Baby Beaver is here!

Our baby daughter was born just two hours past her due date, at 2:05 am on Sunday, April 11!

I feel like it's already been so long, I hope I can remember all of the details! I'm guessing at the early/active stages, I don't know that they are really accurate, but I had to break the story up in some way. Transition and pushing were pretty obvious :) Just a warning- this is crazy long... I wanted to remember as much detail as possible. Also, if you are due to give birth in the near future, I'm sorry if I scare you at all. Maybe you should wait to read this until after :)

Early labor (?)

I'd been having braxton hicks contractions for about a week, which were mostly unnoticeable besides my whole stomach hardening. Saturday morning, my due date, I woke up feeling no different than I had for the past few weeks. When I went to the bathroom, however, I had my bloody show- so I was positive that the baby would be coming in a matter of days instead of weeks as I was worrying. I was anxious to spend the day with Mr. Beaver and our dog because we knew it could be the last Saturday together without a baby! We relaxed in the morning and made a huge, yummy breakfast, and decided to go to the park again and get in another good hike. We left for the park around 1 or 2 pm. I had noticed my contractions were picking up a little, but they still weren't uncomfortable or painful at all, so we just figured they were braxton hicks. We walked around the park for a while, but I wasn't able to do as much because I was feeling strange pressure, like the baby was going to fall out! It was pretty weird, but I had heard people complain about that type of feeling weeks before having their baby, so I didn't really think much of it.

We did decide the park wasn't as much fun, and went to sit outside a cafe and relax instead. We sat for a while and had some food and people-watched, and then Mr. Beaver got a little concerned when he noticed that I would become distracted and breath through the contractions. I hadn't really noticed- they still weren't painful, just a little bit uncomfortable. He decided he'd rather be home in case anything was going to happen, so we got the check and left.
I took some pics with my flowers when we got home, around 6ish.


Active labor (?)

On the drive home I became a little bit more uncomfortable. The sensation that the baby was going to fall out was stronger, and especially strong every time Mr. Beaver hit a bump. I was noticing the contractions more at this point, and decided when I got home I would take a warm bath, drink a bunch of water, and lay on my side and see if they kept up. I've heard lots of stories about people thinking they were in labor, and then everything dying down with a bath or sleep or something, and I think I was a little in denial and figured this is what would happen. The contractions became a little less noticeable, but were still there when I laid down, so I decided to start timing them. They were anywhere from 45-60 seconds long and ranged from 4-7 minutes apart, but they varied quite a bit so we figured that it wasn't the real thing yet. Looking back I guess we must have all been in denial to think they were still braxton hicks :)
Mr. Beaver called his mom since she was about 10 hours away and not planning to leave until the morning, but she figured that labor was still a ways off too. Mr. Beaver, my mom and I had dinner and went and picked up a movie to watch. During the movie we decided to time my contractions again. They were still about the same duration and frequency, but they were becoming a little more uncomfortable. By the time the movie ended, I decided that this really could be labor, and we should probably get some sleep. While getting ready, my brother called and I talked to him for a while. While I was talking, I felt a little gush of fluid and quickly handed the phone off to my mom. It was a pretty small amount, and I decided I didn't think it was my water breaking, but maybe something having to do with the whole labor process, so I got ready and got into bed. While getting some last minute things ready I had a couple of more small gushes and became a little concerned. The contractions were now much more convincing as contractions and pretty uncomfortable, so when I got into bed Mr. Beaver decided to start timing them. I had to get up for the first one because it was all of a sudden pretty painful. Mr. Beaver got my fitness ball for me to labor on for the next couple, which helped but they were still pretty uncomfortable. When I had about 10 of these and we realized that they were all a minute long and only two minutes apart, we became a little alarmed and called my doctor. She gave us the go ahead to get to the hospital, so we grabbed our stuff, took a quick picture, and were on our way- a little past midnight.

The ride to the hospital was not very long, but contractions while being strapped in to the seat were pretty uncomfortable! We got in a little after midnight and I gave them all of my information between contractions, and we headed up to triage to get checked. It was a little hard to give my info, get blood taken, do the urine sample, etc. with the contractions, but we finally got through it all and the resident on call came in to check me since my doctor wasn't there yet. They announced I was 6 centimeters already, and staying to have the baby! This was at about 1 am.

