Lambert Life: Sweet Baby

I was woken up Monday 10/11 at 6:30 by what I thought was my water breaking (for the record I still think that's what happened) and by contractions that were about every 10 min apart. Tom got up about 7 as usual and I filled him in on what was happening. We made a plan for me to take a shower and get ready and he would go to work until they could find someone to cover his clinic (going into labor Monday morning was like the WORST timing ever as far as Tom's job is concerned). I got ready and didn't have any more leaking but was still having regular contractions. My mom came over and then Tom got home about 9:30. Mom had the camcorder and video taped us leaving for the hospital and we were on our way!

Once we got to L and D I told them my water breaking story and we were taken to our room where I got changed into a gown and hooked up to all the monitors. Evie's heartbeat was great and my contractions were about every 7-8 minutes apart but not painful, just crampy. The nurse did the litmus test to see if my water had broken and of course it was negative, very frustrating. So the nurse called my doc (LOVE her) who decided we would go ahead and break my water and go from there! Thank God she did because turns out Evie had meconium in the amniotic fluid so she did not need to be inside any longer! This also meant we were going to have the ENTIRE NICU team in for the birth. That was about noon I think...

About 2:30 I made the decision to go ahead and get the epidural. I wasn't in severe pain but I was dilated to a 4 and the doc gave the go ahead. Getting the epi wasn't bad at all, the numbing medicine was the only thing that hurt. I had the best epi ever, I couldn't feel any pain with my contractions but was still able to move my legs.

I labored (which for me was just laying in bed talking with family :) for about 8 hours before I started feeling the pressure that you always hear about. And let me tell you that it is INTENSE! At this point the nurse offered to call anesthesia to bump up my epi but I declined thinking that feeling the pressure would help me push better (and I do think I pushed better but oh my goodness did it hurt so bad right at the very end!) Once I was fully dilated and feeling major pressure (to the point I was crying during contractions) my nurse decided it was time to try some pushing. This was about midnight...I pushed with three contractions before she called my doc to come up. During this time I wasn't allowed to push and it was terrible but thank goodness it only lasted about 15 min before my doc arrived. I pushed for another twenty minutes and then out came my sweet baby!

She came out screaming and pink, apgars were both 9, and they were able to put her right on my chest (and the 7 NICU people left the room). Tom cut her cord and then the nurses took her and cleaned her up and did the all newborn stuff (eye medicine, shots...)

We were in the hospital until Wednesday (HATED being in the hospital) and we both have recovered really well. Evie is already back to her birthweight (woohoo!) and I'm moving around pretty good. We get between 4-6 hours of sleep at night which surprisingly is enough to function, sort of ;) Nursing is HARD...that first week is killer and we are still by no means experts but I feel like we kind of have the hang of it.

Last weekend my brother and sister came into town to see their new neice...it was love at first sight!