When I got up, Pete had asked me if I wanted him to get up with me, and I told him to stay in bed until I figured out for sure what was going on. A few minutes later, he was getting up anyway because it was pretty that apparent that something <\/em>was going on. We worked on finishing packing (toiletries and last-minute items) and getting dressed and ready for the hospital. I took a while though because every 2-3 minutes I was leaned over on the couch, on the birthing ball, or on my hands and knees working through a contraction.\u00a0 I had heard from a number of moms that contractions feel like reeaaallllly bad period cramps or reeaallllly bad poop cramps.\u00a0 For me, it didn’t feel like either.\u00a0 It was definitely its own feeling.\u00a0 I don’t know what I could possibly compare it to.\u00a0 It just felt like labor!\u00a0 Around this time, I was already thinking I might end up having an epidural after all….\u00a0 I think I would have been a lot calmer if I had more of my stuff together so I could focus more on laboring and less on gotta do this, gotta do that.<\/p>\n Since I’m too vain, I was also attempting to put my makeup on in between contractions.\u00a0 Haha, that was a challenge.\u00a0 Especially the eyeliner. =P\u00a0 But hey, if I’m going be having a baby, that means that there will be pictures after.\u00a0 Can’t lose sight of that. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n While I was packing or putting makeup on or whatever I felt I needed to be doing, Pete called the doula.\u00a0 She asked if we wanted her to meet us at home or at the hospital. I said home, but a few minutes later I said nevermind I need to get to the hospital, so Pete called her back. =)<\/p>\n I regret not getting one last prego picture before leaving for the hospital.\u00a0 It’s something I had planned to do (especially since, toward the end, I had procrastinated taking belly pics).\u00a0 However, since it all started happening faster than I had expected or mentally prepared for, it wasn’t really at the top of my to-do list.\u00a0 And I certainly didn’t feel like taking a picture by the time we were AT the hospital.<\/p>\n The car ride was hard because there’s no real way to try to get more comfortable.\u00a0 I was trying to eat a little (a frozen microwave breakfast quesadilla thing …portable and it had protein…and it’s what we had) since I knew my diet would be ice chips for a while, but I just didn’t have an appetite.\u00a0 We got to triage around 5:00 am.\u00a0 Getting a triage room felt like it took forever because the contractions were getting more intense, and they were still 2-3 minutes apart.\u00a0 Also, not surprisingly, it is HARD to fill out paperwork when you’re in labor!\u00a0 Thank God I had pre-registered!\u00a0 I was definitely questioning my ability to go without the epidural at this point because I knew I had a long way to go and it was getting much tougher getting through them.<\/p>\n My doula, Julie, arrived shortly after we got a room in triage.\u00a0 Funny side-story before I get too entrenched in talking about labor: Julie is only about 3 years older than me.\u00a0 And she’s one of those people who always looks good, even in comfy clothes.\u00a0 But the old lady who goes around confirming your insurance information thought she was the grandma to be!\u00a0 I was like…wait, what???\u00a0 That lady obviously needed an eye exam. \ud83d\ude09\u00a0 That story got all around that day.\u00a0 The nurses really got a big kick out of it.<\/p>\n Anyway.\u00a0 That morning was definitely the longest it ever<\/em> took me to pee in a cup.\u00a0 But finally I had my sample, I was in my hospital gown, and I made\u00a0 it onto the table.\u00a0 The triage nurse checked my cervix, and she said I was 3.5 cm dilated…I was like, you must be kidding me.\u00a0 So I stayed a while longer while Julie and Pete helped me try to relax through the contractions.\u00a0 I think it was an hour later when the nurse checked me again…STILL 3.5 cm.\u00a0 She said she wasn’t going to report to the doctor on call yet because, by the way I was acting, she felt like I was really in labor.\u00a0 But, if she reported to the doctor then, protocol would be to send me home because I wasn’t 4 cm.\u00a0 I was thinking, if you send me home like this, I will just hang out in the lobby of the West Pavilion for a while then come right back.\u00a0 Anyway, the nurse said she’d check me again before her shift was over (in a little less than an hour).\u00a0 Julie thought I probably had changed, but the triage nurse was holding out so she could be the hero when she checked me again (or something like that).\u00a0 She seemed pretty put out by it, and she took note of the nurse’s name.\u00a0 But part of me wondered if Julie just wanted to make me feel better about not progressing in that hour. =)\u00a0\u00a0 During this time, I was having a really hard time relaxing and, though I was getting more excited, I still wasn’t feeling very confident.