Welcome, Baby Girl!!

On May 20, 2015 at 11:20am we welcomed our second daughter, Natalie Jane. 

6lbs 14oz of pure perfection! 

Our sweet girl had quite the arrival, and we learned a lot about my body & labor in the process! 

At the end of my pregnancy, around 37 weeks my blood pressure creeped up high enough to warrant bi-weekly appointments for non-stress tests with baby heart rate checks & blood pressure checks. I wasn't so hypertensive that we needed to deliver urgently, but was high enough for close monitoring and my doctor wasn't comfortable letting me go past 39 weeks. My body was saying enough is enough! It worked out well because she came just before Memorial Day weekend and Jordan had a 4 day weekend, so he didn't have to take any time off of work. 

I was super nervous about having to be induced if she didn't come on her own. Evelyn came a week late, so I had no hope that she would come anytime before my due date. The time came and it became a reality that we would need to be induced. All I could imagine was a long day/night/day/night with terrible pain from piton and a bad epidural and then a c-section. But thats just my worst case scenario nurse mind going crazy. But every one of those scenarios played out in my mind over and over again. I just couldn't help it! The plan was to head in the evening and get cervidil to help the cervix along and then do pitocin in the morning. The night before we headed in I woke up with some pretty good contractions which helped calm my nerves about a worse case scenario induction. I saw my doctor that morning before the induction and turns out we were dilated to 3cm, so things seemed even better! 

That afternoon I was so sad. And excited. And nervous. 

Evelyn had no idea what was coming. And I was heading in earlier than we expected, Jordan was stuck at work, so neither of us were able to put Evelyn to bed on her last night of only-childhood. I was devastated and mad at Jordan's work for not being more flexible, even though I knew the more he got done before she was born, the less he had to do after she arrived. Thank goodness for our good friend Kelly who stayed overnight with Evelyn and put her to bed with no troubles! Evelyn LOVES Kelly and it worked out great for her to be with Kelly while we were in the hospital. All that didn't make me any less sad & nervous for what all was going to change in our lives. 

The time came to head to the hospital and it was  an absolute MONSOON outside. Serious thunder & lightening with monsoon rains. Seriously. Another great friend of mine {Kate} offered to drive me to the hospital and stay with me until Jordan could get there. She has two kiddos of her own and it was incredibly wonderful and I was so grateful she took the time to hang out with me! The cervidil went in around 6pm with no trouble and we were officially getting induced! Jordan got to the hospital around 9:30 and we got settled in for the long haul! 

Now this cervidil isn't suppose to induce contractions or anything like that. It is literally just suppose to "ripen" the cervix. Well for me apparently that wasn't the case. I was having some pretty good contractions every 2-3 minutes. They weren't THAT bad and I was talking through them, but nonetheless, I was consistently contracting and they were gradually increasing in intensity. I was able to sleep, but overtime baby girl and I got checked out, those contractions kept up and weren't going away! When the time came to take the cervidil out, my contractions kicked up like crazy! This is when I consider our labor started. It was about 7am. I took a shower before they started the pitocin and we were settled in to have our baby! 

My doctor came in and broke my water and we started the pitocin at 8am. They started very low and ended up only increasing it one time! My contractions were strong, changes were happening, and I was hoping it wasn't going to take much longer! When I was starting to not relax very well, I wanted to know our progress because I was getting close to wanting relief with an epidural. Turns out I was at 5cm, and it was now 9:30. I decided it was time for an epidural. With my first experience of an epidural not really working and had trouble with it, my nurse promised me she would troubleshoot if there were problems and would take it out and start over if it didn't work. So the fluid started and we got ready for the epidural. That process started around 10-10:15. I could tell it was a good epidural, but I had a weird pain on the right side of my abdomen near my pubic bone and they told me it was my bladder. They would come and put in the catheter in about 30 minutes to make sure the epidural medicine went where it needed to go and then we would figure out the weird pain I was feeling. That half hour passed and the catheter went in. My nurse checked me when she put the catheter in and I was still at 5cm. My pain went through the roof! My whole lower abdomen was on fire and I was shaking uncontrollably with each contraction. My nurse went to go get some positioning tools, another nurse, and grab the CRNA to troubleshoot what was happening. When they got back 10 minutes later, they were baffled. I was becoming that crazy pregnant lady in labor who cried and screamed and all of the above. They seemed to have no idea why all this pain was happening. The new nurse to came in decided to check me again. Turns out I was at 10cm and the baby was coming! We were all shocked!! I was just relieved that I knew it was time to push. All this pain was because it was time to push, and the end was in sight! 

