Pride and Joy

This is long overdue since my Sweet Emotions post. As promised, here’s my story and perspective on child birth and of course – having a newborn!

I spoke a little about my pregnancy in my other post, but here’s a little more! It was, I would say for the most part, extremely smooth sailing! I was slightly nauseated for a little while in the beginning, but nothing I couldn’t manage and work through. I remember being really sleepy – I would grab a nap on my lunch break, after supper, in the middle of the afternoon, whenever I could really!! It was like a drowsy on Benadryl sort of sleepy, it wasn’t worth fighting, but I wasn’t complaining!! Or maybe I did a little… I used to get some hip pain, which is completely normal. (The baby gotta come out eventually… the hips gotta get ready!) I had a lot of heart burn as time went on, which I never really suffered from before! I ate lotsss of Tums! (Yep – baby had lots of hair too, so that “myth” was indeed true for me!) And finally, one of the worst things I had to deal with was probably the development of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, which is also a normal thing during pregnancy, especially given my job as a nail tech! That did go away after baby was born but I did have some other wrist pain for quite sometime, and I am still recovering from it now!

I went off work around 30 weeks I think it was… it was April 29, I was due June 30. I couldn’t work any longer with the wrist pain I was dealing with – it wasn’t worth it. Plus, that’s what sick EI is for! I really enjoyed my time off then, I can’t lie. I had my baby shower the day after I finished work, and then once the nursery was painted, I got everything all set up and ready to go! Then it was a waiting game! So many people used to say to me “I bet you’re gonna go early!” Once you hit 37 weeks they say you’re in the safe zone. If the baby decides to come then, everything should be fine. So once I got there I found myself constantly wondering and thinking about when and where I would go into labor – would I be home alone? Standing in Walmart? Would my water even break? What if I went over and had to be induced? So many thoughts and questions. I got out a suitcase and started to gather things that I knew I would want to bring and have with us. We had to travel about an hour to the hospital where we would be having the baby, so it’s not like my husband could just run home to grab something.

On the night of June 27th, I was reclined on the couch, watching TV, and I opened my notes in my phone and made a list of the last minute things I still had to throw in the suitcase, and a list of exactly which bags and things needed to come with us – suitcase, diaper bag… carseat. You know. Important stuff. Around 4:30am, I woke to pee (as per usual), and found myself running into the bathroom… my water broke!!!! I had an immediate sense of nervousness (like knot in your stomach, holy crap, nervous) and excitement. I yelled to Justin to wake him up. I remember him standing in the doorway half asleep and me saying “my water broke!” He rubbed his eyes and said “…I need to get my Tecta.” (His acid reflux medication, HAHA!) Anyway, we weren’t long waking up then. I took the time to get a shower, cause I mean… who knew how long I would be in labor for. I had to go to the hospital “right away” though, to be hooked up to antibiotics before baby arrived (not always the case.. if you’ve never been pregnant, you’ll soon learn about that.) Anyway, what ironic timing – I opened up the list I just made before I went to bed, and we got everything ready. We called our moms, (my mom was coming with us) and headed out the door. I was not in pain at this point, I was excited and nervous, as was Justin! Once I was past the “going into labor thoughts” I started to think about the other things like “How bad are contractions gonna be?” “Am I gonna be screaming in pain?” “How long is my labor going to last?” “When will the baby be here!?” So like… internally freaking out a little, forcing yourself to eat, and stay calm type stuff.

As we were packing up and getting ready to leave, saying bye to the dogs, “see ya in a couple days with a new baby!” I thought about how it was the very last time it would be just the two of us and the dogs in our house. From here on out we were gonna be a family of 3 (or more). Wow. That was really a lot to think about. I mean, yes, I thought about it before, but reality really sets in when you’re going in to labor!

We arrived at the hospital sometime between 7 and 7:30am. I registered, got weighed and got settled in our room. By this time I was just starting to feel a little crampy. I got seen by a couple nurses, got my IV put in (yuck.), and they also had to finish breaking my water (not gonna lie… super ouch.). The next couple hours were like a whirlwind!! I quickly started to feel more pain, having regular contractions. I had some pain meds – not a difference. They checked me to see if I could have some different stuff (a shot to the hip), and I was 6cms dilated – phew! Moving right along! Well… that stuff was good. Very relaxing, we’ll say. So not long after that.. probably an hour and a half, the doctor who would be delivering the baby came in  and said “we’ll leave you alone now for a bit you’ve been picked at a lot this morning.” To which I said “I feel like I’m trying not to bare down at the end of my contractions.” (Which might I add… never seemed to stop!). So she said “oh… okay, well let me check you.”

It was happening. I was 9.5cms dilated. I walked to the case room, and 2 hours later at 1:05pm we had a beautiful baby girl!! We do not have a picture of that moment – we don’t have a picture of her on my chest, or getting weighed and measured, nothing. And that didn’t even occur to me at the time. For one, I was slightly out of it on pain killers, and two you’re just so in the moment that it was literally not a thought. I remember feeling so happy and relieved. Relieved that so much of the unknown was over – I survived the pain, the labor, the delivery, the baby was good, it was all good.

It’s such an unreal feeling, having a baby. You’re so completely tired and exhausted, yet fully aware, and falling so in love. Being in the hospital for a couple of days was really good… it gave us time to adjust to having to care for a baby, learning how to bathe her, getting used to changing her bum, and it also gave me a chance to do as little as possible while my body attempted to recover. (Hello from down under!!)

Bringing baby Nova home was the best. That is when I think a lot more emotions came in for me. Not just because of the wild hormonal state of child birth, but just because we were going home. Bringing the ultimate prize home, to become a part of our life, our forever changed, beautiful happy, loving life!!! And there’s also the part where we no longer had a team of nurses and doctors (or my mom), by our sides 24/7. It was all on us. It was so exciting, and nerve wracking all at the same time!!

 

I called this post “Pride and Joy.” Why you may ask? Pride – because you check that in at the doors of the hospital. You ain’t got no pride no more after that my honey!! But seriously, at the same time, you leave with more pride than you ever had. You may not realize it right away, but there is so much to be proud of! I was awesome in there!!! I had a BABY. I carried that baby, and I pushed her out. I am super proud!!! And joy – because, well, that’s self explanatory… you leave with more joy than you ever thought possible. That’s why people say that their kids are their pride and joy. It’s true. They are. They took some pride, give you lots more pride, and even more joy than you thought humanly possible.

 

 

Phewf… that was long. Longer that I had intended. I’ll make another post about the first days of having a newborn! …or what I can remember of them!!