Life's adventures with Matt, Amanda and the girls... Makenzie and Madison!

Saturday, November 30, 2013

Elf on a Shelf... Day 1

Last night, while Makenzie and I were at a local toy store, a package arrived!  When we got home we found it in front of our fire in the fire place!  Of course Makenzie spotted it right away and went tearing into it.

Inside we found a little Elf that will be staying with us until Santa comes and picks him back up on Christmas Eve!!  We were warned that he likes his sweets and can get into a little mischief while we are sleeping.  And his antics started RIGHT away!


Apparently he kept Makenzie up last night singing Christmas music and was found this morning dangling from the giant flowers on her wall :-)


















 I will try to keep a daily update as to what our newest addition is up to. 

Saturday, November 16, 2013

The Birth Story: Part III

 (For Part I click here.  Part II click here.)

1:30  Doctor comes back into the room with his intern and a nurse.  He feels my stomach and confirms that the baby has moved... but where to?  He flips on the ultrasound machine and puts the wand low on my stomach.  I'm watching the screen and see something.  He looks at me and smiles and says 'will ya look at that!?!'  (This ultrasound machine was old and not clear at all.)  Yeah I'm looking... but what am I looking at?

'Turn the Pitocin back on and lets break her water!  That is the baby's head!'  Holy crap!  Really!?!?!?  I was ready to go home and now they are about to break my water!!  Hello!!  Next thing I know I have 5 hands on my stomach all pushing down to keep the baby from moving while the dr broke my water.  As this is going on he is explaining that the cord could come out or arm if they aren't careful so it's very important that the baby doesn't move until the head is completely down and locked in place.  If something does come out we will have to do a c section.  So those hands pushed on my belly until a good chunk of the fluid had come out and the doctor felt like the baby's head was totally engaged. 

Now I was all out nervous, couldn't see my husband, he was hidden behind all these arms and hands.  My head was spinning.... what an emotional roller coaster!!  Extremely happy, yet very on edge. 

2:00  4cm dilated and 60% thinned.  Doctor and staff has left.  Matt is making the few calls to let the family know what just happened!!  (Thank you God!!!)  And I am laying their still very nervous because the baby was moving around like crazy.  Is the baby going to flip again?  Is the baby's head going to come disengaged? I had to lay flat in bed for an hour.

3:30  5cm dilated.  Contractions consistently 3 mins apart and getting stronger.  They uped the pitocin and said I could sit up or get out of bed!  I was just getting to the point in labor where there were some contractions that I would have to take a deep breath for.  5 cm dilated and just to that!  Boy this labor was going SO SO SO SO SO much better than with Makenzie!!  I was almost 9 hours into labor before I hit 5 cm!  I spent the next hour and a half dinking around with my phone (I had just gotten my first smartphone and was working on figuring it out), chatting with Matt, wandering around the room and snacking on crackers that the nurse kept bringing me.

(The neighbors in the room next to us that were induced as well had their baby... I could hear the newborn cry and I was getting very anxious!!!  My TURN!!!!)

5:00  We were BORED!  Contractions were coming but weren't horrible.  Dr had said (keep in mind if everything had run a normal course, which it didn't) by dinner time.  Well, dinner was just delivered, I can't eat it and there is no baby yet.  Boo.  I told Matt that we were going walking.  So for 45 mins we walked back and forth back and forth.

5:45  Back to room.  Walking is hard work when you are 39 weeks pregnant and having contractions.  I headed in to sit on the couch and said... what's the scoop?!?!?  When are these contractions going to pick up??

6:00  BOOM!  Just like that.  Nurse came in to check on me and Holy Hannah did I have a contraction.  Wow!  Okay, now that meant business.  Nurse asked if I wanted an epidural yet and I said (HERE IS WHERE I MADE MY MISTAKE!!)  No, the contractions are just starting to get strong, we will wait a little while longer.

6:30  Nurse is back in the room.  Contractions are every 2-3 mins and are just ridiculous!  Any Momma that was induced and didn't have an epidural knows my pain.  Don't get me wrong, when you are in labor it's horrible.  But when you are being induced, the contractions are HORRID!  The peak of the contraction held steady (instead of gradually increasing and then decreasing) and gave me little time to breath or regain control before the next one rocked my body.  I lost my control very quickly.  The nurse called for the epidural and came back and told me to be patient.  :-)

7:30  No anesthesiologist yet.... after an hour and a half of the contractions nothing is getting better.  I could feel my body hitting exhaustion.  I was understanding at first that they were busy, but after an hour and a half I was livid.  At this point we were trying every different position and technique to help me get thru each contraction trying to find something to give me relief.  They gave me Stadol to help with the pain, but that just turned me into a lunatic!!  Matt and I had some pretty interesting conversations in between contractions.

