal consisting of: One Hormone Induced Crying Jag, Two Cracked Nipples, and for a nice finish, a hefty dose of Percocet.

If you feel dinner leaves a little something to be desired, be glad you get THIS for dessert:

Yum.

On location from the hospital...

She's here!

Delaney Grace was born at 8:58 p.m. on Thursday, August 9 (exactly 1 week early).


She was 21.5 inches long and weighed 8 pounds, 5 ounces.


Her brother Garrett has met her, just briefly, and pronounced her "cute". While we are not really sure who she looks like, Laura has cleared up that whole argument by telling us "she looks like DELANEY".


She is gorgeous and we love her so much.


You know I love to share, so I'll give you the briefest version of the birth that I can. I am taking a lot of Percocet right now and do not claim to be totally with it at the moment.


Contractions / loss of my mucous plug wake me up at 8:00 a.m. Thursday. We are at the hospital by 9:00, where I am found to be in active labor and dilated to 5 cm.


I labor naturally for ten hours, until around 6:00 in the evening (getting very disappointed - my second child was delivered in under 6 hours). Get to 9.5 cm, but with a "rim" or "lip" of cervix remaining.


Start pushing while laboring on hands and knees. I lose all control from the pain, as in biting-scratching-hair-pulling-spitting-screaming-kicking-pounding-hitting-swearing-pinching. Not pretty. Beg for epidural RIGHT F-ING NOW. Am informed 9.5 cm is way too late for epidural.


Somewhere in here, they attempt to catheterize me with no pain meds or anesthesia. I'm pretty sure my head was spinning as I growled and cursed at the nurse. Catheter was removed quickly.


I also vaguely remember screaming at anyone who would listen that, "if I can't have some f-ing pain meds, then somebody had better KNOCK ME OUT AND CUT THE BABY OUT I MEAN IT I WANT A DAMN C-SECTION".


During break in contractions / pushing, I calmly inform the roomful of people that "I did the nature-girl thing with my last baby. I changed my mind - I do not want to do it again. Somebody better get that epidural guy up here. NOWWWWWWWW".


Epidural man comes. Epidural placed. Epidural fails.


Epidural man comes again. I am given a spinal block. I am warned that it will only last one hour, meaning I have less than one hour to push baby out, or the pain will be back.


I push as hard as humanly possible, in several different positions. I'm told they can see baby's head coming down. Within twenty minutes, I have feeling back on my right side and start to panic. I demand that the EPIDURAL MAN GET BACK IN THE ROOM RIGHT NOW.


Epidural man returns, and I pledge to sit perfectly still and curl up like a cat and be quiet and patient and perfect. Epidural takes! I tell the amazing anesthesiologist, while looking deep into his eyes, that I love him, that I will love him always.



I take about a half hour break, where I visit with waiting family and see my other two precious babies. After the break, I push for about an hour.



Baby is still not making progress moving down, and I still have a "lip" of cervix that I can't seem to push past. Her heart rate is also dropping every time I push.



Labor has been going on for about 12 hours now - including 2 hours of pushing, and the general consensus seems to be that either it's a very large baby, or the cord is being compressed when I push. The OB is getting concerned, and everyone (including me) decides a C-section is the way to go.

Once Delaney is delivered, we see why she wouldn't come down any further - she couldn't. While it's common for most babies to have their cord wrapped around something, even their neck, hers was wrapped around so many places that she couldn't get out of it, and it was being compressed when I pushed. Seth said it looked like she was caught in a spiderweb. The cord was wrapped around one leg, her body, arms, and neck.



The section was my first ever surgery, and I'm pretty sure it scared the hell out of my husband to watch me go under the knife. However, it went perfectly well and baby and I are both doing great. I must say that the pain of a C-section recovery seems to be worse than the recovery with a vaginal delivery.



So, apparently I do things backwards - I've had two normal, vaginal deliveries, and I end up with a C-section on my THIRD baby. Weird. But I now consider myself an expert in childbirth...I've had a super-long labor with vacuum extraction and an epidural, I've had a super short labor with a non-medicated vaginal delivery, and now I've had a baby delivered surgically.



I feel fairly at peace with the way things happened, but there are a few things that I'm sad I missed out on. I hope to write a post about the emotional side of this delivery, but not until I have my emotions and hormones a little more under control.



Thank you guys for all your support and encouraging words during this pregancy. I'm going to take a few days off, and then hopefully I'll have time for a quick update here and there.



Now. I know you are soooooo done reading. You are saying, bring on the pictures already, woman!

Don't get excited.

Aaaaargh. I wish I could be peaceful, easygoing, and Zen about the end of this pregnancy. But if you know me at all, you know that I am not peaceful, easygoing, or Zen about ANYTHING.

This is terribly embarrassing to admit, but I have been to the maternity ward triage TWICE with this pregnancy. Both false alarms. I have two children. I know what labor feels like. I KNOW BETTER.

One of the false alarms happened to be last night. Garrett had a little stomach bug on Friday, and when I woke up Monday horrendously nauseated, unable to eat, drink, or lift my head from the couch, I thought maybe I too had caught the stomach virus.