Transition

Once the nurse took my blood and got my IV port put in, I asked to use the telemetry (wireless- not sure if that's the correct name) monitors and for something to drink- I was sooo thirsty!! She said she would go call and check with the doctor. She came back in a few minutes to say they were just waiting to hear back, and I asked if I could use the bathroom. She said it was fine as long as I just felt the need to pee, but that if I had any pressure to go that I could be ready to push. Since I was only 6 cm 10 min before I figured I was fine and went in and peed. Then I felt the pressure... I yelled for Mr. Beaver and he came in and helped me, but I was scared to even stand. The nurse came over and they helped lift me into bed. She told me whatever I did not to push, that she was going to get the doctor to check me. She ran from the room and I could hear her calling out to find the doctor, and it seemed like they were back within seconds and the doctor checked me. I heard her say- yup she's complete! and the nurse turned to Mr. Beaver and told him to get my mom fast. He ran out of the room and several nurses came in and were all disconnecting things and putting the sides of the bed up, and before I knew it they were literally running down the hall pushing me to labor and delivery. I was pretty scared because I didn't know where my husband was and things were happening so fast, but I looked back and saw him and my mom chasing after us so I felt better. As we made our way we were joined by several other nurses and before I knew it we were in a room, set up and ready to go. I asked what time it was, 1:45am.

Pushing


This is not a picture of me pushing (those are a little graphic with legs in the air and all)- this is a picture of me trying NOT to push, which was really, really hard!! My doctor wasn't there yet, and they were trying to find the on-call doctor. Finally the resident who had checked me said i was okay to start pushing, and I did. This part is kind-of a blur. I know it only took a couple of contractions before they were telling me to stop and the fancy equipment (light and mirror) came down from the ceiling. My doctor finally got there, and the on-call doctor came in shortly after too. I remember they told me to look in the mirror if I wanted to see my baby's hair/head showing, and I couldn't believe that they could already see anything, but then I looked and realized it was very little of the head- not like the whole thing like I imagined. This makes sense, because it wasn't burning yet. Within a few minutes I felt more of what I was expecting- the beginning of the "ring of fire". Pushing was SO hard. Not so much because of the strength it took- which was also hard and a lot of work- but because it was pretty hard to push knowing how much it was going to stretch and burn my skin. At this point I was hyperventilating a little bit (I think) so I was getting oxygen between contractions. I knew I could push harder but things were going a little fast and I didn't mind taking my time. Plus I wanted time to stretch out some. I remember seeing four hands with fingers stretching and massaging the skin, which was pretty disturbing. Then I heard my doctor say that she thinks the baby is not going to make it out without an episiotomy, which made me very worried. She said we'd try a little longer and then decide. I started to push as hard as I could, and two contractions later, she was born, at 2:05 am! It took Mr. Beaver a minute to tell me we had a girl- everyone was saying, Dad, tell her! It's a ...? It was pretty funny. I got to have her on my stomach for a minute, but then they took her a few feet away for suctioning. She came out so fast that they had to get fluid out of her lungs, it wasn't pressed out from the birth canal like it was supposed to be. I was shaking pretty hard anyway, so it was probably safer for her to be off of me. They collected the cord blood (we donated it) and showed me that they were able to get a HUGE bag- I was very happy. They made a comment about it being enough to save two babies :) The next part was actually really painful. They were having some trouble stopping bleeding, so they were pushing on my uterus really hard, and doing who knows what else for what seemed like just as long as I pushed. Delivering the placenta was not bad, and it was smaller than I expected. Then came the stitches. I tore pretty badly because there was not much time for my skin to stretch. I'm pretty sure I got a shot of Novocaine or something to numb the area, but it did not work!! The stitches really, really hurt. Mr. Beaver finally brought the baby over and that helped distract me some, and eventually I was all fixed up and got to try nursing. It took a little while, but she latched on for a little bit and I was happy about that. We rested for a while and just stared at our new daughter, and finally they said if I could get up that they would take us up to our postpartum room. I think this was a little after 3 am. The next 36 hours were not too eventful... we just kinda waited around until they let us go home. My doctor actually said she'd release me that afternoon, just about 12 hours after delivery! The pediatricians wanted to wait until 36 hours to get all of the normal blood tests done, so as soon as that was done we were on our way home.

We are tired, but everything has gone really, really well so far! I'll post more about breastfeeding, post-partum uncomfortable-ness, etc. another time. We're getting our newborn photography done today, and I should probably try to clean myself up and do some major work with the under-eye concealer before she gets here.