Nursed checked me and I was still at 5cm.  Broke my heart!  All that work and I'm not progressing!!  From here on out the nurse stayed in the room with us to help with whatever.  The poor woman was yelled at so many times to go and get the anesthesiologist.  She was AMAZING!  I could not have asked for a better nurse!  They are amazing.  She was so calm, patient and reassuring (and a great liar!!).  I was so embarrassed because I was totally screaming at the top of my lungs and she says no worries!  These rooms are soundproof!  (At that point I wasn't coherent enough to remember that I could hear the newborn cry earlier after their delivery!)

8:30  No anesthesiologist yet.  Convinced that I'm not going to get one and praying that my body is doing what it should be during the contractions.  I was emotionally drained and so wanted something to make me happy at that moment.  I just wanted to talk to Makenzie and when I saw the clock realized she had gone to bed without saying goodnight to me.  A FIRST.  I just cried.  Even if I would have been able to talk to her I only would have been able to hear her for a little bit before the next contraction hit and we would have to hang up.  Ugh.  A voice can do wonders!!

Nurse checked me and I WAS progressing!!  Thank you God!  We were in the home stretch I knew it wouldn't be much longer and was kind of amazed I had made it this far with no epidural.  Was I going to deliver without one!?!?

9:00  A new nurse came in to tell us that the epidural was on it's way!  Right... I'll believe it when I see it.

9:10  Tears of joy!!  Anesthesiologist was in my room!!  What a schmuck.... things didn't go well.  First off, I couldn't understand what he was saying to me.  I finally figured out he wanted me to move to the left.  I move to the left.  No no no!  He said... the right!!  Ugh.  Okay.  Contraction.  I said move to the right!  GRR!!  ONE SECOND MR!!  I move to the right and he still wasn't happy with that so I told him he needs to deal with it or move me himself.  The nurse looked at me and said sorry!  LOL, she goes I've never seen him before.  Perfect!   Then I wasn't bent over enough for him.  Seriously??  Have you seen my stomach??  After 2 tries and a lot of finagling the epidural was in.  2 contractions later I was already feeling relief. 

He left and the nurse told me she was going to give us a half hour to rest and then deliver a baby!!  Wahoo!!  Who can sleep after that news!?!?  But we tried!

10:00 Nurses and Dr came in.  The nurse had said something to Matthew about the baby in a little bit of distress so they were going to have me on oxygen to help with that.  I knew nothing about that thankfully and let the nurse put the oxygen on me and watched them get everything ready.  My heart was beating so fast... I was waiting SO long for this!!

The nurses went and got a mirror so I could watch the deliver too.  After having Makenzie I kind of wished that I watched.  One of those I have to see it to believe it kind of things.  BUT ew.  LOL.  I told them to put the mirror up but I probably wouldn't watch.

10:30 Doctor gives me the go ahead to start pushing.  This was weird!  I had no feeling.  None. Nada!  I could definitely feel it with Makenzie and could feel the contraction and know when to push.  This time.  Nothing.  I did push (or so I thought).  The Dr laughed and said... your not pushing!  Keep trying.

The room was silent.  No tv.  No monitors beeping. Nothing.  It was very peaceful!  After a few attempts at pushing I got it figured out and progress was being made.  No, I wasn't looking in the mirror.  Until the nurse said here comes the baby!  Got me!  How do you not look!?!?  I've been waiting a LONG time to see this baby and didn't think we were even going to have the baby that day.  At that point I couldn't take my eyes of it.

A few more pushes and the head was out... blue.  My heart stopped.  I swear I stopped breathing.  No one was acting panicky, but I knew that wasn't right.  The Doctor never flinched, he went right to work.  The cord had been wrapped around the baby's neck and he quickly tried pulling it off.  That wasn't working.  At that point I shut my eyes and laid back down.  He told me that they need to quickly cut the cord and then push the baby the rest of the way out. 

10:42  The Intern and the Doctor got the cord cut and pulled while I pushed.  The next few minutes were kind of a blur but the biggest thing I remember was the silence.  I just delivered a baby and that room was silent.  As the baby came out the doctor announced that we had another girl.  He quickly threw her onto my stomach and as soon as he did that two nurses covered her up and took her to the corner of the room, followed by the doctor and intern. 

I took off the oxygen mask to try to get a look as to what was going on but couldn't see.  I then heard my Doctor say okay, she's coming around and could hear little baby noises.  I don't know how many minutes it took before she started to cry but even when she did it wasn't a typical newborn cry (that didn't happen until a day later!).

After 30 mins of not seeing my new baby girl I sent Matt over with the camera to take pictures!  Then he brought the camera over for me to see.  



40 mins after delivery I was given my baby girl... Madison Lynn.  7 lbs 15 1/2 oz 21" long  Looking at her took me back!  I was looking at another Makenzie.  Incredible.  We were in love.

 

What a stinking roller coaster ride that day was.  I was just thrilled to have another baby girl in my arms and I wasn't going to let go anytime soon.