Lila's Birth (or... becoming a family of 4)

Hello there internet, I have returned. Thats not to say I haven't been using the internet at all - lets not kid ourselves here. I have been plastering the newsfeeds of facebook users everywhere with daily updates on my newbie and her brother and how positively adorable they are together.

But, I have not been blogging. Jen has (yay, jen!) - she has also been keeping shannon wucherer photography up and running for me for the past month, while I've been getting some rest (and I use that that term loosely).

Now that I have a few braincells that have decided to start functioning again, I thought maybe, just maybe I'd test out a blog post - you know, for funzies. So, internet, today you get to read about the eventful day miss lila joined our family.

I promise, no icky details ;)

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As many of you know (from my CONSTANT complaining), Grayson came a week early, all on his own (the boy loves his mama). Miss Lila apparently loves her mama too. So much so, that she never wanted to come out - she would have been happy on the inside continuously kicking and abusing her mother's internal organs forever. Luckily, in today's world, it is perfectly acceptable to serve your unborn child an eviction notice. And so, 4 days past due date, Lila got served.

We checked into the fabulous West Allis Women's Pavilion at 5pm on Tuesday, March 22nd all set for our induction. And by set, I mean we even had Scrabble packed in our bag. Because when your bags have been packed for 3 weeks, you start adding ridiculous things like board games, because you are disillusioned and start thinking maybe you'll brush up on your vocab while awaiting your baby. Um, yeah - at any rate, we were ready!

Anyone who has been reading my personal blog posts over the past 9 months knows, I did not think I was prepared for another kiddo. I constantly worried about the effect it would have on Grayson, how I was going to manage a household (and a business) with 2 children, where I would find the time and the love needed to make all of it work. Plus, I just didn't feel like I was actually going to have a baby. Yeah, I was fat and we had the ultrasound pics, so I knew there was a person in there, but... the concept had not sunk in. Even checking into the hospital that night, Nic and I kept saying "I really can't believe we're about to have a baby". It just seemed unreal - and I definitely didn't feel the bond that I'd felt while Grayson was on the inside... but, I'll get back to this later.

(Holy shiz, we are going to have another baby...)

So, we checked in, met our nice evening nurse Carrie, and settled into our suite. Carrie took a bunch of info from us and started prepping my IV.

Internet, the IV was the worst part of my birth experience with Lila (sorry Carrie).

For some reason, my usually cooperative veins (seriously, I have creepy veiny arms) were "rolling" on this particular day. And poor Carrie (who continuously apologized) could not get a needle in for what seemed forever. Once she did, she infiltrated the first vein. As she tried the second, I looked over at Nic and mouthed "I think I'm going to pass out". The 2nd vein ended up cooperating, but good golly, I have never felt so close to fainting in my life!

IV FAIL

After the IV debacle, we ordered dinner and chilled for a few hours. At 7, a new nurse, Hope, came in to start my cervix medicine. I was supposed to receive 3 doses in 4 hour increments and then start pitocin at 7 the next morning.

Dose 1 of cervix medication didn't do much of anything. I knew the 2nd dose was coming at 11pm, so I decided to stay up and wait for it, then sleep until the next dose. Nic & I watched "Grown Ups" while we were waiting (cause the Women's Pavilion has FREE movies on demand - WINNING). I don't recommend the movie. Sorry if you liked it (or starred in it - I have big dreams that famous people read my blog), I found it to be terrible.

"(Ugh, this movie is worse than these contractions...")

At 11 I got my 2nd dose of meds, and peacefully dozed off not long after. At 12:30am, I woke to contractions coming about every 2 minutes. Needless to say, there was no sleeping after that. An hour and a half of sleep? At the time, I was fine with it - lets get this baby out, please.

Because contractions started on their own, I ended up not needing the 3rd dose of meds (or pitocin, yay!) which was awesome. I let Nic rest a few hours and watched some TV. By around 3, I was having contractions every. friggn. minute. Nurse Hope even seemed concerned for me. She came in multiple times to ask how I was doing, did I want something for the pain? Oh, I didn't mention that I hadn't gotten any pain assistance yet? Nope. I just wasn't in that much pain. Yeah, it was annoying to be having a contraction every minute, but when I thought back to labor with Grayson - those contractions were unbearable. With these, I could still talk, walk to the bathroom (dance a little jig...)... I just didn't think I needed anything yet. And I certainly didn't want an epidural to slow things down. So, I kindly said "No, thank you".

