I'd been having some blood pressure issues (thank you kitchen renovation) so my doctor had me come in at 36 weeks (Wednesday March 11, technically one day before I was 36 weeks) and checked me. I was 2 cm dilated and 90% effaced. He said that doesn't necessarily mean a whole lot but given my history, he didn't think I was going to make it to my due date. Tell me something I don't know! He told me to go ahead and make my appt for the next week and he would see me then if he didn't see me in the hospital sooner. I was totally okay with this since I was getting VERY over being pregnant but I had a few concerns that made me hope I could at least hold on until March 28. The first concern was that Teri couldn't get off work that week so she wouldn't be around to help with Madison and McKinley. I was really looking forward to that part since I didn't have any family to help when I had McKinley. So I wanted to make it until at least the end of that week. The second concern was Madison's birthday on March 21. All along, I had been hoping we could get one week between the birthdays, preferably one week after Madison's. Lastly, our kitchen was scheduled to be complete on March 27 so I thought March 28 sounded mighty fine (although this ended up being a moot point since our kitchen actually didn't get finished until April 13).
Nothing happened until the following Tuesday, March 17, when I lost my mucus plug. I had never noticed this happening before so I did some research, most of which said that labor usually followed within a couple days. At my appt. that afternoon, I had progressed to a 3 but then my doctor told me he was going out of town for the rest of the week and weekend and wouldn't be back until Monday, giving me even more reason to try to hold out! I had to deliver McKinley with an on-call doctor, who turned out to be pretty much the spawn of Satan so I wasn't looking forward to a repeat.
However, holding out was not meant to be. At 1 am on Friday, March 20, I woke up just feeling weird, not really in pain, just weird. Like I could feel things were happening down there. I went to the bathroom and walked around for a few minutes, but I was still feeling unsettled so I sat down on the toilet again and felt the uncontrollable gush, just like with Madison. I quickly jumped in the shower stall so I could see what the liquid looked like (color is important) and yelled for Jordan. After calling his name several times (he's a really hard sleeper!), he stumbled in and I told him "We've reached the end of the line - my water just broke." We both sprang into action. I had most of my stuff packed but needed to get some things together for the girls, who would be going to Jordan's sister's house. He called Jenna to let her know we were coming to drop the girls off. I had been really hoping it wouldn't happen in the middle of the night so we wouldn't have had to wake her up like that, but she was awesome and had a make-shift bed on the couch ready to go for the girls when we got there. We left our house around 1:15, dropped the girls off and were at the hospital by 2 am.
I was totally gushing fluid (just like with Madison) and had my first contraction on the freeway on our way to drop the girls off. By the time we got to the hospital, my contractions were every five minutes. They put me in triage and did all the paperwork and testing before officially declaring that my water had broken, I was dilated to a 4 and I was being admitted, which we all already knew. It took longer than I thought it should to get me into my room, but that might just be the contractions talking! I was in there around 4 am and the magic man arrived with my epidural around 4:15. He was pretty funny and I was very happy to be getting my drugs since the contractions were getting harder and were almost on top of each other at this point. During the epidural, the nurse asked me if I was nervous, which I wasn't, because she noticed my blood pressure was high. I had horrible visions of reliving my supposed toxemia episode that I had with McKinley, but thankfully she did the little bang on the foot test and said I was okay.
Once the epidural was in, I was resting comfortably and we decided to get some sleep. Jordan was out almost immediately, but I wasn't really feeling all that sleepy so I just listened to the heart monitor and passed the time. Around 5 am, I noticed a definite decrease in Reagan's heart rate. A moment later, the nurse came in having seen the same thing at her station. It didn't correspond to a contraction though so she put an oxygen mask on me and had me change position a few times. After a couple minutes, the heart rate returned to normal, but the nurse wanted to keep the oxygen on me just in case and had me stay on my right side. This made sleeping pretty impossible (that oxygen mask is really annoying!). After about an hour of this, I noticed I was starting to feel contractions on my left side and told the nurse. Evidently all the epidural medicine was sinking to my right side since that's the side I was laying on so my right side was super numb and my left side not so much! So I started rotating sides every 15 minutes to even things out. And of course, Jordan slept through all of this :)
At 8 am, they checked me again and I was a 6 but I wasn't contracting very regularly according to them (I was blissfully unaware of all contractions again) so they decided to start me on pitocin. Around 9 am, I started to really feel some serious pressure. SERIOUS pressure. I kept telling Jordan I wanted them to check me but the nurse wanted to hold off until 10. It wasn't really painful, but it was very hard to not push. Finally at 10, the nurse checked me and pronounced me complete. Then she went to find the doctor, and I was back to trying desperately to not push. Thankfully I really liked the on-call doctor, who had come in earlier to introduce himself, and was ready to roll when he came in about 20 minutes later. They had me do a "practice" push, which resulted in Reagan's head crowning (I hate to brag, but I'm darn good at this pushing thing. I've only had to push for three contractions with all three babies). The next contraction advanced her even further and the doc declared that we'd have a baby on the next contraction! And then we waited. And waited. And waited. For some reason, my body chose that moment to stop having contractions. So basically everyone was standing around the bed while I lay there with my legs in the air. For 10 minutes. At first the small talk and banter was light-hearted and fun. But after a while it started to get awkward. I even semi-joked that I could just push her out without the contraction. Finally it came and with one more push, our baby girl was here!!
