Friday, March 23, 2012

When Mommy makes plans...

Jack-Jack laughs.

March 17th at 7 pm I was sitting in the adult session of stake conference minding my own business when I started having yet another round of "useless" contractions. They were every 10 minutes on the dot and lasted the whole 2 hours of the meeting. Afterwards I had to eat something and then ElCid and I took a walk, hoping they would go away so I could get some sleep. They did go away and I was happily sleeping until 1 am Sunday morning then WHAM!! That was a real contraction! And another and another... they were 10 or 7 or 5 or 3 minutes apart, at one point they were 5 minutes apart for an hour but they didn't last a minute each like the Dr had said to call about. After pacing for over an hour and drinking just little sips of water, just in case this was really it, they finally slacked off some and I was able to doze between contractions. About 8 they just weren't giving up or getting much closer/longer so I texted my expert sister-in-law and she called back to say go in. I called labor and delivery and they also said to come in and get checked out. I woke up ElCid who got ready while I took the dog for a walk just to see if it would do anything and off we went.
My final set of pictures, I added front and back view for good measure. 38 weeks, 3 days
We arrived at L&D and I changed into the super cute gown, got hooked to machines, had my blood pressure checked, my blood sugars checked, my dilation checked (ouch!!), and I was a 3. I was also having contractions 9 minutes apart and they were real :) It's always nice to have the official machines agree that you're not crazy or making things up. They called my Dr. and he said "let's have a baby!" we were scheduled for noon but got pushed back to 12:30, he was at a missionary farewell. 

 My armful of bracelets,  I got one more after Jack-Jack arrived that matched hers. 
This looks like someone who will have a baby in 2 hours, right?
 ElCid all suited up.
Jack-Jack arrived on March 18th at 12:59 pm. 8lbs, 5 oz 21.25 inches and shouting for everyone to hear just how unimpressed she was with the rude awakening she had upon entering this world, it's cold!!
She spent a little while in the nursery, her blood sugars were 49, and then they brought her to me in recovery, it was the first time I got to hold my baby in the recovery room :)
Awww, so cute and wide awake.
Kathy sacrificed two personal days to come hang out at the hospital with us so Jack-Jack could be with me and the nurses wouldn't be scared that I couldn't actually take care of her. 
 
After 3 good days with no signs of anything unusual my blood pressure spiked and it was a really good thing I insisted I stay the whole 4 days. I was having a low pulse and really high systolic numbers. So high they considered keeping me, and Jack-Jack would have had to go home without me! After a whole day laying on my left side, thinking happy thoughts, and trying to stay calm, my numbers while still high had stabilized and I was finally let go at 11:30pm on the 22nd.
Finally on our way home!!
So while my blood pressure remained fine for the whole pregnancy I still managed to develop pregnancy induced hypertension, I just did it postnatal this time. I will be on medicine to help control it for the next while and I'm supposed to be taking things even easier than when I've simply just had a baby. 

In the end my Dr. was right, I would never make it to the 22nd, ElCid was happy he didn't have to miss a whole day of work (or church meetings since it was stake conference), LeAnna got her way that I did go into actual labor. Life is about to reach a whole new level of crazy and I just hope I'm really up to the task!

5 comments:

Emily said...

She's so adorable!

Zanne said...

YAY! Pictures! I have to say she does look like her older sister (all that hair!!!) but she looks a little more like You and her Aunt Tiny than Fred did. But that's imho based on these pictures. So cute!!!

Heidi said...

SO CUTE!!! We are so excited for you! Congratulations!

Marian S. said...

Oh, such gorgeous pictures! So glad you are okay. Keep close tabs on that blood pressure, glad your mom is there.

Safire said...

Yay congrats!!