(hella contractions - the machine kept running out of paper)

At this point, I think I was dilated to 2cm and 80% effaced (if you don't know what that means, you can look it up). I sent a few text updates to my mom and Jen (who was going to document the experience for us, and was supposed to come at 7), and we watched some more TV (Scrabble still making no appearance).

Not long after, I ended up messaging Jen that she should probably start getting ready to come to the hospital, because we weren't going to need Pitocin and I wanted to start getting pics. She showed up at 5, and started shooting. We decided to watch Alice in Wonderland - I don't really remember most of it, except that it was weird.

At 6, Hope came in to let me know that the anesthesiologist was on the floor, he had 3 epidurals lined up - did I want one now? I reluctantly agreed, joking that I probably wouldn't be very nice for much longer if I waited. 10 minutes later, the anesthesiologist came in. This was already SO much different than my ep experience with Grayson. With Grayson, I was prepped sitting up, and had to wait in that sitting position for 45 minutes (all the while having gnarly contractions every minute and a half) before the anesthesiologist even showed up. This time he prepped me himself, told me I could stay laying, quickly cleaned the area, popped in the needle and we were in business. 5 minutes, tops. It was INCREDIBLE.

(Best anesthesiologist in all the land)

As I laid down from getting the ep my water broke (strangely enough, the same thing happened with Grayson). Definitely in my top 3 grossest things ever. Enough said.

When they checked this time I was 90% effaced and dilated to 4. For those of you who don't know, you have to get to 10 in order for a baby to make its way out, so 4 did not make me optimistic that there was any end in sight.... until... I began to feel the dreaded pressure.

(Unda Pressha)

Ugh, the pressure. By and large the WORST part of labor. Its an indescribably feeling, except to say that it starts out subtle and gets stronger and stronger. The epidural does nothing to ease it and the only thing that can make you feel normal is to push. The subtle pressure started in almost immediately after my water broke. Luckily, it was 7am, and Saved By The Bell was on - and it was the episode where Jessi's dad is marrying an aerobics instructor half his age. I LOVE this episode, so it served as a fab distraction.

(AC Slater and his mullet)

At 7:20, I told the nurses about the pressure (I'd gone thru an entire nursing shift change, so Carrie was back!). They checked again and said I was still only about a 4 (actually what she said was "I'd say you're about.. an 8, no, wait, more like a 4"... ugh - what he heck?). But because I was fully effaced and still having contractions pretty frequently, we decided to call peeps and have them start getting ready to head to the hospital. Nic's mom had Grayson, and we wanted him to be the first person to meet Lila, so we told her to " watch Jake and the Neverland Pirates (Grayson's favorite show), and then head over".

Nic made 2 phone calls (his mom and my mom) - and in that 2 minute span the pressure went from subtle to unbearable. By the time he was off the phone, I told him he needed to get the nurses into our room because I was certain she was coming. Like NOW. When they came in, they seemed a little like they didn't believe me, maybe I was overreacting, but they would check me again just to be sure. Ok, I know 2 years have gone by, but I'm pretty sure I remembered what it felt like when Grayson was making his exit. A lift of the sheet proved I was right. "Oh, my, there's baby's head" were, I think, Carrie's exact words...

A quick call to the desk for a delivery team (which included Nurse Rita - who basically delivered Grayson!) and the doc on call ASAP. This girl was coming.

The doc on call wasn't my normal OB. I think her name was Dr. Leung. Petite little thing, and SO happy. She came in, quickly prepped, all the while shooting me words of encouragement (because I was insisting that I HAD to push) - "Oh, no no, don't push yet - you wait for me!" Hahaha.

(Happiest Doctor ever)

When she was in prime catching position, she told me I could push. Since this "wasn't my first rodeo" (thanks hubby), I felt like I had a better understanding of how to push - held my breath, used the right muscles and gave it my all. On push 1, I felt a tremendous amount of relief and everyone in the room let out sounds of amazement (ooh! ahhh!), to which I replied "oh my god, did she come out?" And everyone said "well, her head did"... with the next contraction, I held my breath and gave it one more go - and out she came.

2 pushes, roughly 5 minutes. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

("Giving birth is crazy easy!")

And you know what? Even though I'd been a major complainer this entire pregnancy, and was a total spaz about having 2 children, it took only a split second for me to fall in love. The same kind of love I had for Grayson when I met him. All my mommies of 2 who had given me insight and support over the past few months were right - the love doubles. And it is amazing :)

(immediate love)

(and then there were 4 :)