\u00a0 At any rate, when I was checked again, I was 5 cm, so I was finally admitted and given a room in L&D.<\/p>\n my room<\/p><\/div>\n <\/a><\/p>\n It was actually Room 4 \ud83d\ude09<\/p><\/div>\n First they had me use the restroom.\u00a0 Then I got on the bed\/table and got my IV.\u00a0 I was surprised to get it in my wrist, but I guess that makes more sense for those circumstances.\u00a0 Once I got settled into my room, I think I felt more at ease knowing things were finally moving along and I could finally settle in, make myself at home for a while, and do whatever I needed to do to handle the contractions better.\u00a0 I think I remember thinking, wow, I am going to have my baby HERE!\u00a0 Julie set out a fake candle to use as a focal point and a Bible verse I had printed and framed (2 Timothy 1:7 – For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind).<\/p>\n Things to focus on.<\/p><\/div>\n \n Being a little more relaxed, I started handling contractions a lot better.\u00a0 In the background, we listened to a relaxing praise and worship mix CD that I had burned for this event.\u00a0 (Side note: I really like all the music on that CD, but I haven’t cared to listen to it since!)\u00a0 My hope was that it would be relaxing background music that would help me stay focused and help me remember to pray.\u00a0 Maybe it helped a little, and I’m glad I had it, but I really didn’t pay that much attention to it.\u00a0 I only ended up wanting it loud enough to hear something<\/em>…seldom did I want it loud enough to really hear the words or even much of the melody.\u00a0 But it was nice.<\/p>\n focused<\/p><\/div>\n When my OB came in to see me, she told me she had swept my membranes at my appointment the day before.\u00a0 NO WONDER I was crawling up that table when she checked my cervix.\u00a0 I think I was in good enough spirits to laugh about that.\u00a0 Part of me was a little annoyed that she did it without telling me what she was doing, but I didn’t really care.\u00a0 She probably does it that way to keep us from playing mind games with ourselves or getting too disappointed if it doesn’t work.\u00a0 I didn’t really care…though I would have made a point to go to bed earlier…just in case!\u00a0 But one thing is for sure…if she tries that again next time, I’ll know what she has done!<\/p>\n My OB<\/p><\/div>\n \n I had no sense of time…it was a few hours later before I discovered the clock on the wall (was curious too if Julie blocked it deliberately or if she just happened to be right in my line of sight).\u00a0 But at some point, my doctor came in and said they were going to break my water.\u00a0 I asked if we had to do it then.\u00a0 I remembered talking with Julie at one of our meetings about how it’s good to ask questions about why things were being done in order to understand more and make more educated decisions on whether or not I really want to proceed that way.\u00a0 I wasn’t sure I wanted to leap right into a super medically augmented labor, not that just having one’s water broken is really a big deal.\u00a0 But I liked the idea of giving my body a little more of a chance to see if it would break on its own, and I was nervous that labor would get more intense much more quickly.\u00a0 (I had also heard that it hurt a lot, and I said something about that…which immediately made me feel silly since there I was attempting a medication-free labor and delivery, and I was worried if it would hurt to have my water broken.)\u00a0 I was told that it didn’t hurt, and I should do it if I want her to be the one to deliver the baby (as opposed to whoever was on call after the business day was over).\u00a0 I really did want my doctor to be the one to deliver her, if possible, so I agreed to let them do it.\u00a0 It didn’t hurt at all.\u00a0 It was a really strange feeling though, all that warm fluid gushing out at once.<\/p>\n The contractions did become more intense, but I didn’t remember it happening terribly suddenly.\u00a0 I was surprised that some of the things I really wanted the freedom to do–use the birthing ball or peanut, walk around, etc.–I didn’t care about doing any of those things at all.\u00a0 I didn’t really even care about position changes, though they may have helped.\u00a0 I just laid there on my back until some time later when I turned over on my side.\u00a0 The thing that helped the most was when Julie applied pressure to my forehead.\u00a0 There were other counter-pressure things Julie could do, among other things, but the forehead\/face thing was best for me.\u00a0 I didn’t care about food like I thought I might.\u00a0 But I tore through those oh-so-delicious ice chips.<\/a><\/p>\n I’m not sure how much time passed…I still hadn’t discovered the wall clock…but it didn’t seem long before they checked my cervix again and I was already 8 cm!