I've been trying to write this post for a few days now, but time seems to fly by and before I know it we are headed to bed and I haven't gotten nearly half of the things done that I wanted to. But, that's ok...because I've got a teeny tiny baby to snuggle and love. She's laying here on my chest sleeping while I type this and although I feel like life has been turned upside down for us in the past week, I can't imagine it any other way now. Abby is beautiful and amazing and so sweet....I can't remember what life was like without her.
*Sorry about the picture quality...these were all taken on my Iphone and don't "blow up" well*
First Family Photo
So, without further ado; Abby's birth story. Let's rewind to Friday, August 10th. It was a crazy busy day for us. First, I had a baby shower from the ladies at work (I'll blog on that later once I've got the pictures). Then, on my way to the doctors I got a call from our realtor that the bank finally accepted the offer on our house (10 months later). And, finally, the doctor confirmed that Abby was breech and we scheduled a c-section for Friday, August 24th (its CRAZY that she wasn't even supposed to be here yet!). So, like I said, Friday was a big day.
The doctor also asked that I come back into the office on Monday morning to have an ultrasound done. Abby was "measuring small" and my fluids looked a bit low to her so she wanted to make sure that everything was ok. Of course I worried my way through the weekend and a second baby shower and Monday couldn't come soon enough. I just wanted to know that everything was ok.
Ryan took off work on Monday to go to the doctor with me which was SO NICE! We had the ultrasound and they sent us to get lunch and asked us to come back to do a stress test on the baby. Basically they wanted to hook me up to a machine to monitor her heart rate and if I was having contractions. They told us to be prepared to have her later that afternoon depending on what they found so we sort of treated lunch as our "last supper" of sorts. We went back and had the stress test done. The results were good so we weren't going to have a baby that day and they sent us on our merry way with an appointment to come back Wednesday, August 15th for another ultrasound to check how things were going. At that point I sort of knew that we weren't going to make it all the way until the 24th but we didn't really know anything official.
We went home and got some things done around the house. I finished writing the last of the thank you cards for the showers from the weekend and made us a yummy meal of spaghetti and meatballs. We watched a little TV and headed to bed around 10pm. I should note that Ryan had been up since 3 am that morning. He worked for a few hours in the morning at a Coopers Hawk in Indiana before heading home to go to the doctor with me.
At 11pm on the dot I woke up thinking "hum...that must be a contraction". I hadn't felt one until that point and it was exactly what people had described to me. But, I knew that contractions didn't really mean anything, its just your body getting ready for labor so I went back to sleep. Exactly 15 minutes later I woke up with another one. I decided that as long as I was awake I'd head to the bathroom (because that's a place you frequent often when pregnant). When I got up I noticed that my undies seemed a bit wet. Nothing like how the movies make it seem...no big gush of water, but it seemed weird. I mean...I don't pee the bed anymore :O) So, I thought it over and decided to call the doctors office to see what they thought. I didn't wake Ryan up yet and was leery of calling the doctor because I didn't want to be that lady that ended up in the hospital only to be sent home and told to keep waiting.
I told the doctor what was happening and she couldn't really tell me much without seeing me so she sent me to the hospital. I went upstairs to wake Ryan up and boy was he confused!! First, we'd only been asleep for about an hour and second, we just weren't really ready for a baby just yet. Ryan's response was "no, can't we just sleep a little bit longer" and tried to pull me back into bed. I wanted nothing more than to snuggle in next to him and go back to sleep but I knew we needed to go to the hospital so I get him up and moving. Luckily we'd come home at lunch time and I'd thrown together a hospital bag just in case so I was sort of prepared.
We left the house around 11:45. It was really foggy out and Ry and I were both really tired. I remember him making a comment about "Gorilla's in the mist" because of the fog. HA! Anyways, we got to the hospital at about midnight and they started by asking me what had happened and doing a quick test to see if my water really had broke. The first test came back inconclusive, probably because it was such a small amount of fluid, so they decided to do three more tests before saying if I was in labor or not. As soon as she went to do the first of the tests the rest of my water broke and she was 99.9% sure we were having a baby that night!!! Now, remember, we already knew the baby was breech so I knew we'd be having a c-section.
