(BTW started this blog on Saturday and it is now Wednesday....welcome to your new life, alli........)
So I figured I'd try to blog about the birth :)
Paul took Declan down to the baseball game at Coastal and little c-man is asleep and I've been wanting to blog about this for prosperity's sake (and I know my 18943 blog followers are totally dying to know) so here we go :)
WHAT A DIFFERENCE #2 MAKES!!! OH.MY.WORD. Declan's birth was horrible. Truly not a good experience and I was pretty much terrified going into this one, knowing how the last induction went but my oh my was this one so much better.
We left the house a little after 4am as we had to be at the hospital at 430am........which means our last night of "good sleep" for a looong time was cut quite a bit short. Awesome. So we got there, checked in, started alllllll the paperwork and got hooked up to my antibiotic as I was group b strep positive this go round. You have to get in 4 hours of the antibiotic so that was really the biggest reason I decided to go ahead with the induction.....I was very afraid that if I went into labor I wouldn't get the 2 rounds/4 hours in so at least this way we could kind of plan it. Around 6am they started the pitocin and I was fully anticipating the contractions to come on hard and fast the way they did last time but it was the complete opposite......I could hardly feel them! I thought for a hot minute there that maybe I could do this without an epidural. HA! Clearly I was sleep deprived to have a thought like that......
Dr Spielvogel came in and broke my water at 7:15........and there was a lot of water. Maybe last time I was so in the weeds that I don't remember this happening but wow...that's a pretty odd feeling. He told me that I didn't break the record for the most water he's ever seen but I sure came close ;) I'm in the biznass of breaking records though so I was a little disappointed...................
After he broke my water the contractions started coming on pretty strong and the nurse kept asking me if I wanted to go ahead and call for that epidural. I don't know what I was thinking really......the contractions weren't HORRIBLE so I thought maybe I could tough it out PLUS I didn't want to get one too early if I wasn't at least 4 or 5 cm dilated. So they finally got pretty bad and I asked the nurse to check me and I was a 4 (I went in at 2) so I said ok lets do it. That was at 9:30am and the anesthesiologist didn't come until 10:15 and by that point I was on another planet trying to breath thru those big bastards. You forget how quickly they come. I literally had maybe a minute to rest before I went off the deep end again.........
So the drug guy comes and of course there's more questions about your health history you have to go thru...I almost took that massive needle and stuck it in my back myself. I got the epidural around 10:30 and by 10:40 everything was starting to relax again phhheeewweeeeee - those things are amazing!!! Sidebar about an epidural - I always thought (before I had babies) that an epidural basically paralyzed you from the waist down so you can't feel anything but that is certainly not that case. It just takes the severe pain away but you can still feel the pressure build and certainly when you're pushing you can feel THAT. Which I kind of like.......the crowning part I don't like, however ;)
Anyhow, back to business. My doctor came at 11:15 (oh crap Carrig is up.......I'll continue later.......)
.........Ok so we're back - where were we. 11:15, Dr S comes in to just check on me over his lunch break and surprise - I was complete! THAT.........that was quick. Less than 45 mins and I went from a 4 to a 10 (again, very happy I did not have to feel those contractions......). I had a tiny bit of cervix left so he said he'd give us about 15 mins to get ready and then we would roll (I think he wasn't planning on delivering right then so he had to rearrange some appointments :) ). He came in at 11:30, I pushed 4 times and Carrig was here!!!!! It was so fast, so unexpected but so so so so wonderful. I burst into tears as soon as he was out and on my chest. I couldn't stop kissing his gross, gooey little body. With Declan I was so exhausted, in so much pain, so unbelievably overwhelmed with the whole situation that truthfully I don't think I enjoyed nor do I really remember the moments after his birth because I just didn't get it.........but this time around was (again) different. The love I have for my first born is so so so so strong so when Carrig came out it was like that love immediately multiplied and spread...and I was unbelievably overwhelmed but in the best way possible.
Like I said about Decky's birth, I really don't remember those first few moments so I asked my mom to take pics of this time and while most are way too graphic to post (I can totally appreciate them but you guys might not :) ), there are a few that capture absolutely perfectly how I was feeling - I'm telling you, I was a bumbling, crying mess but it was such raw emotion and I'm SOOOOO thankful my mom was able to catch them.
So that's the long and longer of it! It was a shockingly wonderful experience. My doctor, about halfway thru my pregnancy and our monthly, turned twice a month turned weekly appointments, became one of my favorite people in Myrtle Beach. I LOVE him. Not in a weird way, but seriously I want to be buds....he's a very very cool dude and I can't say how much I enjoyed the whole experience and a lot of that is due to Dr Spielvogel - so if anyone lives near the MB and is prego, go see him. He really is phenomenal....
The only other thing I want to note is (and if you don't like gross details just stop reading now), is how good I have felt this time. Oh I've still been emotional and the hormones have raged, but I'm more talking physically.....With Declan I tore bigtime. I had stitches inside and outside and pretty much the whole way thru and they were beyond painful...made everything very uncomfortable for about a week and a half. This time though I hardly tore and I can say without any hesitation that not for one second have I felt like I had a baby. It is the weirdest thing on earth. As with everything else in this delivery process, but I was fully expecting one thing to happen and the opposite did - I took Motrin while I was in the hospital just as more of a preemptive strike because I was just waiting for the pain to come and hoping that would lessen it but from the minute my epidural wore off it was like ok.................really? That's it? I felt like I could have gone running the next day. Literally no pain. I don't know why that is but I will take it any day of the week...I've felt so good that Paul has asked me about 4890 times if we can go ahead and start trying for a girl...........................UHHH NO!
Ok little little buddy - so there's your (thorough) birth story. Your daddy, your GiGi and I were all there when you came into this world and it was truly quite a day. You were and continue to be surrounded by an unbelievable amount of love and we just can't wait to see you grow.............now life REALLY gets fun ;)