\u00a0 At this point, I was asked about the epidural.\u00a0 (It wasn’t inappropriate for them to ask…I had expressed my waning confidence when I was in triage.)\u00a0 But since I was handling the contractions better, and I had gotten to 8 cm seemingly quickly, I declined.\u00a0 Part of me wanted it, but I still really wanted to avoid it, too, and I felt like I might just be able to do it.\u00a0 (I was also holding out hope that I would progress to 10 at the same rate I had gotten to 8, but no such luck ;))\u00a0 Plus, I had learned in childbirth class that the “ideal” time to have the epidural was between 4 and 7 cm, so I thought it might be too late.\u00a0 I was also still concerned about it making me too numb to push effectively, and I feared that getting it late-ish might make that even worse.<\/p>\n I labored naturally for a good while.\u00a0 I think I handled it pretty well for a while, too.\u00a0 The only medicine I got was something for some wicked heartburn I was having.\u00a0 After a while, though, when the contractions were getting more intense, I started second-guessing my decision about the epidural.\u00a0 I wasn’t prepared to ask for it though.\u00a0 I kept hanging in there, but my confidence was waning as I was checked at least a couple more times and I was still at 8.\u00a0 Somewhere deep down, the rational part of me knew that 8 was just a number.\u00a0 My body was still getting ready to deliver a baby.\u00a0 But even knowing that, I was still frustrated and a little discouraged.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div>\n The contractions continued to get more intense, often with no break between them at all.\u00a0 Just as one was beginning to fade, it ramped right back up again.\u00a0 I wasn’t even in transition yet…I think if I knew the time for pushing was near, I would have been encouraged.\u00a0 But there was no evidence of any progress despite the intensity and duration.\u00a0 Around this time, I think I sounded something like a moose being tortured.\u00a0 Not loud, but definitely not silent.\u00a0 I was pretty annoyed that I was making sounds, but not annoyed enough to do anything about it.\u00a0 I even said something at the time about how I didn’t want to make any sounds (it’s something I had thought of ahead of time, haha), but it felt better to do it.\u00a0 I must have been at least a little embarrassed about it though because I wasn’t doing much talking at this point and yet I managed to get out a full sentence about it.<\/p>\n Something that I didn’t<\/em> get around to saying is how, when the contractions were at their most painful and most constant, the feeling of bearing down was very intense.\u00a0 To the point that I was having to make a concerted effort to not <\/em>push…since that would have been a very bad idea at only 8 cm.\u00a0 It made it more difficult to relax, not that I was very good at relaxing at this point anyway.\u00a0 I felt like I needed to relax for labor to progress, but I also felt like I couldn’t relax while avoiding involuntary pushing.\u00a0 BTW–not relaxing doesn’t really do much to help with pain.\u00a0 Quite the opposite.\u00a0 So between that and scarcely getting a break between contractions, I kind of started beating myself up for not getting the epidural when I had the chance.\u00a0 Probably not productive, but it was hard to get that thought out of my head.<\/p>\n After a while of that, the nurse came in and said that the doctor wanted to start me on pitocin to regulate my contractions since they weren’t as effective as they’d like.\u00a0 She said I didn’t have<\/em> to have it, but labor would likely take a lot longer before I would be ready to start pushing.\u00a0 I got the impression that they kind of just wanted to get things moving along so my<\/em> doctor could be there for the delivery before the end of the work day.\u00a0 I was partially bummed out, but I still really liked the idea of having my doctor instead of whoever would be on call.\u00a0 I was also told that the pitocin would likely make the contractions a lot more intense, so I was offered (respectfully, no pressure) the epidural again.<\/p>\n In my mind, well before labor really even began, pitocin was kind of my deal-breaker when it came to not having an epidural.\u00a0 I was sort of relieved to have a second chance, since I still didn’t want to ask<\/em> for an epidural even though I kind of wanted it.\u00a0 I still had concerns about having it so late, but I was told it wasn’t too late, so ultimately I agreed to have it.\u00a0 The pitocin probably had a lot to do with it, but I also felt that just being able to relax more would do a lot to help labor progress.<\/p>\n By the way, still stalled at 8 cm. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n I think it took about an hour, maybe 45 minutes?? for the anesthesiologist to arrive.\u00a0 I think I was told it would be about an hour anyway.