Our Gift Has Arrived!

Wow. What a weekend! My last post was Thursday morning...who knew that less than 24-hours later we would be at UH?!

My doctor appointment Thursday night went great. My doctor did her "thing" to stir things up, and it truly felt like she was reaching for the moon. It hurt soooo badly that I could not stop laughing. I mean, I think it may have hurt more then some of my contractions. Poor Dave. He felt so bad for me, and my doctor thought I was a freak since I was laughing. It was either laugh, or scream bloody murder.

Once we got home, I sat with Dave while he ate dinner. I had the biggest lunch in the world from Wendy's. A single combo with cheese meal AND a junior cheeseburger! Oink. Oink. I had planned to blog about that in and of itself, but someone decided to head towards the light. We walked Freddy after dinner, and then hunkered down to watch some Thursday night TV. During Grey's Anatomy, I started to feel uncomfortable. I assumed it was because of what the doctor had done. I was a little fidgety, sitting, standing, etc. When we went to bed, I told David that I felt bad for him because I might keep him up all night since I was uncomfortable. Little did I know. I probably slept from 11-12 or so when I woke up still feeling discomfort. So, I laid there and paid attention. The pain was uncomfortable and seemed to come and go. I thought to myself, "hmmm....maybe these are contractions".

I decided to get up and shower to see if that helped me feel better. After a long hot shower I went and read a magazine in the baby's room on the glider. Then I went back to bed, all the while thinking I would wake Dave. Nope. After a few minutes in bed, I was still uncomfortable, and I realized that when I showered, I had enjoyed standing under the hot water so much, that I didn't actually shower. So, out of bed and back into the shower. Now it's about 2:00 am. After I showered, I decided to blow my hair dry. Again, thinking Dave is going to wake up, come down stairs and think I've gone mad. Nope.

After blowing my hair dry, I decided to watch some of my DVR'd shows while pacing the basement. Then I thought, crap, I didn't eat dinner. I need to eat because if this is for real, I can't eat until after the baby is born. So, I ate a microwave french bread pizza. I should have eaten both...but only heated up one. Note to self, next time, EAT A LOT!

Finally, around 4:00 am, I woke up Dave. His reaction was so not what I expected. I sat by his side of the bed and he rolled over to me. I said, "I think you need to get up. I think I'm in labor". In a sleepy casual voice he said something like, "Really? Are you sure?". My visual of his reaction was more along the lines of "HOLY SH!T" and then run around like a crazy man. He asked if he had time to shower, etc. So, we got up and started get ready. We tried to time leaving the house as late as we could, but still early enough to avoid traffic. So, we left around 5:30 am.

Once we got to UH, we were sent to triage where they confirmed my consistent contractions. Unfortunately, I wasn't dilated enough. There is a theme starting with that. I had to walk the halls for about 90-minutes, and then they would check me again. This was not very comfortable. Especially because the hall was like 30-feet long. BORING. Second note to self, make sure to pack your iPod headphones next time. An iPod on it's own does not suffice when pacing the halls. After they checked me again, I was admitted. This was the only time I thought I would cry. I would have lost it if they sent me home because I was pretty uncomfortable.

So, we were checked in to our room around 9:00 am. Around 12:30, I asked for my epidural. I was ready for it when I got there, but you have to be dilated a certain point. Fortunately, our second doctor said yes even though I probably wasn't dilated enough. She saw the contractions and said she wasn't a "masochist". I love her. The anesthesiologist team came in pretty fast, got me all prepped and ready to go...only to have an emergency come over the PA and the main doctor had to go assist in the OR. So I had to wait it out about 20-minutes in a hunched over position because they had already sterilized the area. Fortunately I had the sense to know that this would be short lived and that someone else clearly needed him more. My epidural was the best. Wow. It did more then take the edge off. It was outstanding.

So finally around 7:00 PM, with no progress in dilation, they broke my water thinking it would speed everything up. Nope. Around 8:30-9:00 PM, they started me on Pitossin to help induce. That seemed to work, and put me to sleep. Around 10:30 or so, they checked me and said I would be pushing soon. That's when I called my sister to tell her we were at the hospital. She didn't believe me at first since my voice didn't sound like I was about to push. I'm not sure how I convinced her, maybe telling her all about our long day. But at one point, she had asked me to put a nurse on the phone. So, they came in some time after 11:00 pm to get things ready. I'm not sure when I started pushing, but it wasn't for long, and it wasn't bad at all. I think it was less then an hour. Other then me talking and asking questions in between the three pushes for each contraction, I was quiet. I didn't make a peep during the pushes.

David and the doctors were awesome. They were so encouraging. Then at 12:31 AM on Saturday, Danny was born. It was awesome! I didn't feel good for a bit after he was born, kind of woozy and nauseous. I later found out that I lost a lot of blood, and was close to hemorrhaging. This made me feel better, because I had felt a little guilty that I kept closing my eyes when I really wanted to be watching David watch the baby get cleaned up. I just didn't have the energy, and I didn't think it was because of pushing. I really mean it that the pushing was not bad at all because of my fabulous epidural.

David was amazing. Such a trooper. I felt bad for him because the labor was so long. Once I was drugged, I was good to go and closed my eyes and slept when I could. He was stuck on the uncomfortable chair watching a lot of TV. Fortunately, he brought with him copies of the Showtime show "Weeds", so he watched a lot of that on his laptop.

We were checked out of the hospital Monday around lunch. At first we weren't thrilled about having to stay so long, but in the end, we were really happy about it. Our nurses were great. We called them quite a bit to help me out with the nursing. It took a little getting used to, and a little bit of patience, but I think we've got that under control. I like to call Danny "Herbert" for Herbert Hoover. He's like a damn maniac when he's hungry. It's hilarious.

We had our laptop at the hospital, and I had planned to update it while we were there, but for some reason UH blocked the site, and a bunch of others. Kind of made having Internet access useless.

I'll add some pictures in a separate post. Blogspot is goofy sometimes.