Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Five People in my Family!

I have an old, old Sesame Street song stuck in my brain today. We don't have the same family make-up as the five-member family in the song, but there you go...

The Wheezer family welcomed Girl Number 3 on Wednesday, February 6 at 11:23 pm. Yes, just 37 minutes left in the year of the pig, LOL. She weighed 10 lbs 3 oz and measured 22 inches long.

Now for the gory details... bum bum ba bum...

My blood pressure had been going up, up, up and my lab results showed too much protein in my urine Wednesday morning. The doc was concerned and strongly suggested an induction for Thursday morning, when he would be on call. I agreed, and we were all set to come in at 6 the next morning. Doc ordered me to get home shortly and rest due to the blood pressure thing. I asked him if I could just go into work for another couple hours, he sighed and said yes. Soooo, I went back to work and knocked off a couple little projects and updated some out of office documentation.

When I stood up after shutting down my computer, my water broke. Allllllll over the place. There is absolutely no dignity in pregnancy, is there? All I can think is that I'm glad it happened AFTER I stood up, so my chair is still usable. A good samaritan, ie my office neighbor, happened to stick her head in to wish me well. I was standing there trying to decide which would make more of a mess, walking to the bathroom or standing still until the gushing stopped. I told her what happened and asked her to call Mr. W. Then, I got my trash can under me to catch the worst of the dripping (did I mention, it went EVERYWHERE?!?!).

Mr. W. came by, really confused, and I told him what happened. He was ordered to go get the van and bring it out front. Meanwhile, the gushing lessened, so I did the walk of shame to the restroom. I wrung out my clothes a bit (I still cannot believe there was so much fluid...) and made a bit of a mess on the bathroom floor all while waiting for Mr. W. to call and tell me he was there. The good Samaritan brought me a (woefully inadequate) pad while we were waiting. Turns out Mr. W. kept calling my office and never thought to try the cell phone! Poor panicked guy...

We got in the car and headed toward home. Okay, it is really, really, really uncomfortable to be soaking wet in February, even in warm and sunny central Texas. I called the ob's office to tell them my water broke. They wanted me to come in to be checked despite my assurances that there was no way this was urine (if only I could have held that much pee, I could have slept a whole lot better the last few weeks). Still, they wanted me in.

We got home, and I took a nice hot shower while Mr. W. got last minute things together. Fortunately, I had purchased some Depends in anticipation of a possible catastrophe (too bad I hadn't thought to put any in my purse) so I was able to be relatively comfortable for the ride to the clinic.

When we got there, I checked in and the receptionist told me to have a seat. I started laughing and told her my water broke, so sitting on their furniture probably wasn't the best plan. They got me to an examining room ASAP, and sure enough, my water did indeed break. Meanwhile, contractions were really kicking in, but with all that water loss, I could actually take a deep breath. Breathing deeply felt really good and was a refreshing change.

We walked on over to L&D (clinic was located within the hospital) where I was checked out, hooked up and poked and prodded. All the while, contractions were strengthening.

I can't remember what time I was admitted, probably close to four. I labored naturally until around 9:30. They started tossing around the 'P' word (pitocin), and I was really in a lot of pain as the intensity kicked up tremendously. So, I gave up the natural childbirth in favor of an epidural. The anesthesiologist did a great job. I did not have a loss of muscle control, but the contractions weren't nearly so painful. Once the epidural was in place, I went from 4 cm to 7 in about 5 minutes so the pitocin was delayed a bit. By 10:45 ish, the contractions had spaced out a bit, so the doc ordered the pitocin. I wish he'd talked to me first, because I could tell things were transitioning pretty quickly. Anyway, at a couple minutes past 11, I could tell baby was coming and had Mr. W. call the nurse. She took half a glance and started calling for the doc and telling me NOT to push. That was the absolute hardest part of the labor. Five minutes or so of not pushing felt like an eternity.

Once the doc had his gloves on, I pushed 4 or 5 times and poof! we had a squawking, squalling baby. She was delivered so quickly, she still had some fluid in her lungs. It took her awhile to cry that out (the @#(*&# hour it took them to finally give up on getting a venous blood draw to check her blood sugar, but we'll leave that for now).

She's healthy and beautiful and perfect and nursing beautifully. I'm doing really well, too.

The delivering doc promised to give my ob a hard time about the baby's size. My ob estimated 9 lbs. I had warned him I thought this baby was big and that my first one was over 10 lbs... We gained a certain notoriety in the hospital. Between her excessive size, and the ease of delivery, we were quite a part of the gossip mill.

One nice thing about having a really big baby is that I'm already about 3 lbs from my pre-pregnancy weight. Yes, 27 lbs lost in 6 days! I should go on tv, LOL.

4 comments:

Mayberry said...

Awwwwwwwwww! Congratulations! And that is some birth story. You are a superhero! Enjoy that lovely little girl.

Laura Bennett said...

How wonderful! Congratulations on your new addition. I'm looking forward to hearing the stories of how 3 is different than 2.

TxGambit said...

Congrats!!!!! Welcome to your precious little girl!

Anonymous said...

Congratulations!

-Keith Rayburn