Labor:
I had scheduled a c-section for 9/26 which was her due date. I knew she would probably come earlier than that, but I was thinking only a few days at the most. I had been to the doctor Monday morning (9/9) for my 37 week appointment. I had not been having any real contractions and was not dilated at all. On Monday night after dinner I thought my water may have broken, but it wasn't anything like what I would have expected, so I kind of ignored it. After an hour or so, I called some friends to get their thoughts and then decided to call the doctor on call. The doctor didn't really think it sounded like my water broke and told me to come in the morning so they could check me again. She said to call back if I had any contractions or any other changes. I felt fine so I went ahead with my nightly routine and put Will to bed. I still wasn't completely comfortable with whatever was going on, so I started packing a bag for the hospital "just in case". I went to bed and woke up around 11:00 with some discomfort. It wasn't pain around my belly like I expected a contraction to be; it was all in my lower abdomen. It kept coming and going and getting more uncomfortable each time. I downloaded a contraction timer on my phone and started keeping up with them that way. They were already less than 5 minutes apart but only lasted about 30 seconds each. Around 1:30 I gave in and called the doctor back. She said I was definitely in labor and needed to get to the hospital soon. I woke JT up (he had been asleep through all of this) and told him we need to go to the hospital. He was so confused but got up and added a couple of things to my hospital bag that I had been packing. I called our neighbor Karen and asked her to come over and stay with Will. I didn't want to wait on Gram or NeeNee to get to the house. Karen has been on "baby watch" for weeks now, so thank goodness she answered and came right over. JT called NeeNee only the way and asked her to come relieve Karen in a few hours. He then called Gram and told her just to be on standby to come to the hospital. JT and I were both pretty sure that I was being crazy and we would be sent back home, so we didn't see any need to have everyone rushing to hospital at 3:00 in the morning. On the way, we got pulled over for speeding - classic! The cop seemed to take forever getting out of his car, so JT yelled out the window "My wife is in labor!". The cop quit walking toward us and told JT to go on. We were relieved because we thought they would have to escort us to the hospital. We made it to the hospital and got checked in. Once we got to the room I was hooked up to all of the monitors and was dilated to 1 cm. They went ahead and called my doctor and got the c-section pre-op started since they confirmed that my water had broken. It took 3 tries to get my IV in - I have had the worst luck with needle sticks with this pregnancy. My fear, anxiety, and all other emotions had me shaking uncontrollably. The shaking and constant contractions were making me miserable. Let me just say that I suffered through about 2 hours of this pain. I realize that this is nothing compared to women that labor of hours and hours. Those women are nothing but amazing in my eyes. I don't know that I could have handled much more of it. JT was of course amazing and let me almost break his fingers and rip his shirt from my grip.
Delivery:
Dr. Crowe came in a little after 4:00 and was ready to go. We went to the operating room and JT had to wait outside until I got my spinal injection and was all prepped. I have never been so excited to have a needle in my back! I was starting to panic because they were waiting to do it until I had a break in between contractions, but I felt like I was never getting a break. Finally it was done and I was numb almost immediately. JT came in when it was time to start and everyone was ready to go. Dr. Crowe got to work and asked me right before she pulled out the baby about my guess to the gender. I said "girl" but not with much confidence - I really thought "girl"from the beginning up until the last month where I started thinking "boy". Finally she told JT to stand up and he excitedly said, "It's a GIRL!". It took me a couple of seconds to process what he had said...GIRL!!! Dr. Crowe showed her to me and then the nurses started checking her out.
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| First look at the little girl! She already seems calmer than Will! |
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| Waiting on baby girl to get cleaned up while I get put back together. |
Baby Girl:
She weighed 7 lb 2 oz and was 18.25 inches long. She scored an 8 and a 9 on her APGAR tests. She had a head full of dark hair (not as much as Will had). Of course JT looked her over and made sure she had no extra markings of hemangiomas like Will. She had no problems, but she looked like she was sunburned all over because she was so red. The nurses wrapped her up to let me hold me hold her. Dr. Crowe made an adjustment to her little hat so that she would have a bow, because every little girl needs a bow!
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| 7 lb 2 oz |
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| Dr. Crowe's bow for baby girl |
Post-Op:
Gram was already at the hospital when we got to post-op. JT went out and told her that she "got her GIRL!". Gram has said this baby was a girl from the day I told her I was pregnant. Pops and Nonna arrived shortly after. NeeNee came over when Hope got to the house to take care of Will. We all went together to our room that we would be in for the next few days and started getting to know this precious little girl.
Name:
JT and I were narrowing down her name. We had pretty much decided that Nicole would be her middle name (Nicole is my middle name). Evelyn was most likely the first name (name of his grandmother that he never met). I have loved the name Caroline though so it was still up for consideration. Will is named after family and we wanted to continue that, so it officially became Evelyn Nicole. We are calling her Evie.
We are absolutely in love with her!
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