Bohemian Vintage: Mommyhood Thursday - 01.19.2012

To kick off the Mommyhood Thursday column, I figured I would start from the very beginning... our birth story. Birth stories are each so unique. Thus, I thought I would share it with you. Here it goes:

On November 11th I went in to the Ob/Gyn for my regular weekly appointment. All week I'd had incredible pain and discomfort, but I just attributed it to Braxton Hicks and continued going to work every day. I told my students I wasn't feeling so good and would have to sit down more than usual. But, I went on with my week. When I saw the doctor I told him about the pain I'd been experiencing. He wrote me off pretty quickly by saying " oh that's pretty normal at the stage you're in" (I was 31 weeks). He said... "Those are called Braxton Hicks and they're false or practice contractions." I responded by telling him that the menstrual like pain was pretty severe and I was a tad worried. At that point he decided to check my cervix. To his (and my) surprise, I was 2 cm dilated! He immediately sent me to the Labor & Delivery triage at the hospital to have further tests done. All the tests came back positive for high risk premature labor. Treatment? Mandatory bed rest. Ugh. Bed rest?? How was I supposed to pull that off? I had to work! No ifs, ands, or buts about it! Well... we had to make it work. It was for our child's health and safety, after all. The beginning of parenting was here.

After 4 (what seemed to be painfully boring) weeks at home the time had come. On the night of December 8th, I suddenly had pretty bad stomach pains. I had to use the restroom pretty frequently (you take a guess what for!), which I'd read could be the onset of labor. I was worried because at this point I was only 35 weeks along. I wanted to keep her in the womb as long as possible... at least to 37 weeks, when she would be considered full term. I told the hubs that my stomach was hurting and I expressed my concerns to him. He wrote it off saying that it was probably the chicken wings I'd had for lunch. Well... I decided to just believe him and not worry too much. At around 11 pm, I went to bed. If you've been pregnant before, I don't need to tell you about the number of times you have to get up in the middle of the night to pee, do I? Well, that's exactly what was happening. I was wide awake by 2am. I just couldn't sleep! I had to pee every 45 minutes, my belly was HUGE and I could not get comfortable to save my life. So, I took out the iPad and was reading an article while sitting up in bed. Around 2:45 am, I suddenly feel myself peeing... or so I thought! I looked down to see water trickling out of my pajama pants without any effort from me! I thought... "oh no! She must be sitting on my bladder!" I ran to the restroom immediately. When I went to wipe... blood. Oh. my. goodness.

I ran down the hallway screaming at my husband "Honey!! Blood! There's blood! Ah! That's not supposed to happen! Oh my! Oh no! Oh no! Oh nooooo!" As he repeatedly told me to calm down, I could feel my nerves getting worse and worse. I didn't want to call my doctor because it was 3 am! I didn't want to "be rude." Ha! Rude? Seriously... what was I thinking? After about 5 minutes of debating whether I should call or not, I decided I'd better be safe than sorry. I called.

After explaining all of the above to the doctor, I said "Oh... and I'm having menstrual cramps. Is that normal?" Her response? "Yes. Those would be contractions. You're probably in labor. See you at the hospital." She said it so calmly and matter of fact too! I was like " Seriously???? What???? Ahhhhh!!!!!!!" PANIC!!! Suddenly I became a complete mad woman. Screaming at my husband... "Oh my God! This is it! We have to go! Oh my God. Oh my God!! I can't believe this is happening! I'm scared! I'm terrified! Oh my God! I'm scared!!!!" I said all that over and over again as I cried my eyes out and fumbled to get my things together. My husband's response " Relax. Stop stressing out. Women do this every day. You'll be fine." Ha! Easy for you to say!!! He wasn't the one about to push out a watermelon!

Fast forward to 4:06 am... checking into triage at the hospital. By 4:15 am, the nurse was hooking me up to the monitor. My contractions were now 5 minutes apart. I was 5 cm dilated. Holy crap. Halfway there! I laid in the hospital bed nervously calling my mother, to which there was no answer. No answer! My mom! I called my sister... no answer. My best friend... no answer. My brother... no answer! Guess that's what happens when the rest of the world is sleeping and you're in labor! Thankfully, I called my sister in law (my bro's wife) and bam! She answered!! Hallelujah! She put my brother on the phone and I told him he needed to get a hold of mom... somehow, some way! He called her... again and again and again... no answer. Goodness! So, my poor brother drove 45 minutes to her house and barged into her bedroom at 6am : "Mom!!! Mina's in the hospital! Baby's coming!!" My mother said she was so disoriented and couldn't figure out what the heck my brother was doing in her bedroom in the "middle of the night." She put on the first thing she could find and off they went!

By 6:30... hubby, mom and bro were all present. My contractions? 3 minutes apart. At this point... 6 cm dilated. They asked... epidural? My response? "YES PLEASE! THANKS." Their response? "Smart girl!" By 7 am, I was 8 cm dilated and my contractions were 1 minute apart. Epidural still not on board because my blood pressure was too high! Well, of course it was! I was in labor! Get me that EPI stat!!!!! My last contraction was so painful that I just remember crying like a baby and screaming "Someone do something! Help me! Please!!!!" All I heard was the nurse " She's in pain. We need that epidural now!" About 5 minutes later the doctor was in and the epidural was being put in. 8am? 10 cm dilated! Time to push!!! Push! Push! Push! 8:21 am? Baby girl was out!

I was so worried because she was a preemie. But, miraculously... she was 6 lbs, 5 oz. The NICU was there as a precaution. I was sure they would take her in. The doctor brought her over to my arms and said "She's doing great! No need for the NICU. She'll be taken to the nursery for about an hour and then into your room." Thank God. Thank God. My baby girl was born healthy. 5 weeks early, but healthy. Thank God.

She's really such a sweet baby. She sleeps a lot... except it's not in huge increments. About 2-3 hours at a time. She hasn't "slept through the night" yet. Whatever that means. Sometimes she sleeps 3-4 hours through the night... sometimes she's up 3-4 hours through the night. So... it's kind of a toss up as each night approaches.

The hubs and I are attempting a routine at night to get her used to knowing when night time has approached. It consists of a bath at 8pm, followed by brushing her hair, dimming the lights and beginning to whisper. We then give her a nice, warm bottle and rock her until she's drowsy. At that point I put her in her crib to allow her to fall asleep on her own. She always does, which is wonderful! I think by this week I will start reading her a little book at night too.

Were the first 2-3 weeks easy? Absolutely not! I definitely had the post-partum baby blues. Eeeek! I cried at the drop of a hat! And I felt like a failure every second of the day! But, at around 10 days post-partum my hormones seemed to level off, as did my mood swings. At around 3 weeks I started to gain a little bit of confidence in my parenting skills. At 4 weeks I felt like I really knew her quirks more than anyone else. Now... at 5 1/2 weeks I feel a gazillion times better than I did week 1! Worlds apart! Am I still sleep deprived? Of course! Tired? No doubt. But happy? You betcha! More confident? Surely. A functioning zombie? Absolutely! In fact, it's 10 am and I've been wide awake since 2:30! Am I about to crash? Certainly.

I'm looking forward to sharing the rest of this journey with you all. Here are some pics of the journey thus far...