And then, I started having contractions. Not TERRIBLY painful, but they were coming at regular 5 minute intervals.

I called my OB nurse, asking if I could take some Pepto for my tummy...the answer was no. After discussing how I was feeling, she suggested just heading to triage to have things checked out, thinking that they could maybe give me fluids if necessary, or some medicine that would ease the nausea.

Here's how triage went:

1. They find I have ketones in my urine, and ask if I've been sick. Uh, YEAH. PAY ATTENTION WHEN I TELL YOU I'M NOT FEELING WELL, WOULD YOU?

2. My cervix is checked. No progress since last week.

3. I get hooked up to monitors. They show a healthy, active baby, and mild to moderate contractions every 5 to 8 minutes or so.

4. I am ordered to drink a giant mug of water and walk the halls for an hour.

5. My cervix is checked AGAIN. Nothing's changed.

6. I'm sent home to wallow in my misery and impatience (they could have at LEAST given me a damn Am*bien, I tell you). I cry and feel really stupid. And then I demand an ice cream bar on the way home.

And about 3 minutes out of the hospital parking lot, I start having really hard contractions. By the time we get home, we're wondering if we should head BACK to the hospital. I convince myself that it's probably just from having my cervix poked at twice in an hour, but we throw the hospital bags in the car anyway. You know, just in case.

So Seth runs around for a couple of hours, finishing up work, switching loads of laundry, picking up the house, and showering, while I lay in bed moaning / having nightmares about labor / trying to sleep.

The contractions must have let up in the night, because I eventually fell asleep.

I had my OB appointment this morning, and I went in thinking all those contractions MUST have gotten me SOMEWHERE.

Not really. I'm 1 cm dilated, my cervix is still not fully softened, and baby is still floating up high. Yes, I cried. DAMN HORMONES.

And seriously, if ONE MORE PERSON, MEDICALLY TRAINED OR NOT, tells me to "WALK, AND GET THAT BABY'S HEAD DOWN," they are going to get a sharp stick in the eye. This is something you DO NOT tell a 500 pound (okay, slight exaggeration) pregnant woman when it has been 98 degrees and humid for the past two weeks.

I will lay on the couch, and I will like it.

And the weird thing about all of this is: As anxious and eager as I am to get this show on the road, I'm still terrified of labor, and a tiny part of me would just prefer to stay pregnant and forget the whole taking-care-of-three-small-children-on-zero-sleep thing.

I'm sorry for posting ONLY about my never-ending pregnancy lately, and for not having anything entertaining for you to enjoy when you visit. I can definitely only entertain one subject right now.

But have no fear...it won't be long before I'll lose my ever-loving mind, and have TONS of bloggy material.

Oh, and for those of you wondering about the INSANE hospital bill that I mentioned in the last post:

We do not have maternity coverage on our stupid, expensive, private insurance. It cost almost $500 a month to add it to our plan, and we were NOT planning on getting pregnant, remember? So we are "Self Pay", both to the hospital and to my OB.

We wiped out our savings last week to pay the OB his portion ($4000, with a 20 percent discount for paying early, in cash).

The hospital cost? Well, for a 2 day stay and basic uncomplicated delivery (no epidural or anything), the DISCOUNTED rate (since we are Self Pay) is $7500. And now, I have to have IV antibiotics because of the group B strep, so tack on another $1000 or so for that. Plus, if baby doesn't hurry up, and I end up being induced, who knows what that would add.

In short, we're going to owe the hospital around $10,000. I think I just threw up a little. Socialized medicine? I'm so in. GO HILARY! OR OBAMA!

Baby Watch 07

Sorry to leave you all hanging for so long...believe me, when baby comes, you guys will know ASAP! I mean, you're talking to the woman who has written entries about falling in a puddle of vomit, her bra size, and numerous entries about poop. I would NEVER make you wait for actual INTERESTING news.

I just haven't had the energy to write a great entry...I hoping I will tomorrow.

Monday's doctor appointment was just too disappointing to write about, but here's the scoop anyway:

I gained two pounds in one week.

Baby is still floating up high.

I am still just a fingertip dilated.

For the first time in three pregnancies, I tested positive for Group B Strep. There was a minor freakout and some uncontrollable crying, but I'm okay now. I've been reassured by my doctor, my doula, and pretty much everyone else that all will be FINE.

And then there's my general complaining:

My stretch marks are stretching...there are actually tears in the skin. That's all you want to know about that, trust me.

HEARTBURN, HEARTBURN. Slept in a semi-sitting position on the couch last night, due to waking myself up GAGGING IN MY SLEEP.

Getting the mail sucks these days, also. The smiling nun on the front of the hospital brochure? She would like her money now. I've been informed, by form letter, that the hospital finance department "MAY OFFER A 12 MONTH PAYMENT PLAN". If they really think we can pay $800 a month, they have another thing coming.

In GOOD news, I am enjoying watching Delaney do tricks. I think I saw a knee the other day. Freaky. And cool.