\u00a0 I think I had discovered the clock on the wall by this point, but I still wouldn’t trust my sense of time, and I can’t quite remember anymore.\u00a0 In a way, it felt like a long time, but it in a way it was easier waiting for him just because I knew he was coming.\u00a0 The anesthesiologist was very nice.\u00a0 And very good.\u00a0 I wasn’t really afraid of an epidural hurting, but I was surprised that it didn’t really hurt at all.\u00a0 Maybe it’s just all relative. \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Relief came fairly quickly.\u00a0 I was happy before it even fully kicked in…just having the contractions turned down a notch helped immensely.\u00a0 I still sort of wish they did “weak” epidurals.\u00a0 At any rate, having the epidural placed, I could finally get some rest.\u00a0 I sort of hoped I’d be able to sleep, but I don’t think I ever actually slept.<\/p>\n After that, it didn’t take very long to get to 10.\u00a0 Part of me thought, I should have done this sooner!!<\/em> But really, I’m glad I waited.\u00a0 This way, I was more comfortable with my decision instead of wondering if I should have held out.\u00a0 It probably helped that I was able to rest up for the pushing, and I think it may have helped everything go more smoothly in general.<\/p>\n Finally, I was fully dilated and effaced, and it was time to start pushing.\u00a0 There was something in my birth plan about not pushing until the baby’s head was on my perineum, and they gave me some extra time for that, but I never really cared about that.\u00a0 What I really cared about was pushing when I felt the urge to push, but that was no longer relevant since I had the epidural.\u00a0 The doctor still gave me some time, but ultimately she recommended I go ahead and get started, which was fine with me.\u00a0 I think I was briefly nervous about pushing with the epidural, but mostly I was excited and ready to get this show on the road!\u00a0 A new nurse had come on shortly before pushing began, and she was pretty spunky and fun.\u00a0 I liked her.\u00a0 Her style was the opposite of what I thought I would like.\u00a0 She’s a loud counter. \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 But she was really helpful and encouraging.\u00a0 Between Pete, Julie, and the nurse, I probably had the most amazing support possible. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n Ready to push!<\/p><\/div>\n Julie and me. Can you tell I feel better? \ud83d\ude09<\/p><\/div>\n To my relief, I could still tell when I was having a contraction enough to know when to push.\u00a0 I just felt a some sort of bearing down sensation without it actually hurting.\u00a0 I imagine it’s still easier to push when you can feel the contractions more, but I was also very focused on the task at hand rather than being in pain.\u00a0 I was still afraid of pushing when I shouldn’t, though, so I kept asking the people who could see the monitor, “Now???”\u00a0 And the answer was always yes. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n I don’t know if it was before the pushing or shortly after it started, but I was offered a mirror so I could see my progress.\u00a0 When I had thought about it before, I thought having a mirror might kind of weird me out.\u00a0 I should have known better, though, because my mind has never worked that way.\u00a0 I always want to know and see, if possible, all the gory details.\u00a0 So I said yes to the mirror.\u00a0 I really liked having it because it was encouraging actually seeing <\/em>the progress we (baby and I) were making.<\/p>\n I pushed a couple of different ways.\u00a0 First the more “traditional” way, I suppose.\u00a0 Inhale, hold those legs back and puusshhh with all your might.\u00a0 Shortly after this started, the nurse(s?) thought maybe they should have had me empty my bladder first.\u00a0 I hadn’t peed since I first got to my room.\u00a0 Or maybe I had, once…I have a vague memory of thinking it was a lot easier to move around without <\/em>being hooked up to an IV, but I think I might just be making that up.\u00a0 At any rate, they brought me a bedpan.\u00a0 I tried to use it, but I don’t know if it was the epidural, or just general inability to switch gears.\u00a0 No matter what, though, I just couldn’t pee.\u00a0 I was so focused on trying to pee, I didn’t even notice that the nurse had turned the faucet on to try to help me along.\u00a0 Julie thought I looked “pretty” on my bedpan, something about the way the light was on me, so she took a picture!\u00a0 LOL, a picture of me trying to pee.\u00a0 It’s not obvious in the photo what I’m doing (or not doing), but it still makes me laugh.\u00a0 (Don’t worry, I won’t post that<\/em> picture…though I might have considered it if it wasn’t already safely put away with all the other more personal pictures…more on that later.)