7 months 1 week and change: Reminiscing

Looking back at "old" videos of Audrey always amazes me. She has changed SO much in just 7 short months. I know, I know...we all say that. But seriously, she has become her own little person and not this little alien that goes cross eyed or passes out every 3 seconds.
My new little human just 2 days old:

7 months 5 days: New tricks

She's growing up so fast. Up until now I've refused to acknowledge it. My baby will stay tiny and immobile and quiet forever.

Sadly and excitedly, those days are over and we are on to bigger and better and louder things.

I present you with Audrey's new tricks:
1. Making the wah-wah-wah sound with her hand and mouth
2. Feeding herself puffs
3. All whilst chattering and telling some sort of story

She's obviously some sort of genius.

7 months 3 days: Has it really been that long?

It's official. I am the worst blogger on the planet. I diligently (well, attempted diligence counts) transcribed the ins and outs of my pregnancy for the better part of 2008, only to drop the ball once Audrey arrived. Now I find myself avoiding this thing all together in hopes that I won't be reminded of all the things I've already forgotten about my sweet baby's 7 months so far.

If I don't blog now then I don't have to remember that I also didn't blog about her first giggle, the first time she sat up, her new obsession with peaches, the tooth that's coming in....it's a vicious cycle.

So in the interest of a valid attempt at getting caught up, here are Audrey's monthly pictures (See! I may not be a complete failure at documenting my daughter's first year!).....

Yeah. I'm already a few days late on 7 months but have no fear. I'll get around to it before she turns 8 months....probably.

A few things worth noting:

Notice the alien-like 1 month picture in comparison to the chubbified 4 month picture. Is that the same baby?

She's not at all a fan of the camera - as evidenced by her 6 month picture.

Just after each of these pictures were taken, she attempted a nose dive off of the side of the chair. She succeeded 30% of the time.

41 Weeks: She Finally Arrived

It has been quite a while and there are LOTS of updates. I've been meaning to write Audrey's birth story for 2 months now. WOAH! She's 2 months old already! It is quite surreal (and never dull) to live our life. Before I get into the nitty gritty details surrounding her entrance into this world, I'll soften you up with this recent picture of the Bean...

She is fantastically adorable. Drooly grins and all.

Ok....let's get into it....her birth story.

So you are all well aware of the horrific "Failed Induction" by this point, and if not, it's an interesting read. I was pretty scared of going through that again but at least this time I knew a baby was coming home with me one way or another.

We left for the hospital on Tuesday, December 16th at 8am. I was sweaty and nervous. I knew what Pitocin felt like and I didn't want to go back. Me and pharmaceutical inductions are not friends. We got checked in...we were pros at this point. I got the good labor and delivery suite this time. Things are already looking better. Mother-in-law has already called the nurses station and been transferred to our room. We have been there all of 26 minutes. This is going to be a long day.

My wonderful, amazing midwife Janine is ready to get the show on the road....my cervix is not. Still holding out at a tight, hard 1 cm. Booooo cervix - YOU SUCK.

They start the Pitocin drip and we wait. This feels eerily like last time. Contractions all over the place. Monitors all wired up and not working right. I'm tired already and it's only noon. We have to instruct the nurses to not allow MIL's calls through anymore. She is stressing me out.

I'm not allowed to eat anything fun. I'm not allowed to walk around freely. I'm not allowed to do anything but lay uncomfortably on my side because the baby won't cooperate with the fetal monitor. I was not about to opt for an internal monitor (my baby doesn't need a screw in her head THANKS). I like our nurse. She ups my Pitocin because I tell her I can take it. I want progress. Janine says there is none.

Phase 2: A Foley balloon. Oh yes. A Foley balloon is a catheter with two balloons that are filled with saline solution on either side of the cervix. These balloons then smush the cervix and pressure her to give in and dilate. The Foley balloons are like the tough arm, brawn of this induction. My steadfast cervix does not cave to peer pressure. They tell me the balloon will "fall out" on it's own once I dilate to 4 cm. By 6 pm it still hasn't emerged. I already feel defeated. Janine comes in to check my progress. Things don't look promising.

