finally the birth story

Austin is two months old and I am finally able to post the story.
9/3/09 it began. I woke up at 4:30 am, feeling a lot of pain. I woke Dan up, but we decided that I could hold off. So I took a shower, and went back to sleep. I slept almost the entire day, waking only to eat and go potty. Dan comes home and we go to home depot for some boards to put under the bed. (don't ask, that's another post). So we are waiting for the guy to cut the boards and I am not feeling well at all. Leaning over the cart ect.
We get home and I decide to call the consulting nurse. She of course tells me to head to the hospital. Dan loads up the car with everything. I tell him he is jinxing us because they are going to send us home like they do every time. He just smiled at me an quietly kept loading the car.
We get to Valley, and at this point I am in a lot of pain. The contractions aren't the type that come and go, just a constant pain, cramping. We get to the desk, and there are no nurses available. Every other time I went to triage there were at least two!! Finally a nurse comes and gets me to a room. She directs me to the bathroom to change and do what I have to do. Dan goes with me because I can't stand up straight. He has my purse and is looking for somewhere to put it down, and he figures the sink is the best option. Well it's one of those sinks that turns on automatically, so it drenches my purse. Even tho I think I am going to pass out from the pain, I laugh so hard I almost peed my pants!
So I get hooked up to the monitors, and the nurse calls the Dr. to come in an make an assessment. So we wait for him to get there, and I am uncomfortable as heck.
He comes in and he says. We are going to deliver the baby. Austin is breech so I know that means C-Section. So Dan says, how long till we go to the delivery room. The Dr. says "about a half hour". At this point I am like holy sh**. We haven't called anyone to tell them we are even AT the hospital.
Dan goes racing to the waiting room to call the people on our list. Noelle is the only one to make it before I get wheeled off, this is because she lives like a mile from the hospital.
They give Dan the scrubs to put on and wheel me into the OR. At this point I am crying, mostly because I am terrified of the epidural. I beg and plead for the anesthesiologist to let my husband in because I do not want to do the epi alone. I calmed myself down because I figured the epi would hurt more if I was crying so hard. Turns out the epi wasn't even close to as bad as I thought it was going to be.
Let me tell you it's a weird feeling not being able to feel anything from the waist down. A couple of minutes after getting the epi, I start puking my guts out. To tell you the truth this is the worst part of the experience. I had to turn my head to the side and puke in the tray. The anesthesiologist was great and gave me some anti nausea meds right away.

And so it begins.
They let me know they are going to start, and the next thing I know I am feeling a TON of pressure. Not pain but a TON of pressure. His head was wedged up in my rib cage on the right side. Dan actually looked over the curtain and saw him get pulled out. I was so proud of him because he gets grossed out so easily. So then I see my beautiful son over the curtain and I cry. He is 7lbs 8.5 oz, 18 inches long.

Then they tell me he is not breathing well. He was breathing too shallow. Apparently when babies come down the birth canal a lot of stuff gets pushed out. Anyway they have to take him to the NICU for observation, and Dan has to go with him. Dan could see me from the window so he kept going back and forth. He said later that all of a sudden I wasn't there anymore.

So I get wheeled to my room and my mom, dad, Dan's parents, Noelle and Aud were all waiting for me. I felt out of it, but so so excited. They put these things on my legs to help prevent clotting. It's like a blood pressure cuff for your legs that go off every two minutes. Pain in the ass.
After about an hour I asked the nurse, where my husband and baby were. Just about that time my boys came strolling in. Apparently they were about to admit him to the NICU, when they decided to put the goop in his eyes and he started screaming at the top of his lungs. All was well.

It was an amazing experience. The staff was fantastic. I was in the hospital for two nights, three days.

The last two months have been wonderful, and hard all at the same time. I am so lucky to have a beautiful healthy gorgeous boy. He has the red hair I was hoping for!! He now weighs 12lbs 3 oz.