I'd had dinner around 8pm so they weren't sure if they would make me wait a few hours to digest dinner, or if we'd go straight to delivery. I wasn't looking forward to sitting around for a few hours in labor (since I knew I'd be delivering with a c-section anyways) so I was relieved when they said the doctor was on her way and we'd have a baby in our arms in a few hours!!
Ryan's First Diaper Change (he said it was "gross!")
It was about 1am at this point and we knew that we were really having the baby so Ryan tried calling both sets of parents. My dad didn't answer his phone, but his mom was awake enough to hear hers. My parents didn't end up knowing what was going on until Ryan sent my mom a picture text of Abby. She woke up and shook my dad awake shoving the phone in his face telling him we'd had the baby (I can just see this playing out and the surprise on both their faces). Anyways, I'm getting ahead of myself.
It took them until just before 2pm before they wheeled me into the OR and gave me the epidural. The anesthesiologist was SO great and helped me keep my mind off of what was going on. Oh, and my nurse. She was the sweetest lady ever!! In fact, her name just happened to be Abigail!! When Ryan realized that he said to me "I think it's a sign, if we have a girl, lets name her Abigail", so that's the story behind the name (we'd had it picked out for months, but were choosing between that and Katherine).
Impossibly teeny toes are SO hard to resist!
Ryan was in the recovery room getting into his scrubs (which he lovingly called the "bunny suit")while they prepped me for surgery and got me all medicated and ready. I was cold...and really shaky. Partly because of the meds, partly because it was freezing in the room, and mostly because I was nervous. I remember the anesthesiologist telling me that they were about to let Ryan in and then saying, ok, they already made the incision. It was crazy!! I couldn't feel a thing, but I was awake for the whole time.
I remember the doctor saying "I can see the butt...oh...the baby is peeing and pooping! One last guess, boy or girl?" I said "Boy?" because little girls don't start out their first day in the world with pee and poo! But the doctor responded "Nope, girl!!". Of course I started to cry.
They wheeled me into the room at 1:57 and Abby was born at 2:23. My kinda labor!! It didn't take them long to get her a little cleaned up and bring her around the curtain for Ryan and I to see. She was perfect and I was so happy. A few minutes later though I started to feel really nauseous. The anesthesiologist had warned me that I might start to feel sick and that I should tell him if I did, but I was trying to fight through it. Bad choice!! I started to throw up, which is REALLY hard to do when you can't feel anything below your rib cage. He quickly gave me some meds and within minutes I was feeling better. Still shaking all over and crying but not sick anymore.
Staley went a little crazy with the diapers one day when I left her out...I'll be closing that door from now on :O) I think she's not quite sure about her little sister.
They sewed me up and moved me into recovery before 3am. That's when it got really good!! Ryan was already with Abby in recovery. In fact, they'd kicked him, and her out a few minutes after she was born. When Ryan tells it, he says the walked him and Abby into the recovery room and then the nurses left to work on me. He says he was so scared to be alone with her and remembers thinking "I don't know if you know this or not, but this is my first time having a baby...are you sure I should be here all alone?" but he figured it out and not long after they rolled me in to be with them.
We stayed in recovery for 2 hours and I got to snuggle and hold my sweet baby. I'll never forget how much I was shaking though. It was uncontrollable. The doctor said it was totally normal and had alot to do with a huge swing in hormones and undergoing major surgery. It took all of the two hours in recovery for me to stop shaking but I wouldn't give back those two hours for anything.
After recovery, the put us in the mother and baby wing and the rest was history!! Our families were both anxiously awaiting visitor hours which started at 10 am. In fact, they were all in the parking lot at 7:30 hoping to get in, but the hospital was firm about visiting hours so they went to breakfast and went shopping for clothes! Since we didn't find out if Abby was a boy or a girl, we'd gotten very few clothes until she was born. Don't worry though, her little closet and dresser are overflowing now. Everyone as been so generous and helpful!!
So, it's a week after Abby was born and I can't even explain how much I am in love. You really can't understand it until you become a parent. Also, it gives me whole new appreciation for the amount of love that my parents have for me. I've never loved something as much as I love her. She's changed our whole lives, for the better!
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