Grace's Birth Story

Ok, I know it's been almost 6 months since Grace has been born, but life has been, shall we say, crazy?!! I figured I need to write down her birth story before mommy brain completely takes over and I forget. Here it goes...
 

Me at 22 weeks

I had a scheduled c-section on November 17, 2011. I had the option of doing a v-bac but didn't want to go that route since there were some risks involved. My actual due date was November the 22nd, and I was already thinking that the c-section was a little too close for comfort. Well, I started having contractions on the night of Friday, November 11, ironic since the contractions with Davis started on a Friday night as well. I thought to myself, "here we go again!". The contractions kept coming and going over the weekend (the same weekend as Davis's 4th birthday party!! :-o ), and by Monday morning I was having them pretty regularly, about every 8-9 minutes. I made an appointment with my doctor and they checked to see if I had dilated. NOPE! This is exactly what happened with Davis. My doctor told me to call in if my contractions became 5 minutes or less for an hour and they would page the doctor on call.  I had downloaded this app to my iphone that tracks contractions and by 2 am they had stayed at 5 minutes for an hour. I called my doctor on call and left her a message. I woke Greg up, got a shower (what is it about pregnant women in labor needing to be clean?!!), got my bags together and we got Davis up. By this point, my contractions are 3 minutes apart. I'm starting to get scared. What was it that people said about the second baby coming faster...?  If the baby does come, can Greg deliver it? Don't we need to boil some water and get some towels? Oh God, what will we cut the umbilical cord with?  All of these thoughts are racing through my mind and all I can think of is "GET US TO THE HOSPITAL NOW!".  The drive to the hospital is about 40 minutes so I tell Greg to step on it. He does. He backs out of the garage without looking and bam!, all we hear is a smash and scraping noise. He had hit the right side of the car on the inside frame of the garage door. The side mirror and front right panel of the car were pretty much destroyed and while Greg was worried about the car, all I could scream was "GET US TO THE HOSPITAL NOW, @#$%!!!!!".    I'm having major contractions at this point and can hardly see straight. I call my parents and tell them to meet us at the hospital so they can watch Davis.  I hardly remember the trip to the hospital, but I do remember Greg driving up to the birth center at Rex, and I crawled out and to the door on my hands and knees. The security guard came out and helped me up and actually asked, "Are you ok, ma'am?". Are you kidding me? Does it look like I'm ok to you? I told him I needed help and I was about to have this baby and he instructed me to get on the elevator and someone would help me out once I got to the second floor. The triage nurse came and got me in a gown and to a bed where they proceeded to hook me up to all sorts of monitors and gave me some stadol. Oh, this was really good stuff and for the first time in a couple of days I felt some relief. They checked me and I had not dilated. Nope, not one inch. I couldn't believe all this pain had been in vain. They also did an ultrasound and guess what? Grace was head down, ready to come out. So, they gave me an option of laboring and trying to push her out vaginally or they would schedule a c-section "at some point that day". I ask how long I would be in labor since I hadn't dilated yet and they said it could be all day. I couldn't believe I had actually contemplated the v-back (must have been the stadol), but reality quickly set back in and I opted for the c-section. The stadol wore off pretty quickly and they couldn't give me any more pain medication since they would have to wait to do the spinal until right before my c-section. I was then told they could get me back at 6:30am for the c-section. It was around 4am at this point. I really didn't think I could endure these contractions for two and a half more hours but after much prayer and squeezing Greg's hand off, I made it! They gave me the spinal and wheeled me to the operating room and I started shaking really bad from the spinal. Greg stayed by my head and held my hand while they cut, pulled, and pushed me until they got our sweet baby girl out. I'll never forget that first cry! They took her back and weighed her and I yelled from the table, "how much?" Greg said 5 pounds 9 ounces. I thought for sure she would be bigger than Davis since he was only 5 lbs 14 oz, but no, we just have small babies! They wrapped up Grace and brought her over to us where I kissed her head and told her how much I love her. She entered the world at 7:50 am on November 15, 2011 and our world hasn't been the same since.

Right after she was born

Grace's stats

  She loved to have her hands right up against her face!

Nothing sweeter than a daddy with his baby girl!