And then there were three...

I should probably tell the story of how we became a family of three. Considering that Itty Bitty is now three months old, the time is probably right. We got pregnant really easily, which was surprising considering I had been told by doctors that we would likely have a hard time conceiving because I have lupus. Doctors had told me that once we were ready just start charting on a calendar and call them after we had tried for a year. So we got married September 4, 2010 and October 1^st I started charting on the calendar. You can imagine my surprise when I had a positive pregnancy test on October 24^th!

My due date was June 30^th and we soon found out that we were having a little girl! I thought for sure that I would go past my due date, WAY past, but again I was wrong. June 2^nd my husband and I went to the doctor for our regular appointment. My feet were insanely swollen, so swollen that it was actually comical I had started wearing wide width shoes a few weeks before but now it was to the point that if I took them off during the day I could not get them back on! My reflexes were super jumpy and I had begun seeing sparks in my vision. The doctor checked my urine and sure enough my kidney’s were spilling protein so we were sent to the hospital to have my urine checked for 24 hours.

24 hours came and went and then we got the news that I would need to stay in the hospital until I delivered due to preeclampsia. The main concern was that if I was somewhere else I would have a seizure. The goal was then to get me to 38 weeks and then we would induce. The hospital stay really wasn’t bad. The nurses were great and my husband was able to work from my hospital room so I wasn’t alone much, plus the labor and delivery room we stayed in was pretty big. I wasn’t allowed to get up except to use the bathroom and bathe. But eventually after I became a little less of a seizure risk due to overstimulation I was allowed one wheel chair ride around the hospital a day and even got a massage every other day.

Finally we got 38 weeks, June 16^th. We began the induction. I was super nervous and my doctor wanted to start off slow in hopes of reducing the need for a c-section. So we started off with oral cervical softners. Basically that didn’t do much, I had several doses but never dialated past 1. So day 2 started with pitocin in low doses. Again, not much happened. I was having regular enough contractions that they weren’t able to increase my pitocin but the contractions weren’t doing anything and I stayed at a one. I have got to say by the end of day two I was a little frustrated, tired, scared, and just ready to finally have this baby!

Day three things finally got interesting! We started out with pitocin again at 6am and they broke my water at 9am. I had a TON of water I think mainly because I had been on bed rest for so long and had been receiving so much IV fluid for days. I really had wanted to have my baby naturally but obviously with the preeclampsia that whole plan went out the window but I was still going to try to deliver without an epidural. My doctor expressed concern about this plan because she didn’t want me to be in so much pain that it triggered a seizure and ultimately my desire for a healthy baby and a healthy me was stronger than my fear of the epidural.

After having received the epidural things went MUCH quicker, I took a little nap and when I woke up it was time to push. I pushed for an hour and a half before Samantha Grace was born at 5:24pm. It was absolutely amazing and I really enjoyed giving birth, something I NEVER thought I would say. Ultimately a lot of things happened that I wasn’t planning on but we just went with it and didn’t try to control everything and things went better than we could have expected.