I have got to get this written down before I forget. I'm afraid that I've already forgotten wonderful things. It's pretty detailed, like every little thing I could think of, so beware. July 17, 2013 was the day that my life forever changed and I I want to remember every bit of it and praise God for it. Here's the story of our little Annaliese Mae's birth...
Tuesday, July 16
Kenny and I had decided to have a fun day. It had been so hot for several days and I was getting pretty miserably uncomfortable, just six days before the due date. So, our fun of choice was to go to a pool. Kenny rode into Mattoon with my dad and got dropped of at the coffee shop to get some work done first. The plan was to come into town with our swim gear and pick him up. I woke up and started the day, when I used the bathroom, there was bleeding and I lost the plug. I thought I had a couple weeks earlier, and may have lost some, but the rest was lost that morning. It sort of freaked me out. I called Erin, one of my best friends, to talk that out and confirm that I should not be going swimming that day. Then I called Kenny to give him the news and make a plan B. Third call was to my mom.
(This last pregnant photo isn't pretty, but captures reality. Miserable. Hot. Swollen. But Owen's super cute! Taken on July 15.)
I got ready and headed to Common Grounds to gather the husband. I had had back cramps for several days, maybe weeks even, but this day my cramping was different. By the time I arrived to the coffee shop, I could tell that these cramps definitely had a beginning and end. I told Kenny that I thought that this was the start of labor. And then we got busy...that day was so full, no wonder Annaliese came so fast.
We decided that since this baby was probably going to come soonish, maybe we should complete our baby registry. So we spent a couple hours in Wal-mart. At one point I was pretty worn out and aching and a folding chair happened to be in the aisle. I sat down while Kenny ran to do some light grocery shopping. I wonder what sort of look was on my face, because I remember several folks walking by me and staring. Leaving Wal-mart, we decided to begin measuring the frequency and duration of these cramps I was having. Oh, and we also decided to buy our new camera there too. Just in time. :)
We went to Charleston for some reason and had Jimmy Johns for lunch, I think. And passing McDonald's I had a hankering for a soft serve cone, so Kenny pulled a u-turn and we got a couple.
We were determined to have our fun day and decided to go to a movie. Ironically, our last child-less day we saw a children's movie. Nothing seemed interesting, so we went with Despicable Me. The Tuesday matinee is only $4 a ticket, so the theater was full of moms and kids. I fell asleep about thirty minutes in and took a good hour-long nap and woke up in time to see the hilarious ending...the Minions singing the country song "I Swear" in their little minion language. Sorry if I spoiled that for you. I laughed out loud, it was so funny.
All afternoon, since we'd been tracking them, the cramps were lasting a minute or so and were not consistently spaced apart. I wondered if this was going to go on for days.
After our movie, we headed back to the house to drop things off and lay down. For some reason, even after sleeping through a movie, I was still tired. That evening we were planning on going out for our friend Emery's birthday dinner. At home, I spent some time packing my hospital bag and resting. Back in town, we met everyone at Cody's Road House. The cramps were still going and I was still tracking them, they seemed to be getting worse and closer together, 5 or six minutes apart. I was having to stand up and stretch out each time. We had a great time at dinner and it was a great distraction from the discomfort.
It really felt good to walk through all this cramping, so we chose to head to the mall for some nice air conditioned strolling until closing-time. A couple of times I had to stop and ask Kenny to rub my back it was hurting so much.
We headed home after that and downloaded a contraction counting app for the ipad. I started hitting start and stop each time the cramping came. Kenny rubbed my back through the contractions until I fell asleep.
(Photo taken on July 14. Didn't make it to 40, she came just a few days early.)
Wednesday, July 17
I got a couple of hours of sleep in before waking up around one. I don't remember if it was the cramping or the need to pee that woke me, but I was up and the cramping was still going strong. The tracker showed that the cramps still weren't consistent. I headed downstairs to use the bathroom a couple times before I just decided to stay downstairs on the daybed in the office. Through the morning hours I was up and down with the cramping. When a cramp came, I made laps around the downstairs, when it was gone I laid down again and slept.
My mom woke up for some reason and came downstairs around four in the morning. She rubbed my back during some of the cramping. I was handling it all pretty well, I think. I was still thinking that this was just the beginning of labor and that it just had to get a lot worse and that this could still last for days. The doctor had said that when contractions were at 5-1-1, to give him a call. Five minutes apart, lasting one minute, for at least an hour. We hadn't called the doctor because the cramps had never gotten to five minutes apart. My app showed they were as close as six, but sometimes as much as twelve minutes apart and some I was sleeping right through...no way could I be getting any where near close.
At six o'clock or so, after five hours of being up and down and not getting any good sleep, mom and I thought we should get ready and head to the doctor's office to see where I was at. We though I just had to be dilating. So I went upstairs and woke Kenny, to tell him the plan and that I was going to take a shower. I was cranky and annoyed that he was rested and told him that I needed him to help me measure the cramps. He had no idea that I had been up all night and only heard that I was going to take a shower and he went right back to sleep. I hadn't woken him up in the night because I thought it was going to last a lot longer and he might as well get rest. I was handling the pain alright.
So I got in the shower and the hot water felt amazing on those back cramps. Amazing. I don't know how long I was in the shower, but I was in no hurry to get out, it felt so good. When I finally got out, I began to dry off and suddenly I was hit with the most horrible, excruciating pain I'd ever felt before. I couldn't stand up through it, and sat down on the toilet. I yelled for Kenny and mom. I was yelling as loud as I could, but they weren't hearing. Mom finally heard and came and held me up. She yelled for Kenny, but he was still sleeping. She leaned me against the sink and ran upstairs and told Kenny to call the doctor and grab my bag, it was time to go to the hospital. She came back down and helped me into my clothes while Kenny called. He had no idea how to answer the doctor's questions, he literally had just woken up. He just told the doctor that the pain was constant and we were on our way. The doctor said come right to Labor and Delivery.
After that, things are less clear. I guess I was saying dramatic things like, "I can't do this" and "I think I'm going to die"... I was seriously scared though. The pain had changed and so suddenly, I thought something had to be wrong. I remember being in the front seat of the car and just holding tight to the handle above the door, writhing and moaning in pain. I was trying to remember something from the few chapters of a natural labor book I had read. I was so hot and wet with sweat. Apparently, Kenny was being super considerate and driving ever so carefully on the terrible country roads, so much that that mom had to keep prodding him to drive faster. When we turned onto Route 16, just a mile or so from the hospital, my water broke and I opened my eyes for the first time. I saw a car in front of us and told Kenny to go around them. I told him to honk at them and he did, just to appease me, apparently. I turned out to be one of our neighbors that's a nurse. The drive to the hospital from home usually takes about 20 minutes. We left home at ten after 7 and arrived at the hospital doors at 7:25.
(Part Two to come...)
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