Monday, March 5, 2012

3/2/2012

Annie Mae decided to grace us with her presence on Friday, March 2, 2012 at 6:28 am. She weighed 7 lbs, 5 oz and was 18 inches long. She is ADORABLE! And the kids absolutely love her. All of everything was 200% worth it. This little girl has all 4 of us wrapped around her littlest finger, and no one is complaining.

Thursday I was having contractions. Nothing new there. Dan and I had decided that we weren't going to go into the hospital for contractions anymore, seeing as we just kept getting sent home. We came up with a list of 3 reasons we'd go to the hospital: My water breaking, signs of distress (preeclampsia, bleeding, and so on), and my scheduled induction time. Well, I was fairly active Thursday. I danced while I cleaned, went grocery shopping, and even decided to walk to Jayden's school to pick him up instead of drive. It was a good day. Until about 4:30 pm when I noticed that my pants were wet. Not just a little wet, but "Um, I don't remember peeing my pants..." wet. I called Dan several times, but he was in a meeting at work. I tried calling my mom, too, but she was also in a meeting. I was FREAKING OUT. I finally got a hold of both of them, coordinated getting kids dropped off, and sat down to wait. Dan wasn't at all in a hurry, which, to be honest, was kind of ticking me off. I mean, I know we've had labor stopped many times and a few false alarms, but he was acting like nothing was going on. So, naturally, I picked up the slack and started freaking our for the both of us. We finally got kids ready enough to go, and Dan thought it was the perfect time to go look at a house on our way to Mom's house. REALLY??? "Well, your mom won't be home for another 1/2 hour, so why not?" Ugh. I mean, he had a point, but I was in no mood to be logical. We went and looked at the house, and then he and Mom suggested that we eat before leaving. I was starting to get a little irked at both of them, because it seemed like no one was believing that I was in labor. "If you don't eat now and they end up keeping you, you won't get to eat until after the baby is born." %@#$ logic again. So, we ate, and we FINALLY headed out. When we got to the hospital, my contractions had slowed down a bit again. We decided that we would take a walk for a bit and try to jump start them before going in. It worked. Kind of. They said my contractions weren't being productive, and that my water hadn't broken (???). I didn't quite get it, but they said it was a REALLY good thing I came in because Annie's heart rate was pretty fast. They were going to go ahead and keep me and induce me right away because they couldn't tell what was causing her distress. "The best way to get her stabilized is to get her out." Yeah...and I thought I was freaking out before that news. There were mixed emotions. "YAY, my wait is OVER!!" and "Holy $#@% I hope everything is alright!!" were going through my head. I wanted to be excited, yet I couldn't enjoy this time 100% because I was worried that Annie was in real trouble. Dan gave me a blessing and reminded me that I'd been promised that we'd both be healthy. I took some comfort in that. Also, after the blessing another comforting thought came to me: "If there were something REALLY wrong, they would be taking her via C-section. They wouldn't induce." I got hooked up to all of the machines, they got the Pitocin going, and I ordered my epidural immediately. (My momma didn't raise no fool...) The doctor and the nurses projected "delivery time" to be somewhere around 9 or 10 am (if I went fast). I fell asleep around 5:00 am, thinking I'd be able to sleep and get plenty of rest before anything exciting happened. I was only dilated to a 3. An hour later, the nurse came in. I woke up. It turned out that she came into the wrong room. It was a GOOD thing she did, though, because I started feeling what they like to call "pressure". I told the nurse, and she checked me. She then began paging the doctor. She also kept telling me not to push. I wasn't. "DON'T PUSH! WILL SOMEONE GET DOCTOR SO-AND-SO! I SAID DON'T PUSH!" Thankfully the on-call doc rushed in, got gloved up, and delivered Annie in time. LOL. We had a similar situation with Karah, but we didn't cut it nearly this close at all. The doctor and nurses kept talking about how they couldn't believe I went from a 3 to delivery in 2 1/2 hours. Annie was perfect. There was NOTHING wrong with her lungs, and they figured she was just "ready" to be born.

We have had quite the adventure getting her here. I definitely have a lot of stories to tell, as do my husband and older kids. The adventure has barely begun. I am going from 2 kids to 3. From what I've heard, that is pretty hard. Dan and I are officially outnumbered. It will definitely be a challenge to our sanity as we add one more to our crew. I am totally up for it!