\u00a0 In the end, I had to have a catheter to empty my bladder before I resumed pushing.\u00a0 Fortunately, I couldn’t feel it.<\/p>\n Back to the pushing.\u00a0 It takes a couple turns to get the hang of the best way to do it, but then you find your groove.\u00a0 I can’t remember what it was anymore, but there was something Julie kept telling me to do with each push, and I was confused because I thought I was doing it.\u00a0 Maybe it was just part of her reminding me what to do instead of trying to correct me.\u00a0 I wish I could remember what it was.\u00a0 (I swear, next time they’re going to have to teach me everything all over again.)\u00a0 FYI – pushing can be a lot of work!\u00a0 After it was all over, I had sore muscles that I didn’t even know I’d been using.\u00a0 Like in my neck.\u00a0 Anyway, I felt I was getting pretty winded, and sometimes I felt like I was running out of steam before I should stop pushing.\u00a0 They offered me an oxygen mask, which I took between contractions to use as needed, and it seemed to help.\u00a0 I do remember thinking, “I wonder how much this is going to cost.”\u00a0 Haha…but I didn’t really care.<\/p>\n I alternated between the “conventional” style of pushing and a kind of tug-of-war pushing.\u00a0 Memory is hazy again, but I think for this one I put my feet in the stirrups and pulled on a blanket or something (the nurse had the other end) while I pushed.\u00a0 I liked doing it this way, but my upper body strength is sort of…non-existent….\u00a0 So I did that some, but ended up pushing the traditional way by the time I was nearing the end.<\/p>\n For a very brief moment during the pushing, maybe because it was taking a little longer than I thought it might, I was afraid of not being able to push effectively and needing a c-section.\u00a0 That thought was fleeting, though, and I was focused again on the task at hand.\u00a0 At last, the baby was crowning.\u00a0 I could see the top of her head in the mirror.\u00a0 She had hair!\u00a0 They called for my doctor.\u00a0 I had heard from various sources (including my childbirth class) that, even with the epidural, you still feel the baby crowning.\u00a0 I really had no pain or discomfort whatsoever, which was fine with me.\u00a0 I can see how feeling the contractions more could really help with pushing a baby out, but it seems that feeling the “ring of fire” is just a byproduct of being unmedicated.\u00a0 For that part, I really didn’t feel like I was missing out. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n I was glad for the opportunity to take a break from pushing while she was crowning and we waited for my doctor to arrive.\u00a0 It was something I had hoped for so things could stretch out better and reduce any tearing or risk of episiotomy.\u00a0 Before that, it seemed that the nurse was taking some measures to help with that, too.\u00a0 At one point, we were still waiting for my doctor to arrive before I started pushing again, and they told me not to push.\u00a0 I told them that I wasn’t.\u00a0 The contractions were just moving her down on their own.<\/p>\n When my doctor came, she started to ask how we were doing (or something like that), then she caught a glimpse of the state we were in, said something like, “Oh! Okay!” and got those gloves on in a hurry–ha!\u00a0 We were definitely ready to continue!\u00a0 Between pushes, the doctor styled the baby’s hair into a mohawk and curls.\u00a0 That was fun. \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 (Later I learned that my parents sent my brother out around this time to put his ear to the door to see what was going on.\u00a0 He heard, “A mohawk!”\u00a0 Haha, awesome.\u00a0 I was just relieved that that was the only <\/em>time anyone snooped at the door.\u00a0 I didn’t need anyone to hear me when I was channeling the tortured moose.)<\/p>\n I can’t remember when she started, but at some point prior to the actual delivery, Julie started taking pictures.\u00a0 Of everything.\u00a0 I had not<\/em> wanted pictures of eeevverryyythinnnggg<\/em>.\u00a0 But at the time, I was too busy to care or say anything.\u00a0 Now I’m actually pretty glad to have those pictures.\u00a0 But they are not on the camera memory card or on my hard drive or anywhere easily accessible.\u00a0 They are backed up to disk and locked away.<\/p>\n We discovered that it probably took longer to get baby girl to crown because her hand was up by her head (not that surprising…she liked having her hand by her face even at the 18 week ultrasound, and sometimes I could feel her little hands down there before she was born).<\/p>\n Finally, I pushed the head out and, at 3:31 pm, about 13 hours after I woke up early that morning to use the restroom, not yet realizing I was in labor…out she came.\u00a0 I remember saying something like, “That’s it?”\u00a0 I thought there would be a little more to it after pushing out the head, like another push for the shoulders and body.