For those of you interested in the details of Maren's arrival, and with strong constitutions in the face of such graphic details involving discharge and legal narcotics, read on.
Sunday started like most at the household of Kake and Jelly with softball on Kake's part and errands for Jelly. Different this day was Jelly's breakfast date with a friend (where she got eggs benedict for any desperate pregnant women looking to try anything to go into labor) and a small amount of housecleaning and yard work in preparation for the HOPEFULLY last week of work before babykake's arrival. Little did we know, this would be the last "normal" Sunday morning for awhile.
(Times are estimates as we were preoccupied and sleep and food deprived for most of the rest of this journey)
12:30pm--A usual bathroom trip includes a loud unexpected plop--apparently this is what the pregnancy books call a "mucous plug" and it is no longer plugging anything
2:00pm--"Theres something going on in my pants" I said to Kake. Upon closer inspection it seems it COULD be the first signs of my water breaking.....or it could be a strange discharge which is not uncommon in late pregnancy.....so the Dr was called for advice
3:00pm--Upon the advice of the Dr, we packed up a few last minute items and headed to the hospital for what Kake was sure was the arrival of his son/daughter and what I insisted was nothing but the alarmist attitude of my Dr. But be sure that we set the DVR to record the Eagles game before leaving so we could catch up when we got home later in the evening
4:00pm--We were checked into Labor and Delivery and, through the use of the high tech method of a color changing qtip, it is confirmed that the ongoing gushing that has soaked two pairs of my pants is indeed amniotic fluid and not incontinence (whew! How embarrassing that could have been)
Initial exams showed that I was about 3cm dilated and 75% effaced......
10:00pm--After a few hours of walking the L&D halls with consistently stronger but not entirely unbearable contractions, heaven arrived in the form of a geriatric halitosis ridden anesthesiologist and a pertinear 6 inch epidural needle....and some pitocin to try to help speed up labor considering that once your water breaks there is limited time in which its safe to deliver the baby
2:00am--Kake enjoyed a nice nap on a reclining chair, interrupted by my frequent calls to the nurse to see if it was normal that I felt an intense need to pee every couple minutes--apparently the epidural takes away pain but not pressure hence my desire to pee during every contraction...this I never knew! After a shocking and startling exam by the Dr it was determined that I was ready to push this babe out, BUT, he /she had recently taken the opportunity to turn sunny side up, which is not ideal for anyone involved, so the plan was to wait another hour reclined on my side to see if this would coax the baby to flip around again, or at least move lower so the Dr could manual turn him/her around
3:30am--Turn up the Salt n Peppa and "Push It"!!! For a first baby 40-60 minutes of pushing is fairly lucky. And that is also misleading as, in the words of my Dr, I apparently have a pokey uterus. My once 2-3 minute apart contractions somehow slowed to a relative snails pace of 5-6 minutes apart, resulting in a lot of waiting in precarious positions over the following hour and a sore arm for Jake who had to hold my leg up the entire time.
4:12am--BabyKakes made HER arrival with a full set of feverishly working lungs but otherwise limited fanfare. My shock and disbelief of babykakes being a girl--I was absolutely convinced I was having a boy--was not lost on the medical staff as I made repeated comments like "Really? A girl? Really?"
The Rest--As you may imagine the rest of the morning raged by in a blur. I think I had the best seat in the house as my rotund belly kept me from seeing the graphic entrance of babykakes into the world, as well as the bloody hot mess that resulted at the end of the bed. Kake valiantly hung in there for the upclose version of the "Miracle of Life" and even participated by cutting the cord. There was some minor stitching involved for me and lots of cleanup and monitoring for babykakes with Jelly left in the middle looking back and forth trying to decide who's hand to hold.
In the end we both decided that babykakes might have entered the world in a startling fashion, and might have surprised us with being a girl, but she was of course the most perfect baby we could have ever asked for.
Sunday started like most at the household of Kake and Jelly with softball on Kake's part and errands for Jelly. Different this day was Jelly's breakfast date with a friend (where she got eggs benedict for any desperate pregnant women looking to try anything to go into labor) and a small amount of housecleaning and yard work in preparation for the HOPEFULLY last week of work before babykake's arrival. Little did we know, this would be the last "normal" Sunday morning for awhile.
(Times are estimates as we were preoccupied and sleep and food deprived for most of the rest of this journey)
12:30pm--A usual bathroom trip includes a loud unexpected plop--apparently this is what the pregnancy books call a "mucous plug" and it is no longer plugging anything
2:00pm--"Theres something going on in my pants" I said to Kake. Upon closer inspection it seems it COULD be the first signs of my water breaking.....or it could be a strange discharge which is not uncommon in late pregnancy.....so the Dr was called for advice
3:00pm--Upon the advice of the Dr, we packed up a few last minute items and headed to the hospital for what Kake was sure was the arrival of his son/daughter and what I insisted was nothing but the alarmist attitude of my Dr. But be sure that we set the DVR to record the Eagles game before leaving so we could catch up when we got home later in the evening
4:00pm--We were checked into Labor and Delivery and, through the use of the high tech method of a color changing qtip, it is confirmed that the ongoing gushing that has soaked two pairs of my pants is indeed amniotic fluid and not incontinence (whew! How embarrassing that could have been)
Initial exams showed that I was about 3cm dilated and 75% effaced......
10:00pm--After a few hours of walking the L&D halls with consistently stronger but not entirely unbearable contractions, heaven arrived in the form of a geriatric halitosis ridden anesthesiologist and a pertinear 6 inch epidural needle....and some pitocin to try to help speed up labor considering that once your water breaks there is limited time in which its safe to deliver the baby
2:00am--Kake enjoyed a nice nap on a reclining chair, interrupted by my frequent calls to the nurse to see if it was normal that I felt an intense need to pee every couple minutes--apparently the epidural takes away pain but not pressure hence my desire to pee during every contraction...this I never knew! After a shocking and startling exam by the Dr it was determined that I was ready to push this babe out, BUT, he /she had recently taken the opportunity to turn sunny side up, which is not ideal for anyone involved, so the plan was to wait another hour reclined on my side to see if this would coax the baby to flip around again, or at least move lower so the Dr could manual turn him/her around
3:30am--Turn up the Salt n Peppa and "Push It"!!! For a first baby 40-60 minutes of pushing is fairly lucky. And that is also misleading as, in the words of my Dr, I apparently have a pokey uterus. My once 2-3 minute apart contractions somehow slowed to a relative snails pace of 5-6 minutes apart, resulting in a lot of waiting in precarious positions over the following hour and a sore arm for Jake who had to hold my leg up the entire time.
4:12am--BabyKakes made HER arrival with a full set of feverishly working lungs but otherwise limited fanfare. My shock and disbelief of babykakes being a girl--I was absolutely convinced I was having a boy--was not lost on the medical staff as I made repeated comments like "Really? A girl? Really?"
The Rest--As you may imagine the rest of the morning raged by in a blur. I think I had the best seat in the house as my rotund belly kept me from seeing the graphic entrance of babykakes into the world, as well as the bloody hot mess that resulted at the end of the bed. Kake valiantly hung in there for the upclose version of the "Miracle of Life" and even participated by cutting the cord. There was some minor stitching involved for me and lots of cleanup and monitoring for babykakes with Jelly left in the middle looking back and forth trying to decide who's hand to hold.
In the end we both decided that babykakes might have entered the world in a startling fashion, and might have surprised us with being a girl, but she was of course the most perfect baby we could have ever asked for.
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