Now, let me just tell you how stubborn this little girl was...
I'll start by explaining how miserable I was during the last few months of pregnancy. I was suffering from symphysis pubis dysfunction and wanted to cry every single day. It was exhausting just to attempt to put on my underwear everyday. It would take me about 5 minutes just to roll over in bed and Todd had to help me out of bed almost every time I got up. Not to mention the MASSIVE amount of weight I gained...50 pounds to be exact. Which makes me want to cry just thinking about. Anyway, I began to see a chiropractor in the last few weeks of pregnancy and that seemed to bring some relief.
My doctor was Dr. Madura who was so sweet and amazing and decided to take a vacation a couple weeks before my due date. When she told me she was going on vacation I honestly knew that would be when I went into labor. So, she said she would strip my membranes a few days before she would be on leave to see if that would make me go a little early. I made my appointment to have them stripped and on my way up there they called and said she had an emergency c-section and wouldn't be able to see me and asked if I could see the midwife. Of course, I said yes. I live an hour away and had Landen with me, I was not turning around and going home. Well, the midwife wouldn't strip the membranes.
That next Sunday Todd and I took a trip to Fort Wayne for our nieces 6th birthday party and I should have known that was a bad idea. I was such a grouch. Swollen, hungry, miserable. We got into a huge fight while pulling into the Target parking lot because I thought he was going to hit another car (he wasn't even close but shhh don't tell him that). Landen peed through his diaper, soaking his super adorable outfit he was wearing. I sent Todd in by himself to get Gracie's birthday present (bad idea) and he was supposed to get her an outfit for her American Girl Doll. We drive on over to the party and I get the bag to put her gift in and I realize he bought her a tutu for a little girl...not a doll. Of course, that ticked me off. Then we got into a screaming match in the car in front of their house and when we walked inside, realized they had all been looking out at us fighting. Lovely. Then we ate and sat down and I felt much better and wasn't so grumpy. A couple hours later Todd decided to take Landen outside to play so I grabbed him to put his shoes on and I noticed a couple hive looking bumps on his face. I told Todd and he acted like I was nuts and took him outside anyway. When he brought him back inside he had hives all over his face and one of his eyes was super swollen and red. I made Todd make a trip to the store for some benadryl and gave him a dose. It helped.You would have thought maybe it would have knocked him out on the way home but noooooo. We finally left because Todd wanted to make it home in time to watch the Purdue game (totally didn't happen) and I was so relieved to be on our way. I passed out on the way and woke up outside of Delphi feeling really dizzy and nauseas. I barely remember the ride from Delphi on except for pulling over at some point to dry heave. When we got home Todd made me eat a PB&J and I started feeling better. I checked my blood pressure and it was 140/ 100. I knew I was going to the doctor the next morning so I decided I'd just talk to them then. Let's just say it was a very stressful day for me.
The next morning I got up and took a shower and ate and was feeling pretty good. My Mom came and took me to my appointment and my aunt came to my house to watch Landen. I had a chiropractor appointment first so we went there and then headed to the doctor. I got weighed and I had gained 4 lbs in a week. I knew something was up because I really hadn't been eating that much. When they took me back to the room the nurse asked how I'd been feeling and I told her about my stressful day the day before and how I had gotten dizzy and had a high bp reading. So she checked my blood pressure and it was 146/100. She had me get on the table and lay on my left side and got the nurse practitioner who came in and checked my bp again and it was still high. She checked my cervix and I was still dialated to 1 1/2. They checked my urine and it tested positive for protein so they made me go over to the hospital. They monitored me all day and my bp went down and stayed down so they sent me home on bed rest and made me collect my urine for 24 hrs. The next day my Mom came over and helped me with Landen and cooked me lunch and then we took my pee up to the lab. When we came back I wasn't feeling the greatest. I laid down and started having a lot of pain in my right upper quadrant. I called the doctor because it got really bad. She said she wanted me to come up to the hospital because it could be my blood pressure again. Todd and I headed up there and I felt terrible the whole ride. I wanted to kill him the whole time for only driving 55...something he never does!! When we got there I was really dizzy and felt short of breath so they had me get on my left side and then they took my blood pressure and it was good! They then decided maybe it could be something with my liver since I had problems with it last year after my gall bladder surgery. They ordered an ultrasound and that showed nothing! They decided to keep me over night to check my pancreas which turned out to be fine. The doctor came in the next morning and told me she thought it was a fractured rib from her kicking me and had the nurse wrap me with an ace bandage and it really helped a lot. My Mom came up and sat with me during the day and I started contracting! Regular contractions that were like every 6 minutes apart! The nurse came in and checked me and I had dialated to 2 1/2! I was so excited! She called the on call doctor and she said to monitor me for another hour and see what happens. I kept contracting and she checked me an hour later and I had dialated to 3 1/2! I called Todd and told him because I was convinced they would keep me and just start pitocin or something to speed me up and the nurse seemed to think she would too. HA!! Not even close...the doctor told her that since this was my second baby I would be going way faster if I was really in labor. So she sent me home. I was pissed. On the way home I started feeling really bad again. Dizzy and all that jazz and was still contracting. I got home and my aunt took Landen because I figured we'd be going back up to the hospital shortly. I took a nap and when I woke up Todd still wasn't home and I was super irritated with him. When he got home I told him to grab me a Kleenex and he said "Why don't you ask?"