\u00a0 My doctor was like…uhhh no, we don’t want to have any issues with the shoulders.\u00a0 I just said something like, “Yeah, I guess not.”\u00a0 But it’s not like I was talking about shoulder dystocia or something.\u00a0 I had friends tell me about how they pushed their babies out in two pushes: one for the head and one for the shoulders.\u00a0 So I just thought there might have been more to it.\u00a0 After she was out, I remember thinking, “It is<\/em> a girl, right?”\u00a0 Haha.\u00a0 But I soon saw for myself that she was.<\/p>\n Again, I was really happy I had the mirror because I got to actually watch her being born.\u00a0 Well, sort of.\u00a0 I missed part of her actually coming out because I wasn’t expecting it to happen yet.\u00a0 But to me, it was cool to see her crowning, watch her get her hair styled, watch her head get closer to emerging, etc.\u00a0 Because even though I was there (obviously), I would have felt like I missed out if I didn’t actually see<\/em> it.<\/p>\n Pete originally thought he wouldn’t want to cut the cord, but after all that, he decided he could handle it after all.\u00a0 I didn’t think I would care, but I was glad that he was the one to do it.<\/p>\n There were a lot of nurses around because they were worried about meconium, but baby girl cried right away, so we were good.\u00a0 I was relieved about that because it meant we could still get our skin to skin time right away, and I got to try nursing almost immediately.\u00a0 She was so alert and great at everything.\u00a0 I loved having that time (about an hour or so) where it felt like it was just Pete, our baby, and me.\u00a0 Julie was around taking pictures.\u00a0 Nurses were around taking care of their business (which, in the first few minutes, included getting the Apgar scores, which were 8 and 9).\u00a0 And the doctor was taking care of things that still needed to be done…<\/p>\n Just born!<\/p><\/div>\n Tired, happy family. \ud83d\ude42<\/p><\/div>\n …like the placenta.\u00a0 I could hardly even tell that the placenta was coming out, but she told me when it was coming.\u00a0 The mirror was gone, and I couldn’t really see it.\u00a0 That’s one of my regrets about the whole thing…not asking to see my placenta!\u00a0 I don’t have an unusual fascination with placentas like some folks do (in my opinion, sorry if you’re a placenta worshiper ;)).\u00a0 But I really wanted to see it.\u00a0 It crossed my mind to ask, but really I was too distracted by the sweet baby in my arms to care very much.\u00a0 Pete watched it being delivered, and Julie later told me that I had a good placenta.\u00a0 A big one. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n Next the doctor worked on stitching up my tears.\u00a0 Thankfully, I didn’t have an episiotomy.\u00a0 I didn’t care about a couple of small tears.\u00a0 I asked the doctor how bad they were, and she just said, “not bad.”\u00a0 I really wanted to know…1st degree?\u00a0 2nd degree?\u00a0 But again, too much in awe of the baby on my chest to really care enough to ask further questions.\u00a0 Maybe doctors just aren’t used to people like me who are less<\/em> confused by scientific terms and more confused by simpler but vaguer terms.\u00a0 Because similar things have happened before.<\/p>\n I was holding my baby and possibly nursing her by then.\u00a0 Breastfeeding, by the way, does hurt at first.\u00a0 Not like it does after three or four days…that makes your toes curl (it gets better).\u00a0 But it’s amazing how strongly such a tiny, new thing can suck.\u00a0 So I was mesmerized with the baby, Julie was taking pictures of all of us, and the doctor was still at the foot of the table.\u00a0 I heard her ask for “more 4x4s,” but I didn’t really know what that meant.\u00a0 Nor did I really care.\u00a0 But apparently, 4x4s means gauze.\u00a0 Because I was bleeding a lot…not scary a lot, but a lot enough that they didn’t have enough gauze in the room.\u00a0 The doctor said that the baby nicked an artery on each side on her way out.\u00a0 I was asked if I felt lightheaded or dizzy, but at that point I felt pretty good.\u00a0 But I think I was also riding the rush I got from having a brand new baby! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n Meanwhile, baby girl was taken to be weighed, measured, get her gentamicin ointment in her eyes, etc.\u00a0 When I think about it, I think she might have pooped on me and that’s when they took her, haha.\u00a0 Not really sure.\u00a0 Maybe I really was bleeding a lot because this whole bit is kind of hazy for me, like trying to remember a dream.\u00a0 But maybe that’s normal anyway.<\/p>\n 6 lbs 2 oz (apparently they round the oz up)<\/p><\/div>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/babyg.brainstormwarning.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/1.jpg\" "\\"1\\"")
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