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Sunday, September 8, 2013

Baby Fox Birth Story

I figure with Mini Fox coming soon, I should tell you how Baby Fox got here -  Warning, it's going to get wordy.

It all started on the day before Christmas Eve day. I had gone to bed with high blood pressure and a headache. I figured that if I woke up with the same headache that I would call the doctor. So off to bed we went. I woke up around 7 with the same headache and with really high blood pressure. I woke up Mr. and we called the on call doctor. She said that I should head off to L & D,  I was just monitored, and had some blood work done. All the results came back great and baby was doing well, heartbeat was strong. Made both Mr. and I feel better, knowing that Baby Fox was okay. They sent me home a couple of hours later, about 10am. About an hour after getting home I was laying down trying to take a nap and I started to feel contractions, but they weren't regular, so I went about my day, mostly taking it easy. We had already decided since we weren't going to my parents for Christmas, that my family was going to come to us for Christmas Eve and have our traditional tacos, and then they would spend the night and we would open presents on Christmas morning and then they would take off to go to family's. We called Nana and Grandpa to let them know what was going on, and since they were already on their way, we told them not to rush, they did anyway. 

They arrived at our place about 12:30, ready to start making tacos, yum! As soon as they got there, my contractions were getting a little closer together. While Nana made dinner, I was breathing through many contractions. We ate and around 4pm, it was delicious! We thought, maybe we should do gifts right after dinner instead of tomorrow morning like planned, so we opened gifts until maybe 6.  We watched a little tv, all the  while I'm breathing through lots of contractions. They were getting stronger and closer together. Around 7 my contractions were about 5-6 minutes apart, and I wanted to stay home as long as possible, so I said I was going to take a bath and shower and get cleaned up in case this was the real deal (in my head it was fake labor, haha!). While in the bath, we called my aunt, who works in an Ob/Gyn office and asked her what she thought. She said to take my blood pressure to see what it was and if it was high to head to L & D. After my bath I jumped into the shower to wash my hair.




One last picture of just us two
Drying my hair
                                                                                                         
Around 8:30 my blood pressure was really high, and Mr. wanted me to go in, the contractions were about 4-5 minutes apart, I still didn't want to go, but Mr. insisted, so around 9pm off to the hospital we went, me fighting it all the way there.  We actually had a "bet" as to whether they would send me home or not, I lost.

When we first got there, they said that sometimes these sort of contractions could go for days and they might send me home, but once they hooked me up to all of the monitors and checked to see how far along I was, I was 4cm and 80% effaced, and that my water bag was bulging they decided to keep me. Since my water bag hadn't broken on it's own the doctor said she would come and break my water in the morning. At this point Nana, Grandpa and Aunt G arrived to see what was up. 

Everyone staring at me in labor. We sent people home shortly after this
 
They asked if I wanted an epidural at this point, I said I wanted to go as long as possible, since after that you can't get up at all. Knowing that my water bag hadn't broken and that the doctor wasn't going to come until the morning to break it, I wanted to be able to get around. My parents left at our request because this was going to take awhile. We walked the halls, when ever I would feel a contraction I stopped walking put my head on Mr.'s chest and just breathed through it. 


 
All smiles

Around 3am the contractions were two minutes apart and were strong, I couldn't take it any more so I finally asked for an epidural. The nurses gave me my bag of IV fluids while we waited for the epidural doctor to come. 
My IV and all the bracelets they gave me
(ID, allergy, blood type bracelets)

I couldn't wait for that epidural, the contractions were close together and painful. I won't go into details about the epidural, but it was painful and not done correctly the first 3 times!

Once I was numb they checked me and I was at 7 cm! Fantastic I had labored on my own until 7cm, exactly what I wanted to do! I tried to get some sleep, but about an hour later I open my eyes and three nurses are charging at me, with a concerned look on their face. I'm confused, they asked me if my water has broken, I told her I didn't think so. Another nurse checked to see how far along I was, and she said that was about 9.5cm! So I guess the epidural helped me with my labor! They said that my water breaking made baby's heart rate drop so they put me on an oxygen mask. Which was somewhat annoying, because of my claustrophobic issues, but I did it for him. They asked me if I wanted to push and I said that I wanted to rest for a bit before pushing. We called my parents at this point, which was about 4:45, told them that we still had a little time, and they didn't need to rush over. Around 5:45 Nana walked into the room and told me the nurse wanted me to start pushing, I said okay, so Nana told the nurse that I was awake and ready. I guess the contractions were now on top of each other...while the nurse got everything ready to start pushing, I prepared myself for pushing, I had no idea what it was going to be like. At first the nurse said she wanted me to do a few practice runs. She said that was good, and then went about getting everything ready.  About 6:15 I really started pushing for real. Luckily the epidural didn't really affect my feeling the pressure, so I could tell the nurses when a contraction was coming. I still had control over my legs and could move them when I wanted.  Baby's heart rate kept dropping with every push, so I only had to push about every other or every third contraction. We just had to wait for baby's heart rate to go back up before I could push again.  Mr. was a great help too, he was there for me and was very supportive, telling me I was doing a good job. They told me if I delivered in the next 30 or so minutes that we would have the first Christmas baby. Motivation, I wanted to be first! So I kept pushing away. Around 7:10 they said that I was close enough and that they were going to get the doctor. Yay, Baby Fox was going to be the first Christmas baby! He was perfect in every way, the labor was great and we got a little Christmas miracle.

First Family photo
 
If you got through that, then congrats! I couldn't get it any shorter and I didn't want to break it up into several posts. Hoping I can tell Mini Fox's birth story soon...I'm ready!

Linking up with Faith, Sarah and Megan


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