Wait? What? I'm 7 cm dilated? The balloon was just chilling in there? Well duh, you won't let me move from this stationary position - of course it didn't "fall out." I feel a surge of energy - this is the real deal! Dan calls our parents to let them know it is eminent. Janine breaks my water (can't my body do ANY of this on it's own?) which is pretty anticlimactic according to Dan. Now the real fun starts. My contractions are huuuuuge and they HURT. It takes me another 3 hours to get to 8 cm. At this point, I've been laboring for 12 hours - half of which were probably considered active labor. This is hard. I'm tired. I'm not optimistic. I want drugs. Janine (the med-free, birthing center loving, crunchy granola midwife) looks right at me and says "I think now would be a good time for the epidural." I take this as a sign from God that I can cave now. THANK YOU GOD (and Janine)!

The anesthesiologist can't come fast enough. "Where is Dr. Shah? Is Dr. Shah close? Is she here yet?" My nurse says I'm the most polite laboring woman she's ever met. I love her. Dr. Shah preps me for the epi. I can't wait. I don't know how I'm going to make it through a contraction while staying painfully still. Somehow I manage to do it. Instant relief. I'm the happiest girl in the world! It's perfect. I can still feel contractions but no pain.

I'm finally at 10cm! ALL SYSTEMS GO! It's time to push. Or at least that's what the nurse tells me. I'm perfectly content. I "practice" push for 2 hours. Dan watches the baby's head emerge and then retreat. I hadn't prepared him for the "2 steps forward, 1 step back" phenomenon. He also wasn't aware that the small head he is seeing is actually just the cone that has formed from her stint in the birth canal, and her real head is MUCH larger.

The nurse says I'm a good pusher. I wouldn't know. Sweet, sweet epidural. I suddenly feel a strong urge to push. Before I was just taking direction - now I know I need to push. The nurse gets Janine. She has me stop pushing. WHAT? STOP? I CAN'T! Not even 15 minutes later, Janine asks for a "small" push...did I just give birth? The nurses are quiet and Dan is hysterical. I can't tell if it's good or bad. I freak out. Then Dan starts to cry, the nurses smile, and Audrey is on my chest crying. 3:15 am. This is incredible. She's so slimy and warm and cute. I am in love. Her cord was wrapped around her neck and had a full knot in it. Her acrobats in utero were not for nothing.

Dan cuts the cord and Audrey stares at me with bright, glossy eyes.

I don't feel like a failure for getting the epidural. Do I wish I could have gone without? Absolutely. Do I regret that I had more energy, was more relaxed and the baby was in less distress because of it? Not one bit.

Now for the stats:

Audrey was 6 lbs. 14.8 oz., 20 inches - no where near the 8-9 lbs. previously estimated. Janine had guessed 6.5 lbs about 3 weeks ago and Dan had said 7 even. Pretty dead on.

I had 2 small internal tears requiring a stitch each. Not too shabby. I proceeded to pop at least one stitch a couple days later. No biggie.

Audrey's blood sugar was perfect. Gestational diabetes be damned! My baby was small AND healthy - IN YOUR FACE!

Breastfeeding sucked from hour 1. That is best saved for it's own post. UGH.

We were both happy and healthy and on our way home less than 48 hours later.

Our family is complete (for now!)

40 Weeks + 4 Days

I just wanted to thank everyone for the kind and uplifting words. I know my last blog update probably came off very bitter and somewhat nasty but I had to let it out. I was feeling pretty poopy. I still feel kinda strange about the whole thing but I'm definitely working it out and getting ready for the real show.

We went to dinner with my parents last night to get out of the house and stop being pouty. My father is absolutely crazy. He actually said to me "oh, I thought you could come into the office on Monday." Umm what? Seriously? The last place I want to be is work the day before I go through a second labor induction. I'm pretty sure it's cool if I just take it easy one last time - Just take my PTO! For pete's sake, I'm still sore from the uterine marathon on Friday. He also wants me to "be available" from the hospital and/or immediately following the birth of his first granddaughter. You know, because my job is so critical that someone might need me while I'm PUSHING A BABY OUT. He was dead serious too because there just happen to be crazies in our office that couldn't stop working if their life depended on it and were texting/emailing/calling from their freakin recovery bed. Yeah, sorry. I have different priorities pops. And making sure websites are updated is not one of them at this time. Love you, but I'm not stepping foot back there until the end of January, as planned. Also, some of the most critical anti-med-free moms I've encountered are in that office and there is absolutely no way in hell I'm explaining to them what happened on Friday. I am 146% sure I might murder one of them the second they had an opinion. That can't end well :)

40 Weeks + 2 Days + Hospital Stay + Many Hours

So as some of you already know, I was admitted on Thursday night to begin the process of inducing labor. They gave me Cervadil at around 8 pm and my contractions started about 2 hours later. They were minor but enough to make sleeping very difficult - I guess that was payback for all the wonderful nights I've had full of sleep this pregnancy. I took some Ambien at around midnight but it did nothing...except make me feel kinda drunk. Oh, and the baby hates the continuous monitoring so a nurse was coming in every hour or so trying to find her heart beat. Nonetheless, I was so excited that I wasn't too worried about the lack of sleep.

