Our baby has finally made her much-anticipated arrival. A little early, 9 days early to be exact...but healthy as a horse (she scored 8 and 9 on her two apgar tests!) and perfect as can be.
People always try to describe to you what being a parent feels like, to explain the kind of love and emotion that you can feel for your own child...now I know that it's something that simply can't be explained or put into words. Of course I knew we would love her, but I had no idea how all of it would actually feel. It's amazing and I know that Matt and I feel so blessed and are so excited about this journey we're going to take together as a family.
Physically, I'm feeling pretty good (for being 4 days postpartum). The labor and delivery were pretty smooth. Here's how the labor went:
We went to the hospital on Valentine's Day (technically it was 2/15 by the time we got there) because I thought my water had broken (a very small leak). They admitted me, ran some tests, I was having contractions but they were sporadic. We spent the night (Matt slept, I didn't), and the next day determined that my contractions weren't really speeding things along. The doctor decided, with my permission, to speed things along with Pitocin in order to make the contractions more regular and therefore more productive. I received this at 1:00 PM and it started working pretty much immediately.
I hung in and at 3:00 the doctor came in and REALLY broke my water (so it would all come out in a gush) and that's when the contractions really started to hurt (the doctor told me that would be the case). I held out for maybe 30 minutes and then asked for the epidural. About 30 minutes later I had the epidural (Matt stayed in and held my hand...I was worried he might faint but they at least had him positioned so he couldn't see what was going on behind me). What a weird sensation the epidural gives! So for most of the remainder of labor I had to flip from laying on one side to the other to keep it working the way it's supposed to.
So the doc was thinking baby would arrive around 7:00 or so...but labor wasn't progressing quite that fast. So they cranked up the Pitocin (monitoring the baby the whole time to make sure she was handling the contractions OK) and the pace picked up. The baby had some valleys in her heartbeat when the stronger contractions happened, so they made me wear an oxygen mask to get more oxygen to her. It worked and she tolerated the remainder of labor pretty well.
Then I started feeling really weird (hot, nauseous, like the oxygen mask -- which hadn't really bothered me at all prior to this point -- was making me claustrophobic) and wondered when the show would get on the road. The nurse came in to check my progress, and the next thing I knew she was asking Matt to grab my leg while she grabbed the other and I started pushing. After about 20 minutes she went and asked them to make sure Dr. Graham was on his way. He came in, and told me the baby was crowning...they got a mirror so I could watch and after about two more pushes our little baby was born. Somehow the doctor got Matt to cut the cord!
So now we're home and trying to get settled into some semblance of a routine. I'm not going to lie, it's extremely tiring to be on a "every 2-3 hour" feeding schedule, it's overwhelming to realize that this amazing little girl's fate rests in Matt and my inexperienced hands, and I'm still trying to physically recover from the pregnancy and delivery. But I think as the days go by things will get easier, we'll feel more confident and this will all feel "normal." Matt has taken to fatherhood amazingly and I love to see him interact with our baby. As for me, I am enjoying this time with Marissa, even the hard parts, because I know it will all go by in a blur.
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