After Jordan cut the cord, the nurses gave her to me and I had a few minutes to say hello! It's always amazing to me how much you just immediately fall in love! She had a bit of a cone head from being in the birth canal ready to come out since about 9 am, but she was perfect! I was so excited and happy to finally have her in my arms!!
Jordan and I got to spend most of Friday just cuddling her until Jordan picked up the girls and brought them over in the afternoon. They were so excited to see her and were instantly in love!! It was so fun to see their reactions to her! Nana had driven down from St Johns and came over that evening while Papa and Jenna came to see us the next day. It was so fun to have family around to celebrate with us!
Ready to go!!
Hello Miss Reagan!
Getting her footprints done. All the nurses commented on what long feet and toes she had
Dad already checking out her eyes!
Hi Nana!
We didn't really think she looked like either of the girls at first, but
when Jordan took this picture to send to some family members, we saw a
lot of McKinley in her.
Stupid jaundice. Since both our girls had jaundice, we were concerned about the possibility from the start. I mentioned it Friday evening when the pediatrician came by and she promised to monitor it. Since my milk obviously wasn't in yet and drinking (well, really peeing) is the best way to flush out the bilirubin, I started supplementing her with formula early Saturday morning in addition to nursing. However, despite our best efforts, by Saturday afternoon, her bili levels were rising enough that the docs decided to admit her to the NICU :( Jordan was at Madison's birthday party when I called and told him, and needless to say, we both really struggled with having her in there given our past history. It was also really hard to explain to the girls why they could no longer see Reagan since children aren't allowed in the NICU. But I just wanted to do whatever was best for her and would get us all home together. My friend Kelsie suggested trying a feeding method that allowed her to drink the formula while still practicing nursing, which worked great!! Once the nurses heard our back story, they figured we knew the drill and let us do our thing! I trekked to the NICU all through the night to feed her and her levels evened out with the lights and fluids. Once Sunday morning came when I was supposed to be discharged, I talked to the nurses and made arrangements to stay longer, as long as Reagan had to stay. But when the pediatrician came to talk to us, she was hopeful that Reagan's next blood draw would show a level low enough to let us take her home. Sure enough, around 3 pm we got word that she was okay to leave!! We had instructions to take her to our pediatrician the next day and have her levels checked throughout the week. In the end, the jaundice lasted 10 days and required a total of three doctor's appointments in those 10 days as well as six trips to the lab for heel pricks. It totally sucked! Most people are home resting the first 10 days after giving birth but not us! Thankfully, Teri and Jenna took the girls to St Johns from Tuesday to Friday so that helped a lot! The hardest thing about jaundice is that the only way to get rid of it is lots of nursing and peeing, but it also makes babies very tired so feeding is extremely difficult. I set an alarm and fed her every three hours 24 hours a day. It usually took an hour to get her to stay awake and eat for a total of 20 minutes! But I just kept reminding myself it would get better, and of course it did :) Unfortunately, the pediatrician thinks there's something biological going on between me and my babies so she said that any future children we have will probably have the same problem. I can't wait ;)
Yay! I am so glad things went better this time than they did with McKinley. I am sorry she had to go to the NICU but I am glad she is all better now and just perfect! I keep hoping that this birth will be better like yours. I think it is just that hospital... We will see. I can't wait to see y'all next week and hear everything!!
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