The next morning I was able to eat breakfast and shower before they started the Pitocin drip in my IV. I was hooked back up to all of the monitors and we were off (luckily I was able to score a wireless fetal/contraction monitor!). By 10 am I was feeling slightly bigger contractions with the low dose Pitocin and Dan and I were walking the halls trying to help things along. It was very uneventful for most of the day, as the contractions got stronger and the Pitocin was increased. We watched movies, I rocked in the rocking chair through the rough contractions, and we waited. Waited. Waited. And waited some more. Just when the contrax would become regular, I would have a cluster where 5-8 would come one right on top of the next with no relief in between. That sucked. Since they kept jumping all over the place, I wasn't checked for progress until sometime around 5pm. After all of this, I was not dialated and the baby had not descended any farther down. WOW. 20 hours of contractions later (with NO pain medication mind you) and there was literally no progress towards delivery. I was crushed.

The midwife forced my cervix to 1 cm dialated. Yes, it was as fun as it sounds. This pushed my already hard Pitocin contractions back into a cluster mess of basically one constant painful contraction. My water was still intact and I was extremely tired so we had to come up with a game plan. My Pitocin was turned off and I was finally allowed to eat. After much discussion and consultation with the other OBs, we decided not to push my body any longer. Yes, I was sent home after almost a full day of un-medicated labor. And for those of you who have been induced, you are well aware that Pitocin contractions only mimic natural contractions in that....they're contractions. The intensity is almost immediate as drugs can't copy the natural labor process. They suck so bad, and I never even made it to active labor.

So here I sit, at home. On top of all of this, my contractions still haven't stopped but I'm thanking God that they are Pitocin free as this is tolerable.

I'm a mess of emotions and Dan is at work. I'm still trying to reconcile how I will go through this again, now that I know exactly what to expect. Now that I know how hard Pitocin makes it, and how all of the monitoring is absolutely miserable, and how difficult it will be to go med free as I had planned - Not even taking into consideration how much harder it can be if something goes wrong.

I also don't feel like I have anyone to relate to about this. Plenty of women have failed inductions but I know of not one who didn't end up in a c-section and ultimately get to that final goal of meeting and then taking home their baby. I basically went through labor (yes, I know...it could have been much harder) only to be sent home like a failure, without getting to meet our baby, all with the knowledge that I have to start this back over on Tuesday. This is all very strange and surreal and sad at the same time. I am trying to stay positive and remember that this baby is a trooper and stayed happy and healthy all through this. She is still safe inside and kicking and none the wiser about what Mommy has gone through. I'm ok with this because I'll do whatever it takes to have the best, safest labor and delivery for this little angel.

And for those of you who have told me this whole time I wouldn't be able to/shouldn't/don't know how to do this without pain medication....you may be right but it won't be for lack of trying and it won't be because I can't. It will be because after having done it for 20 hours, I don't know if I can do the same thing to myself not even 4 days later. But I sure as hell am going to try again. And I will not accept any input from any woman who went into the hospital one day and left with their baby a few days later - no matter the circumstances. If you didn't have to labor two separate times, I don't care what you have to say about it. You don't know how this feels. And I also don't care if that comes off as insensitive or holier than thou. I'm in a hard place right now and honestly, I don't care if I offend you. Thanks for understanding.

40 Weeks + 1 Day: So Here We Are

Yep, my due date was yesterday and still no baby. I'm being punished for never updating my blog aren't I?

Well the good news is that with this gestational diabetes deal, they won't let me go miserably over due like most women. We leave for the hospital tonight to check in and try some things to get this started and then Friday morning, they will start the dreaded pitocin (boooo hiss).

Please pray for us that things go smoothly and safely. Let's hope this baby and my body cooperate and that we can announce her healthy birth sometime tomorrow!

I'm off to walk, scrub floors, eat pineapple, take some herbal supplements and then walk some more. COME ON BEAN, LET'S GO!