Rachel Knows... She's Here! Lucy's Here!

Well, she's been here. For a while. Ha-ha! She's been here since the 4th of July. She is a little firecracker for sure. There's no doubting that one. I love her to the moon and back. Oh this she and her that I'm referring to in case you're new here at Rachel Knows... is my daughter Lucy! She came 5 weeks early and weighed 4 pounds and 14 ounces. A tee tiny little nugget of joy! If you're wondering why she's been here for 11 almost 12 weeks and I'm just now getting around to updating my blog about it is because her life has been very eventful so far. I’ll get into that in another blog post. As much as I was miserable during my pregnancy, I'm sort of a control freak and not knowing when she was going to come just made me feel like a ticking time bomb. I think I had tons of anxiety over the fact that I didn't know when she was going to arrive. They told me that she was due on August 5th, but as most mothers know, those dates are pretty useless. I knew that babies usually came within 2 weeks of their due date. I had tons of anxiety about this because both me and my brother came 2 weeks late. Every time I would think about being pregnant and sick for such and such more weeks, I would just panic. Then the doctor told me that I was going to be induced, because I had steroid induced diabetes, and my anxiety lessened. I knew she would be here either July 29th or July 30th depending on how long labor took. That made the control freak in my happy because I could stop worrying about when she was going to come because I was convinced she was going to be 2 weeks late. Well, July 2nd at around 11:00 p.m., I lost my mucus plug (ick) I FA-REAKED! I was like I'm going into labor now and she's 5 weeks early. I called my doctor and they asked if my water had broken or if I was feeling contractions and that was a big ol' no to both of those so she said don't worry about it and go back to sleep. Do what now?! Don't worry about it and go back to sleep. Do you know who you're talking to here? I immediately jumped on Google to see if I should be doing anything. Google said that it could be hours, days or even several weeks before labor starts. Do what now again?! The control freak in me just freaked the freak out. I could have this baby either any minute or it could be weeks. Which was it?! I think I finally passed out from exhaustion, fear and worry around 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning on July 3rd. At 6:00 a.m. on the dot, (I looked at the clock the moment I felt it) my water broke. I was completely terrified because it was 5 weeks early, yet excited beyond belief because A. LUCY WAS ABOUT TO BE HERE! and B. THE PREGNANCY FROM HELL WAS ALMOST OVER! We called the doctor again and she told me to head to the triage. When we got to the triage they checked me and I was 1 cm dilated and 75% effaced. I wasn't having contractions though. They wheeled me up to my room and got me started on Pitocin to get labor started, because once the water breaks the risk of infection is high, at right around 7:00 a.m. I was exhausted. I'd gotten no real sleep since July 2nd at about 1:00 in the afternoon and the range of emotions that I went through from 11:00 that night until they put me on the Pitocin would be enough to knock out an elephant. That doesn't really make sense, but you see, I haven't really slept since July the 2nd at 1:00 p.m. :-X They told me that it takes about 6-12 hours to reach 4 cm, which is active labor, and then one hour for each cm after that. So I naively thought, "Great! 12 more hours and she'll be here!" So the contractions started almost immediately when they started the Pitocin. They weren't so bad, but they were coming every 4-5 minutes. The nurses would come back every half hour to an hour and kick it up 2 notches. The intensity of the contractions stayed the same for a little bit and they were tolerable, but then they started coming much closer together and they were so strong they would take my breath away at their peak. It was around every 2-3 minutes and mind you the contractions lasted for about a minute to 90 seconds each time, so I didn't even have much time to catch my breath. I was also so exhausted I wasn’t in the right mind frame to try and control my breathing and fight through the pain. I didn't go to any birth classes or any Lamaze classes or anything because I figured I could definitely stand it for a while and then I'd just get an epidural. I tried my hardest to last until 4 cm (active labor), but the Pitocin made it too much to bear. They were too close together and too strong. Thank God my doctor or the hospital or whoever allowed you to get the epidural whenever you wanted it instead of getting to active labor like I’ve heard that some hospitals make women. I disappointed me that I couldn’t make my goal, but I got to 3 cm and like I said I just couldn’t go on. I wouldn't have made it to 4 cm anyway because I didn't go into active labor until about the stroke of midnight right as it turned to July 4th. I was just stuck at 4-5 cm. I was exhausted and I finally passed out at around 6:00 a.m. I think they were already making plans for my C-Section. I woke up at 6:30 a.m. and I felt crazy down there. I thought it was me just being my weird ol' self, waking up and feeling strange, but I called the nurse in anyway. She checked me and told me that I was 9 almost 10 cm dilated. Say what?! I was just 5 cm when I went to sleep 30 minutes ago. I made her check me again. Yep. I was 9, closer to 10, cm dilated. She said I would be ready to push in about an hour. 15 minutes go by and I feel just crazy down there. I call the nurse back in and she checks me and she says that I am ready to push and to keep my legs closed tight because the doctor wasn't there yet. She finally told me that they were already planning my C-Section and no other woman was close to delivering yet so he was still asleep at the hospital across the street. I FA-REAKED again. My epidural wasn't really worth a damn the whole time and the two times I pushed the button to give me a little more of the medicine it gave me uncontrollable shakes, made me freeze and made it feel like my chest and throat were seizing up. That lasted for about an hour each time so I said, "Funk dat. I'll go through the pain." So I kinda sorta went without an epidural for almost all of my labor. I don't know how I even fell asleep for those 30 minutes to be honest. I suppose that is what true exhaustion does to you. I was in so much pain, yet I still slept a little. I could feel her about to pop out and the doctor was still across the street and I was terrified yet again. Finally at 7:00 a.m. after the longest 15 minutes of my life trying to hold in my baby, the doctor comes in and it is time to push. I pushed for 34 minutes and Lucy was here. It felt like 2 seconds of pushing. That was the craziest 34 minutes of my life. They rushed her over to her warming table and started working on her and making sure she was okay. I couldn't hear her cry. I don't know how long they checked her out, but I never heard her cry and I kept asking if she was okay, but no one would answer me. Finally they told me that she was fine. They wrapped her up and I held her and fell instantly in love. My doctor told me that she would probably have to be rushed up to the NICU, but she didn't have to spend a minute there. I was so happy. She was perfect. She stayed one extra day for jaundice and then she came home with us. I guess this was just my labor and delivery story. I'll tell you more about her time at home and the events that followed on another post. This was way long, I'm way exhausted and Lucy is going to wake up any minute for a bottle. Yeah, the bottle thing is another story. Not what I wanted, but you just have to roll with the punches which I am doing a lot more easily now. If this has spelling and grammatical errors or just plain doesn’t make sense I’ve proofread it about 5 times, but I’m still exhausted and my brain feels like it just plain doesn’t work anymore. See how I’m rolling with the punches I would have proofread this 10 times in the past now it was just 5. :-X haha!