I always find labor and delivery stories fascinating since it can happen so many different ways every time and for everyone. So here's the story how Samantha Jean came into the world.
Due date was February 4th, but since I've never actually made it to a due date before I never expected I'd go that far. My guess very early on was January 24th, but as the pregnancy went on I thought I'd go into labor even before that, and so did most people. Tammy had the earliest guess which was the 12th, most other people had guesses in the twenties, I don't think anyone guessed into February. My body hurt for most of the pregnancy, especially my hips, which was making it really hard to carry around all that weight for so long, which was the main reason why I was hoping she would come early. I had lots of instructions on when to have the baby, and Samantha must be a very obedient child already because she happened to listen to all of them. My doctor was out of town from January 18th through the 22nd - so those days were out, my Dad was having surgery on the 27th so I was supposed to go into labor before that, Kevin's mom worked on weekends so it was supposed to happen during the week, and I think I remember someone telling me to do it during the day :) All those things were accomplished!
I had an appointment on the 25th at 3:30, I was 2 cm and 40% effaced. The week before I was 1 and 30%. I was hoping that she would strip my membranes because if something is ready to happen it will help get things going, if baby's not ready it does nothing. I guess my blood pressure was pretty high so she said she wanted to do that anyway since it was steadily increasing and she didn't want it to get too high. I remember with Bradley she did that and I was having more intense contractions right away - that didn't happen this time, so I figured it didn't do anything. I went to bed that night and woke up at 12 with a hard contraction but went back to sleep, then woke up at 3 with another one, and another one, and another one. They were pretty hard and happening every 8-10 min for 2 hours but not getting any closer together. I called my doctor (who happened to be on call that night) at 5 and she said they needed to be closer together, like 5-7 min. So I decided I would try to rest a little bit more then take a shower because that's what sped everything up with Bradley. I waited until 6 because I figured it was so close to morning when we'd hopefully be able to take the kids to Gay's and not have to make Craig come over before work. I woke up Kevin at 6:15 and told him that I was going to take a shower then we'd probably be heading to the hospital right after that. The shower did the trick again - once I got out and got dressed they were 3-5 min apart and very painful. Mom came over to get the kids up and take them to Gay's for us and we took off for the hospital around 7:45.
We got into our room and, like always, I made sure my nurse knew I wanted an epidural asap. 15 minutes later I was checked and I was 6 cm and 80% effaced - baby was moving quickly! I told Kevin he'd better call my Mom and tell her to hurry :) She didn't want to have to wake up the kids but I told her not to worry about it, they'd be fine :) With Bradley, I got the epidural, it worked wonderfully and everything was great! With Gracie - not so much. They did it once, and we waited and waited and it didn't work, so he took it out and started all over again, it still took a while but it worked for a little bit, then wore off completely and then it was too late to get another one before I started pushing. I warned them this time about what happened last time. He put it in and we waited, and waited... and it wasn't working. My feet felt tingly but it just wasn't moving up my legs and the contractions still hurt just as much. So he pushed more medicine and we waited again and it still didn't get up past my knees, so he pushed MORE medicine. By this time I had had 3 times the normal amount that someone gets for an epidural and I hear him say to someone that I could stop breathing since it's so much medicine. Then he leaves and it's still not working GREAT but it was giving me SOME relief - BUT then my tongue and mouth got numb and I got really dizzy and I panic that I'm going to stop breathing. The nurse was monitoring me very closely and gave me oxygen to help with the dizziness and kept checking my whole body to see what was numb and what wasn't. Luckily the feeling passed, but at that point I was so worried about stopping breathing that I could not relax at all and was wishing that I never got the epidural. I'd much rather feel painful contractions then stop breathing :)
The kids are amazing with her. A while ago Mom had told Bradley that the baby was going to cry a lot, trying to get him used to the idea. Unfortunately, that news freaked him out a little. He kept telling me before I went to the hospital that he was really scared the baby was going to cry a lot, and on the way to the hospital after she was born he was telling people that he didn't want her to cry. At first he would freak out whenever she would start to cry and go hide in the corner or run out of the room, and if I was getting ready to change her diaper he'd want to be warned so he could leave. He's gotten much more used to it now that she's almost a month.
Gracie just wants to hold her and kiss her ALL the time. When she was about a week old I put Sammie in the swing in the living room while I was making the kids waffles for breakfast in the kitchen. I kept turning the corner to check on her and she was fine sleeping and the kids were on the other side of the room. I turned to go back into the kitchen to put the waffles on the plate, came right back in and as soon as I turned the corner Gracie was right there, walking towards me - holding Sammie!!! Thinking back on it, it still is slow motion in my head. I dropped the plates and fell to the ground to catch her thinking Gracie was going to drop her any second. Scared me to death!!! Looking back on it - it was really pretty cute. Gracie was just trying to bring her to me, she was holding her very carefully and actually pretty well, she didn't hurt Sammie at all, she was still pretty much asleep. I can say it was cute now because nothing happened, but it could have very easily been a BAD situation.
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