...that sent me into a 2 hour long melt down. I cried and cried. Poor, poor Todd. No wonder he doesn't want anymore children. It's not the kids he minds, it's the pregnancies...Anyway, I took a shower and went to sleep and at about 3 am I woke up because I had felt a pop down there. I stuck my hand down there and thought it felt wet so I woke Todd up and told him to feel because I thought my water broke. His response?? "Nah, you're just sweaty" I was so tired I rolled over and went to sleep. I woke up at about 6:30 and stood up to go to the bathroom and when I did I could definitely feel myself leaking. I turned on the bathroom light and my underwear were soaked. I yelled at Todd and told him my water broke and he jumped up and freaked out. I called my Mom and then called the doctor who told me to come up to the hospital. I took a shower and ate since I wasn't contracting anymore. On the ride up to the hospital I started to feel the contractions. They felt much stronger than they had the day before and it was all in my pubic bone area. It was bad. I got there and they decided to do some swab test to see if my water had broke and it came back negative!! I almost had a panic attack! I knew my water had broke! My underwear were completely soaked! The doctor said I needed to walk for an hour and then they'd check me and see what was up. So Todd and I wore the carpet out in that hallway. I vowed if they sent me home again I would have my baby in the bath tub at home because I was not coming back. At this point I was 4 cm dialated. When they came back in to check me I had to pee and when I wiped I asked if maybe she wanted to swab all the fluid I was wiping. So she did and it came back positive as amniotic fluid. She called the doctor and he said it could be a false positive since I was bleeding also. Ugh. Why in the heck were they so focused on if my water broke?? My water never broke with Landen! They had to break it when I was 8cm with him! The doctor decided I needed to walk for another hour and be checked again. We started truckin' down the hallway again and I ran into a friend from high school who was going in for a scheduled c-section for her little girl! After that my contractions became excruciating! It was so much pressure in my pelvis and I felt the urge to push with every one. When she came back in to check me I was 5cm and so she had to dr come in to see me. He examined me and said that he thought I was in labor (duh) and they'd start pitocin to speed things up but they had to wait until I could have my own nurse to myself. Apparently they were packed. Remember how I said I wanted to go all natural? Yeah, that didn't happen. I was in so much pain and it was a completely different pain than I had with Landen. I thought this was gonna kill me. So I decided to have the epidural. A nurse anesthetist came in to do it and she had kind of a strong personality. She had me scoot back and didn't even tell me she was going to give me the numbing shot, just stabbed it in my back and then didn't wait or check to see if it numbed me before inserting the epidural needle in. I felt everything. I didn't feel the epidural needle at all with Landen and he did it during a contraction. Apparently this lady was in too big of a hurry. After it was over I sat up and felt a tightness in my chest and it almost felt like my lungs were wet or something. They felt heavy. I told her, she looked at me like I was a lunatic and told me I was "fine" and to lay on my back. As soon as I laid down I started coughing hysterically and couldn't catch my breath. My blood pressure went way up and I couldn't breath. They put oxygen on me and a million people started running in and out of the room. My Mom and Todd were in the hallway freaking out because they didn't know what was going on, they just heard the nurses saying they had to get Dr. Schaffer in the room now. After a while the coughing slowed down and I felt like I could breath again but for a while I was freaking out. All I could think was, "I knew I shouldn't have gotten the epidural". They never figured out why I had that reaction but I continued to feel a tightness in my chest. And when they checked me after the epidural they discovered a bunch of fluid on my bed! They waited about another hour before they started pitocin. I felt really awesome though and wasn't in pain at all. I continued to slowly dialate for the next 6 hours and they checked me and discovered another bag of water. Apparently her head kept moving down and closing the hole in my bag of water which was why the first test came back negative as amniotic fluid! So, my water had to break 3 times before she was born! The doctor came in and broke the bag of water and I was 9 cm. The nurse checked me a short time later and I was fully dialated but they had to wait for the nicu team to come in the room because she had a bowel movement already. So, we waited. When they finally got in there they had me push and she came out in less than 5 minutes. It was super fast. Like not even 3 pushes, fast. When she came out she was very bruised and had a seeping eye but other than that was healthy! She has been a breastfeeding champion! She latched on right away and has pretty much been attached to my boobs ever since! I am amazed at how in love I can be with two children. The whole time I was pregnant I honestly wondered how I could love another person as much as I love Landen. But, it just came natural. Just the same as it did when I had Landen. Landen so far has been an awesome big brother and loves his little sister!
I didn't realize you had such a rough time. I'm so glad she's here safe and sound. And such a beautiful little girl at that!
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