November and December passed by with not much excitement. It was wonderful to be able to host Thanksgiving in our apartment for a part of the Stonesifer clan and a Japanese family that live in town. In December we celebrated the end of Drew's semester and my birthday, and well then the waiting began....
I won't go into much detail but here is a snapshot of the weeks leading up to our Little Miss's arrival and her Birth Story.
A lot of signs seemed to be pointing to an early arrival of our Little Miss. At 35 weeks she had dropped considerably and at my 36 week appointment I was dilated to 1 cm and 50% effaced. I was told it was a waiting game at this point, but my body seemed on the right track to prep for Labor and Delivery. However, not much had progressed by 38 weeks; I was only 2 cm and 80% effaced. I was having lots of Braxton Hicks and contractions that would feel more significant as time went on, but were never regular or really long. My parents arrived the 26th and with my dad leaving on January 5th, we really wanted the baby to come promptly. We were thinking about inducing if we got to like a week past the due date, which is also what my OB recommended. I really really didn't want to be induced but by 39 weeks I was emotionally done and we set up an appointment for January 5th to discuss induction with the OB.
Well fast forward...we made it through December and managed to keep occupied waiting for the baby to come. However, I am not going to lie this was probably the hardest New Year's Eve I will ever have. Drew was ready for this roller coaster to be over too. He had been thinking that January would make for a more fun birthday than December, but at this point he was sorry for ever having wished for that. So when I woke up on January 2nd (my due date!!) and started to have those cramping contractions I was so nervous to think that it was actually happening. I mean who goes into labor on their due date!?!?! Soon after waking up (at 3am!), Drew got me settled into a warm bath cause strangely that is all I wanted to do. We passed the morning by watching Gilmore Girls and going to a 24/7 grocery store to walk around. It was pretty deserted.
By lunch time we were pretty sure it was the real thing, but I was still able to walk and talk through contractions. We took down our Christmas decorations between contractions and my parents came over for lunch. However, not that much longer the contractions were getting stronger, so we called the OB to ask about whether or not we should let them know if we're on our way or anything, and they suggested that we schedule an appointment for a "labor check" at 3:45pm.
We went to the doctor and he told us I was about 3-4 cm still. That was hard to hear, since we'd been in labor for 13 hours at that point. We kept thinking that things would take off at some point, but they never did. It just kept moving slowly. The doctor said we should try just walking around for a while till the contractions are 5 minutes apart, a minute long, for an hour, which we had heard from them in earlier appointments. So we went to the mall to walk around, which ended up being a pretty stressful place to be. By dinnertime the contractions still weren't that close, but we figured we should eat something. So, we went to my parent's hotel since it was close to the hospital and had some take-out from Olive Garden.
After a bit, my contractions were about 4 minutes apart and over a minute long, so Drew told me we would leave for the hospital after the next contraction. Thankfully I was far enough along that they decided to admit me, and we were able to get settled into the hospital room. As some of you know we took the Bradley method class, so we decided to do the labor and delivery with no pain medications. I was in and out of the shower pretty much the whole night (the shower and Drew's amazing coaching were what got me through the labor). We used a month's worth of hot water and a year's worth of towels in a few hours.
By about 1am or 2am I started feeling an urge to push. However, I was not fully dilated and thus was told that I could not push. This was the worst part of the labor. By 3:15am they said there was still a persistent lip around the whole way, so we decided to let the doctor break my water. Things sped up after that and the pain was much more intense! Finally it was time to push! In that moment, we decided to give birth squatting with the assistance of the birthing bed bar. I was so ready to be done at this point (and actually I was also thinking that I really wanted to have this baby before our nurses changed shifts. We had an incredible labor and delivery nurse). I pushed for about 10 mins and we had our little girl! We were so exhausted that honestly I think our first thoughts were "we are so glad that is over and she is here," though Drew's first comment to me was "Theresa, she has hair!!!" A few hours and a long nap later, our brains turned on again and we realized we were parents!
She is now 3 weeks and we are starting to figure each other out. She has been giving us some nice long stretches of sleep at night (for a newborn), and has been eating well, even after taking a bottle or two (and sucking our thumb, her thumb, a pacifier, pinky, blanket, shirt... we're lucky!). It has sure been an adjustment and I am so glad that my mom was able to be here for the 2 weeks after the Little Miss was born.
Here are some pictures:
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The pediatrician still doesn't want us taking her out in public, but visitors are welcome! Let us know if you want to stop in :)
