She's here!

Ryme

2.22.2011

12:49 am

6 lbs, 8 oz

18 3/4 inches

vbac!

The story...

(it's poorly written as I'm just trying to get it down, feel free to skip it!)

We were really hoping to have her over the weekend. When it was Monday and I was still pregnant we were getting worried! My mom was here to help, just needed the baby! I'd had pretty intense contractions Sunday night and was sure I was in labor but they tapered off. Brandon went to work on Monday and said he'd be coming home at noon to take me to the hospital...at ten I told him not to plan on it, since I was barely having contractions at all. My mom and I took the boys to the Please Touch museum, hoping chasing them would get something going, but to no avail. Brandon was determined I would go into labor and came home at 11:30 to drive us to the hospital.

We went for a hike --seriously, a 90 minute hike in the mud in the Wissahickon-- which was enough to bring contractions every 10-15 minutes, but nothing like they'd been before. We ended up calling anyway and went in, although we almost changed our mind since they were clearly nothing like the labor contractions I'd been having the night before. We got to the hospital at 5:00 and I was at a 3. Since I'd had a c-section with Makett they wouldn't induce (it increases the risk for needing a c-section). The Dr told us we were welcome to stay for a few hours to see if anything progressed. An hour later I told Brandon we should go home since it didn't seem like I was in labor, but he said we might as well wait to get checked one more time so we did. To our great surprise, when she came back I was dilated to a 6 so we were admitted around 7:00.

At around 10:30 I was only to a 7, so they broke my water. When they checked in an hour I hadn't dilated further, so they decided to put me on the smallest amount of pitocin they could. After a few minutes on pitocin my contractions stopped and the baby's heart rate dropped. Suddenly there were five doctors in the room and I was concerned! They said if things didn't change in a few minutes they would need to do a c-section, which I was terribly wanting to avoid. They unhooked the pit and we tried different positions and her heart rate went up and the contractions returned! She was facing up so they tried to turn her and managed to get her facing sideways. I only pushed for about ten minutes and she was out!

Here's the best part...we had the sweetest nurse on the planet. I had told her that I still feel bad that I didn't get to hold Tanzen and Makett until 14 hours after they were born, and asked that I could have Ryme as soon as she came out. They gave her to me right away and cut the cord while I was holding her, then everyone left Brandon, Ryme and I alone in the delivery room. It was so peaceful-- it was snowing outside, the room was dim and quiet, Ryme was alert and started nursing, and it was just us. They let us stay as long as we wanted, so it was two hours until they took her away to get measured and bathed and we moved rooms. Wonderful!

The birth part was pretty much perfect! A nice change after Tanzen and Makett's birth!

The next morning I started getting an excruciating headache and figured it was from straining my neck when I was pushing. Two days of flexerol, motrin and percocet did nothing to phase it. Thursday night I was afraid something serious was happening- that I had a tumor explode in my head or I was having a brain aneurysm...I was pretty scared. We ended up back in the hospital and found out I was leaking spinal fluid from the epidural-- who knew a little spinal fluid could cause such pain?! They did a blood patch (took lots of blood from my arm and put it in where the epidural was) and the relief was immediate! Thank heavens! Just a few residual back problems but my head is better, and I can't even describe how wonderful that is!

Anyway, we're all doing great now! There will certainly be lots of adjusting and I'm nervous to figure out how to juggle Tanzen, Makett, Ryme, and house stuff once my mom leaves, but we'll manage. For now I'm just focusing on how nice it is to have this cute little baby here!