She’s Here!

          

Aubrey Noël Head joined us on December 30th, 2013! Right at midnight on the 30th I woke from sleep and after lying awake for about five seconds I felt a tiny gush, jumped out of bed, and my water broke as my feet hit the floor. Luckily, Michael awoke easily when I loudly whispered his name, he’s typically a hard sleeper. Sometimes you’ll even think he is awake but realize he’s not when he responds with a some sort of jumbled sentence that makes no sense. He jumped out of bed as quickly as I had and exclaimed, “Let’s do this!”. For a minute though we both stood dumbfounded and contemplated how I could make it to the bathroom and not get our area rug wet; sprinting across did the trick! Maddie was less than amused with the midnight wakeup call and watched from her doggie bed as we excitedly grabbed extra items for the hospital bag. I was able to take a shower before heading to the hospital since it’s only a ten minute drive and my doctor said I had an hour or two before I needed to head in. Around 2am we pulled into the main entrance of the hospital and I waddled halfway across the parking lot before realizing the lights were off and we should have used the ER entrance. As I turned to go back to the car my water broke again and I was instantly freezing as my soaking wet pants were hit with twenty degree air.
Once in the hospital I was actually able to be in a private room immediately versus having to experience early labor in triage, which has about six beds in a room. I was having contractions that were fairly painful and was thinking “this isn’t so bad”; Michael and I even slept for a few hours. My doctor didn’t come in until 7:30am and told me I wasn’t in active labor and would be started on Pitocin to jumpstart progress. I was started on 2 milliunits per (I think) minute, and I was told 20 milliunits was the highest the dosage would be turned up to. Every thirty minutes my dosage was increased by two, and the pain was increased by ten. I have no recollection of time, dosage, or who was in and out of my room really because my eyes were so tightly shut from the agony. On a pain scale from 1-10, at about a 6 I asked if I could have something to “take the edge off” and was given a dose of Stadol which is basically a painkiller that makes you feel shitfaced. I was the dizzy equivalent of drinking 4 jack and cokes and even threw up like a real-live drunkard. The good part about Stadol is it makes you pass out like a drunk, the bad part about Stadol is it does not take the edge off the pain. In fact, I don’t think it’s even possible to take the edge off of contraction pain. Instead, during a contraction I would attempt to “breathe through it” like my nurse said to do and squeeze the shit out of my hospital bed rail until passing out for 4 to 5 minutes until the next one. I would fall into such a deep sleep for these few minutes that I even remember dreaming.

By noon I was in the worst pain of my life and it was officially time to wave my white flag. I asked  begged for an epidural but apparently anesthesiologists need lunch breaks too so I had to wait about half an hour before he even stepped foot in my room. During this time I was still in a drunken stupor from the Stadol and was positive that all the nurses were lying to me and no anesthesiologist would be coming to my aid EVER. You better believe I let everyone know this too. One of my worst fears about getting an epidural was the part where they stick a giant needle into your back. While in labor though, this needle sounded absolutely blissful and I couldn’t wait for them to stab it into me. The worst part of getting it is just how long the process takes, they have to do so much prep work while in the meantime you’re told to sit as still as you possibly can while experiencing what feels like the jaws of life slowly separating  your entire pelvis into two parts. My body would shake pretty violently through the pain of each contraction so it took most of my strength to keep completely still during the process. I was eight centimeters dilated once the medicine started pumping into me. I could still feel pain in the form of pressure in my right butt cheek, which actually came in handy when it was time to push because I was still aware when a contraction was coming while being relatively pain free. The epidural allowed me to wake up in a sense, and for the first time in hours I was able to open my eyes and talk to Michael. He seemed ecstatic to have someone to talk to, he had been sitting in a corner for nearly twelve hours at this point and passed the time by watching YouTube videos by himself. By 3pm it was time to push and I did a few practice runs with my nurse. I actually had to stop because the baby was coming out so quickly and the doctor had to be called. With the doctor, I pushed through about six contractions or roughly twenty minutes before Aubrey was born at 3:34pm. She weighed in at 7 pounds, 4 ounces and measured 18.5 inches long.

We celebrated New Year’s Eve in the hospital the next day complete with sushi, champagne, and apple cider. I always said I would have a sushi boat brought to the hospital and it totally happened. Little Aubrey was even kind enough to keep us awake until about 1:30am so we didn’t miss the ball dropping!

My favorite thing about Aubrey when she was born was her hair! I hoped our baby would be born with hair and she is so cute with her wild little mane.

    

During our hospital stay a photographer popped in and snapped some shots of our baby girl.

The first thing people seem to notice about her is how long her fingers are. No doubt she got these elongated appendages from me. I get made fun of sometimes too but I’m pretty sure people are just jealous that my pointer finger is approximately 20% more accurate than that of the average person.

We’ve been home for two weeks now and luckily had a lot of help from family and Michael has taken leave from work too. Now that I am not pregnant coffee is my best friend again and I am so thankful for it. Michael has been a huge help, he changes diapers like a champ and loves cuddling with his little girl. He has even mastered playing xbox while somehow keeping baby Aubrey happy as a little clam.

The other day I was looking so forward to climbing into bed and getting a long night’s rest and then realized that luxury won’t be available to me for a long time. In fact, I have been working on this blog post for three days and am currently typing with my left hand and holding Aubrey in my right arm. With that being said though, I didn’t know I could be this happy and it makes the small sacrifices so worth it.
xoxo