We have a Daughter!!!

Baby Camille arrived at 4:55 am on October the 26th, weighed 8 pounds 6 ounces, and was about 21 inches long!  She's got the biggest, softest, most kissable cheeks on the planet and we are totally enamored by her!  (which is why I'm blogging instead of sleeping when I should be--I manage to stay awake looking at her while she sleeps pretty often)


Here is the birth saga:

1. Trip to the doctor.  The guy was not so thrilled about natural birth, so I was not so thrilled about him.  Him being a man didn't bother me as much as I thought it would.  And, as Carley mentioned in a previous comment on the previous blog, my modesty flew out of the window in no time at all anyway.  I was unhappy about having him be the doctor on call since in response to "How long does it take to go from 3-4 cms to delivery?" he replied, "If you let me break your water and give you oxytocin, it doesn't take long at all--you can have her today".  Well, considering I told you five minutes ago that I wanted to go all natural, I'm guessing that's not the route I want to take.

2. Back home for rest.  We were 3-4 cms at the doctor and he said we could go to the hospital (it was around noon), but since we didn't feel the contractions were so bad we headed home to wait until it was a little worse.  I didn't want to be there for two days with nothing going on.  My water broke around 5pm, so we were pretty much set to go at that point.  I'm glad we went home though.  I did manage to sleep some, and without that little bit of sleep I know I wouldn't have made it through labor naturally.  (I barely made it as it was.)

3. Hospital check in.  After the water breaks, it's leak city and it's gross.  I didn't like having nothing on but a thin gown and having all of that going on.  The exams were also very unpleasant.  My admissions nurse checked me DURING A CONTRACTION.  HELLO???  I pretty much don't want to see her again--ever.  After that though, we went into our delivery room and they set up the tub and got us a ball and got us all set up.  Our nurse, Lindsey, was AMAZING.  She is pregnant and planning to go naturally-so she was super supportive and wonderful.  She was also super complimentary and kept telling us what a great job we were doing.

4. Contractions.  Ouch.

Do I really need to say anything else?  :)  No, but I will.
I started out sitting in the bed since we had to do exams and monitoring, but soon I got a mobile monitor and walked around a bunch--and then not long after my nurse (who is awesome) said she'd just check the baby with the doppler every now and then and she'd examine me when I wanted her to.  Awesome.

We walked a little bit (ouch), sat on the ball a lot, I stood in the shower with the shower head on my belly for a long time swaying back and forth, I got into the big birthing tub and soaked/floated, I sat in the bed a little more (so comfortable until a contraction hits--then they are super bad and there's no relieving position), and leaned on Brian and leaned on a ball....anything really--we tried.

The roughest part was that I stalled at 7 cm's for a pretty long while.  Each exam brought me some hope that we'd at least get her soon--but nope.  Just more pain.  The contractions were pretty much constant; no break in the pain, so it was really rough.  I was also completely pooped at that point.  We checked in around 6pm and this was around 2 or 3am.  I was mentally weak at that point and was weepy and telling Brian I couldn't keep going--it was just too exhausting.  Brian was trying to be the good coach and saying that we could get it moving faster if we did lunges (yeah...cause that's what I feel like doing in the middle of all of this pain).  He was very encouraging though and really kept me focused.

Finally, at about 3:30 am, I told him that if I hadn't progressed past 7 cm's when she came to check me that we were getting an epidural or some narcotics.  Well, God blessed us--we were at 8 to 9 cms with just a small little piece of cervix left.  (THANK GOODNESS)  This was the most painful part though because the contractions were in the rear and made me want to push SO bad that I literally couldn't contain myself.  I just wanted to spaz out and flail almost.  It was bad bad.  I told the nurse that I really wanted to push, that it was time.  She was again, so awesome!  She said I could just bear down some--not push too hard, and amazingly it helped so much.  I felt better through the contractions.

I told mom to get my camera ready, and she snapped a shot of an actual contraction--me breathing through it right before we were getting ready to push (that's why I'm in the bed).

5. Pushing!  Time to meet our little lady!!!  This part was a breeze compared to the rest, but still was not easy.  We used the birthing bar for this, which I highly recommend to EVERYONE.  The position you get into (a squat) makes pushing so much easier and uses your weight to help, the bar offers some support and a place to rest your head, and it went so fast that it caught everyone by surprise.  I don't think I pushed long (I have no concept of amount of time), but it was some seriously hard work.  When she came out it was the most relieving feeling I've ever experienced.  It was pretty amazing feeling her come through and I could tell when she was close so I just kept pushing instead of taking a break.  Pushing out the placenta was pretty relieving too.  :)

6.  Our daughter!!!  WOW!!!  She was so beautiful, even covered in all of the stuff.  I kept crying and looking at her.  I got to hold her right away and just couldn't believe it!  I still can't really believe she's our little girl.  It's almost like we're babysitting, except that we're so in love with her.  It's amazing.

Brian cut the cord, they had to work on her a while afterwards because she had a lot of fluids still in her system (supposedly because I pushed her out so fast), and then she had some trouble warming up so I got to hold onto her some more.  Oooooh the love.  I can't express it--just have kids.  They cleaned her up some more and then we got to breastfeed, which went SO well!!  I'm so glad.  It was easy for her to latch on, she had a good latch, and she fed for 15 minutes on each side--go girl!

After that starts the gross stuff (I'll save that for a less public read).  But, we had the parents in to meet her and take some pictures, and we moved up to our mommy room.  It's been awesome.  We got to have a huge breakfast and get a little bit of sleep (about 30 minutes...I'm running on an hour and a half of sleep since my naps yesterday before going to the hospital).  She's so amazing, I don't mind being ridiculously sleepy and tired and grumpy.

7. First night as parents (day/night since she was born so early).  LONG.  We did okay during the day with having family come by and having enough energy reserves to get through.  However, last night was a different monster.  She wasn't her normal sleep quietly self and I was a paranoid and tired mess.  Every sound she made I freaked out about.  She had hiccups at one point, but it sounded like she was choking when we laid her down so Brian held her until the passed.  It was a little rocky.  However, around 6 am this morning, she went to sleep really well and we slept like rocks until 9!!!  Wow!!  I popped up realizing that it had been too long that I was asleep and there she was next to me passed out.  I got to shower (yayyyyy!!!) and then got her dressed up for the little hospital pictures.  I feel like a new woman after that 2 or three hours of sleep.  I slept about another 30 minutes later in the day and hopefully we'll get some rest tonight.  Tomorrow B's off to work after we get home.  God bless him!

That's our little story.  Brian did a great job, I survived, Camille is healthy and wonderful--so it all went well!  We're off to our house tomorrow without people to call in every time we have a question or a fear or a need.  That's going to be scary!!!  I'm not sure how people don't lose their minds...I'm a little worried.



Less exciting exciting part of all of this:  The hospital food is AMAZING!!  It's like Christmas dinner every meal every day!  I have been having salads and fruit though, and have only really indulged in breakfast and then by having a dessert with lunch.  This whole giant jiggly belly mess I have going on now is a little motivating to cut out the extra junk.  :)  Funny thing is, I can't tell how far off it is from what it looked like before I was pregnant.