Last Saturday around this time Jason and I headed off to our closest Wing House. I mean, what better way to spend a Saturday as a heavily pregnant girl than a meal at Wing House? We ate with our good friend Adam then went to the mall and saw a movie.
Today I am sitting at home watching whatever semi-interesting thing I can find on television while my pug shares an ottoman with me and my daughter swings lazily in a swing.
Ada Marie's birth story may not be the most exciting story to take place, but it is one that I need to write down, so here it is in all of its glory: The one with the BIG story.
Sunday afternoon, November 8th, around 4:00 I started to feel slightly off. We were at my great aunt & uncle's house to celebrate his 80th birthday. As we were leaving I told Jason that if I still felt off then I would call the doctor in the morning. I couldn't exactly explain how I was feeling, just that it was off. We had some errands that we needed to run, so Jason and I went to Target. Around 5:00 pm I started to get back pains. Then, I realized, oh these back pains are coming every 10 minutes or so, maybe they are contractions. Jason started to time the contractions and they were never any farther apart than every 10 minutes. I ate some cereal and we watched Marley & Me. Around 8:00 I decided that I may have to go to the hospital sometime that night or the next morning, so I should probably get some sleep. Ya, that didn't happen. Radio stayed by my side as Jason put the finishing touches on our labor play list. /Side note: We asked friends & family to submit song suggestions for us to listen to while I was in labor./ Some time between 9:00 and 10:00 I told Jason that we should go ahead and take showers and get ready to go to the hospital. My contractions started coming every 4 minutes. We left the house around 11, a little earlier I think and went to my office. Yes, I went to my office. I had a few things that I needed to do at the courthouse on Monday morning, and knew that if I was in the hospital that it wasn't going to happen. I had to walk out a few contractions in the parking lot of the firm, and then we were on our way.
We arrived at the hospital sometime around 11:30. I left everything but my purse in the car, because I just didn't know what was going to happen, I thought I had a long time to go before I would need anything and just really wanted to get poked to see how far along I was. Jason joked with the nurse that I could be in transition (between 7 and 10 centimeters) and they said, no way... probably about 4.
The nurse checked me and my husband was right. I was 7 centimeters. SEVEN out of TEN. Everything was fine though, my blood pressure, the baby, we were all good and were rushed up to the room. As soon as we got to the room Jason rushed down to get our bags out of the car while they hooked me up to all the monitors. He called our parents to let them know we were admitted. My mom couldn't go back to sleep after Jason told her so she came to the hospital. Jason's mom was working the night shift and couldn't make it.
The nurse asked how my pain level was. She wanted to know if I wanted an epidural, I told her no. I was fine. She asked what my pain was on a scale from 1 to 10. I said, maybe a 5, I wasn't really sure. She said... ok, I want you to think of the worst pain you have ever felt, how is it compared to that. That is when I told her that I really have never had any type of pain that I would have to scale. I think she thought I was a little weird. I ended up getting something in my IV that made me feel drunk for just a little while. I still felt every thing, but took a bit of the edge off.
The doctor came in the room and broke my water.
My mom got to the hospital and came in to say hello, but was only there for about 2 minutes before I felt like I needed to push the baby out of my body. I had her go out into the waiting room.
The human body is a weird wild thing. I always heard on movies that the doctor tells you to push, but no one had to tell me. I just felt like I had to, so I did. Jason stayed next to me and held my hand or leg or back, I think a combination of all of them. He was a really great coach. It really wasn't bad. It really wasn't. Its amazing, and yes it hurt, of course it hurt, but it wasn't bad. I didn't scream, I didn't feel the need to. I just felt really calm. I just knew I had to get the baby out, and that there was nothing I could scream that would make it easier. At one point I did laugh because I thought of how it would be funny if at the very end I just started yelling at Jason, but then realized that it would be a bad idea, because of how calm I had been the rest of the time. They might think something was wrong.
Ada Marie was born at 3:04 am on 11/09/09 to the music of the Foo Fighters (My Hero). I was at the hospital about 3 1/2 hours before I had a child.
Her first name was Jason's great grandmother's name and her middle name was my grandmother's middle name. We honestly didn't say her name out loud until around 8:00am the morning she was born. I wanted to see her and to hold her and just make sure. We wanted something simple and girlie, but not super unusual, but somewhat different. I pretty much hated every other name.
So, back to the story.
As they were checking her, the doctor was finishing up with my placenta delivery. (hot, I know) I looked at it, it was pretty neat. He seemed to be working down there for a while, and then he told the nurse to call down to the operating room and get an anesthesiologist down there right away because he couldn't stop my bleeding. This was the part that actually hurt, but I was able to see my baby, so I'm sure it would have been worse had I not been able to. They let me hold her for about a minute, then they whisked me off to the OR.
The next part is somewhat of a blur. I remember getting a shot in my leg, then them looking down my throat. They started to strap my arms down and I asked the nurse if I should be scared. She told me, 'Its normal for people to be scared'. Seriously, that was her response. The next thing I knew I was waking up in the recovery room. Apparently my cervix was torn. They told me that I lost a huge amount of blood and that if it had been any worse I would have had to have a hysterectomy.
While this was going on, Jason was with my mom and they were both freaking out. Apparently it all was happening so quickly that they didn't really understand what was happening. When I got out of the OR, my face was so swollen and I was shaking so badly that Jason thought that something went wrong. It was all fine though, as fine as a torn cervix could possibly be.
I was able to hold Ada in the recovery room and she was able to eat for the first time. That is when the nurse said something that made up for all of the jokes cracked at me in middle school and high school. The nurse told me that I had PERFECT nipples for nursing (sorry montel). That is actually when Jason knew I was ok, because I said to the nurse.... FINALLY, this makes up for everyone making fun of me in middle and high school!
We are home now and are adjusting well. I think that my swelling has gone down enough that I will finally pose in some pictures with her to show that I really am a mom, but for now, I will leave you with this:
~smb