My doctor ran over from her office and her appointment and made it just in time. 

One contraction, one push and our sweet girl was born at 11:20am! It was instant love. 

During the confusion of my pubic bone pain, the CRNA dosed my epidural again giving me more medicine to see if I was tolerant to the medicine. Knowing I was checked just 10 minutes before and not close to delivery, that was a safe bet. Until I progressed fast. Really fast. So that meant my epidural worked AFTER our sweet girl was born. Meaning, it worked for, like, 5+ hours after she was born. My legs were useless. So that was fun. When it was time to try and get out of bed, we had some deja-vu back to my labor with Evelyn. My first couple times of attempting to get out of bed after delivering a baby are not successful. Turns out, my body likes to pass out and my blood pressure plummets and I scare all my nurses and my husband when my blood pressure drops to 60/30. But now we know, it happens when I have a baby and the next time we can be prepared! 

When it was time to decide on a name for our sweet girl, Jordan and I were not totally prepared for what happened. We talked about two names the whole time we were pregnant and I liked one a little better and he liked the other. When she was born, neither of them seemed to be the right fit. We were a little shocked and had to start all over. We had a longer list of names that were rarely discussed and were names that we jotted down when we heard a name we really liked. So we turned to that and the first name on the list was PERFECT. Natalie. This little bundle was the perfect little Natalie. 

And we couldn't be more in love. 

Labor Day

Whelp, we had our baby! A little late and with a loud voice, we had a little GIRL!

Evelyn June

It all started on Sunday evening. I had been having semi-regular contractions every evening since the middle of last week. They would be crampy and would come on for a couple hours and die back down before going to bed each night. I tried EVERYTHING to keep them going and had basically given up on going into labor on my own and was planning for our induction on Tuesday. All day Saturday and Sunday I sat on my exercise ball and bounced and rolled and did everything I could. We took walks, and I tried my hardest to keep all my stomach muscles relaxed so this baby could do what it was suppose to do. But, like I said, I had pretty much given up hope that anything was going to happen. 

I can't say that I felt totally different Sunday, but looking back, things were definitely changing more than I thought. We went on a nice walk through a park with our pup and these "nothing contractions" continued throughout our walk which had never happened before. Still, I wasn't convinced that anything real would come of this. We headed home to watch the new episode of Dexter and I kept track of the time between contractions, they were definitely sticking around every 7-10 minutes. We headed up to bed and I was still pretty sure these things were gonna go away. Laying down, I was just starting to drift off to sleep, and BAM, wow that contraction took my breath away. It wasn't that terrible of a contraction, but definitely waaaaay different than what I had been feeling. I tried to ignore it and sleep through a few more contractions, then I gave up, hopped in the bath tub and gave myself an hour before I called the doctor. 

After laying in the tub and timing out contractions they were about 3-5 minutes apart, I finally was caving into the idea that I might actually be going into labor all on my own! I had so given up on that and was pretty sure my body (and the baby) were going to have to be coerced into this labor business, but boy was I wrong! By this time it was 1 am and I called the doctor, he said to c'mon down to the hospital. I woke up Jordan and told him the news. He needed to shower and shave and I was totally fine with that...until the contractions continued to get worse much faster than I expected. And they were now consistently 2-3 minutes apart. Holy moly, this was really happening! 

We get to the hospital and I was dilated to 3cm. I was having terrible back labor and that was the most difficult thing for me in that moment. When you first get to the hospital, you have to be on the monitor in the most uncomfortable bed for 30 minutes! Ugh, sitting still was the absolute last thing I could do. I knew things were going to be getting worse and more intense, but only having 2 minutes in-between contractions and the back pain was definitely starting to take its toll! We got admitted and check in to our real labor room and I couldn't help thinking that it wasn't real, that we weren't really going to be having a baby that night, that day! 

