She's Here!

Okay so Im a little late posting this, she's almost a month old! But hey give me a break I was in the hospital with her for one week and Im just super busy with all my kids (yes, I consider my hubby and dog kids because they don't take care of themselves!) So anyway, here is my birth story!

Audrey Laura Craig was born September 2nd at 6:59pm after 19 hours of labor! On September 1st I started having contractions around 3:30pm. I had one every hour for four hours, then the disappeared so I forgot about it. Well that evening Io started nesting! LOL I cleaned my washing machine lol, piece by piece! Then I cooked a huge meal, I had a TON of energy that came out of nowhere, but at the moment I didn't give it a second thought. So that night I kept waking up and I couldn't figure out why. I just kept going potty thinking that was it. So around 12am I realized I was waking up with contractions! So they started out every 45min-1 hour and I was having a bad back labor. My back pain was so awful I wanted to cry. Well, this being my first pregnancy I wasn't exactly sure what was going on because most of the pain was in my back. I got up and took a shower, the warm water really helped the pain. I didn't have any contractions while I was in the shower so I went back to bed. I woke up again and they started getting closer together and longer. So to make a long story short. I spent the rest of the morning on the couch timing my contractions and making a list for the hossy. My mom woke up to get ready for work at 3:30am and I told her what was going on. She said she was not going to work because she thought I was for sure in labor! I wasn't really sure at that point so I urged her to get ready for work just in case they stopped. Well they didn't stop so around 4 I woke up Brandon and told him I was in labor but not to freak out because I wasn't ready to go to the hossy yet. We got everything ready and left the house around 5:30 (I think). The drive to the hospital was so funny! My mom and Brandon were driving me nuts!!! I was more calm than they were! They were both freaking out and stressing out! I was about to smack both of them haha!! On the way there my mom timed my contractions for me and they were becoming very painful. We got there about 6:30 and my contractions were 3-5 minutes apart and lasting one minute or more. I went into the triage room where I was checked. I was 3 centimeters dialated and almost 100% effaced. The nurse said we would wait for 1 or 2 hours and see where I was. In the mean time she had me walk around. Not even an hour later she came in and said that my doctor said he wanted to break my water. So I was admitted into my room where I continued to walk and bounce on my labor ball thing. After my doctor broke my water the pain was so awful!! I was ready for my epidural! It took a while for the anesthetic lady to come in so the nurse gave me some other pain med that made me loopy!! It was so funny! Then the lady came in to give me my epidural and she kept hitting a nerve with the first one so she had to take it out and put it in a different spot but I don't think it hurt at all. Compared to contractions an epidural is nothing! After that I was in heaven!! I couldn't feel a darn thing! I took a nap and relaxed, just sat and ate my ice chips! Well the epi slowed my labor down quite a bit so they started me on the lowest dose pitocen. We waited and waited and waited! Around six I was finally dialated enough to start pushing. The nurse had just come into work and already had to deliver! She didn't have me do any practice pushing because baby was so low already. Delivery was so scary, Audreys heart stopped beating a few times and it scared the living crap out of me. I was a nervous wreck the whole time because she wasn't handling it very well. So we started pushing and about 30 minutes later and a cut from front to back she was born!! She didn't cry when she was born =( she was trying but she couldn't becuase her lungs were full of fluid. She had also swallowed some amniotic fluid and it was red because I had had a placental abruption sometime during labor or something (that's what they think happened because when they broke my water it was clear) They did let me hold her for just a second before they took her to the nursery. I cried so hard, I just wanted my baby. I don't ever want to feel that sad again in my life! I was so scared for her, I just cried and cried and cried. My doctor felt so bad for me so he made the nurses let me hold her. After all my stitches were done they got me all ready and took me to my new room. The nurse took us all to see the baby in the nursery before we went in my room. She had this thing over her head for oxygen and all these wires hooked up to her as well as an IV. It was really hard to see, I just wanted to hold her. That night I couldn't sleep so I went and sat in the nursery and watched my baby. So I think it was the next day, she was doing so well she was taken off the oxygen and brought into my room at 3:30. I was so happy to finally have my baby!! However, she developed jaundice so that combined with the fluid in her lungs made it so that she was a high risk baby. We didn't get to leave the hossy for 6 days. It was really hard but nice too because I could hardly walk so it was nice to have nurses taking care of me and my meals being delivered! After being on the billi blanket her billi levels were still going up so we had to put her under the big light. I hated it so bad! I cried when I had to put that mask over her face and she was still awake. It broke my heart, like I really needed any more heartbreak! Thankfully she only had to do it for two days, we continued the billi blanket then on sunday they took her off of everything. On tuesday we were finally discharged! I was so happy to take our new little family home!!!! We packed her up and we were outta there!! Its been a real adventure having a baby in the house. Im learning my baby's cries and what she likes and what she doesn't. And we are almost sleeping through the night. I love my baby so very much and she is worth every second of lost sleep. Im so very happy for my new little family. We are so in love with each other and happy as ever.