I was able to hop in the bath tub and I'm still not sure if that was a good thing, or a bad thing. I love taking baths and relaxing, and it felt so good to get into the water. And then the baby moved somehow, someway that changed everything. My contractions kicked on hard, and strong. Only 1-2 minutes apart I was no longer able to relax and talk myself through them. With the back labor and quick succession, I realize there was no way I was going to relax enough to dilate and have this baby any time soon! Sooo I got my epidural around 4 am(I never ruled out getting one, I was just hoping to be able to do it without one). It ended up being really ironic how my epidural worked. The anesthesiologist said it probably wasn't going to take away any pain in my back and down below, but would work around the front in my stomach. Well basically, he was wrong. It worked fabulously everywhere except in my stomach! And really had it not worked in my back I would have been more uncomfortable than I was, so I was grateful for the epidural I got! 

Just before 7 am I was checked again and we were at 7cm! I felt sooo relieved! I knew that getting the epidural was the right choice and everything would keep progressing just wonderfully. Because, you never know, sometimes labor can slow down once an epidural goes in! Only about an hour and a half later, the next doctor came on and wanted to check and get a baseline for her day. And lo and behold, we were complete, 10 cm! I could have cried I was so happy! My water still hadn't broke, so she broke it for me and she wanted to let me "labor down." She wanted me to feel like I had to have a bowel movement before we started pushing. After she broke my water, my contractions picked up even more and got even more intense. I never felt like I needed to have a bowel movement, but the intense pain I was feeling up front was just absolutely crazy. They decided to let me push! 

Dr. Bauer helped bring Evelyn into the world! 

Jordan was the best coach I could have ever asked for. He talked me through every contraction leading up to pushing and while I was pushing, he was even better. He said all the right things and did all the right things. We were both worried that he wasn't going to be able to handle seeing the whole labor process, but boy were we wrong! He was so intrigued by it all and watched the whole thing! As I started to push, all they could see was a full head of hair! I won't lie, I was so excited about having a baby with a whole bunch of hair! Jordan's job was to call out a boy or a girl when the baby came out. After only 15 minutes of pushing, when that moment came, he was speechless and stunned. We had a little girl! 

I never thought that this day would have gone so fast and so smoothly. I am so grateful for how speedy it went and how truly amazing the experience was. We had the best nurses and our doctor was one amazing lady! I am lucky that I didn't have to labor for longer than I did and that really, our little girl went pretty easy on me! I can't wait to experience everything else in this life with our little girl, I can't wait to watch her grow! Now comes the fun part; sleepless nights, poopy diapers, and lots and lots of baby kisses! 

The Waiting Game

So...patience is a virtue right? Well I am severely lacking that virtue at this point in my life! All this anticipation of meeting our little person is leading up to......waiting. Lots and lots of waiting. Waking up every day thinking, is today the day? Trying to find things to do to keep your mind off....waiting. Just waiting.

Ugh, I really wish there was a way to just stop thinking about waiting. But only working 3 days a week, Jordan has been conveniently gone for the last 5 days and of course, I was off on all those days so I've had to fill my days on my own. And when you're trying to keep your mind off something by staying busy, you can only do so many trips to the grocery store, only so many times you can do the dishes and only so many times you can vacuum in a  day.

It also doesn't help that it has been a crazy heat wave this week. I can't really enjoy being outside just based on the fact that the heat index is 100 and it feels like you are breathing thick, thick air outside! I really have been lucky though, because this summer has had mostly comfortable weather conditions for a 9 month pregnant lady.

I think another part of this waiting game that is making it so drawn out is that I'm just so ready to move on to the next part of our lives! I can't wait to see Jordan as a daddy and to see him interact with our little one. I am excited about late nights and early morning snuggles with our baby. I'm excited to watch them change and grow way to fast for my own liking. And really most exciting is to find out if we are having a little boy or a little girl! I still sometimes can't believe that I have no idea who has been growing inside of me for the last 9 months!

I have been a very happy, patient pregnant lady right up until the end of this thing. I just have to keep telling myself that the later we go, the longer we have off in October and I love October! Jordan has vacation in October and I just love everything about October, so the longer this little person stays inside, the more we get to enjoy fall! I've got to keep a positive spin on this whole thing, otherwise I think I might drive myself crazy! And really, when it comes down to it, we are so lucky to have made it this far, we are truly blessed to have been given this opportunity to have a full-term God given little person! But seriously, C'MON BABY! WE CAN'T WAIT TO MEET YOU!!!!