The birth of our baby girl was definitely not what I expected it to be. For one thing, I was certain she would be born in October since her due date was October 14th and I really wanted her to have an October birthday because I love October. Also, I was looking forward to that moment of holding her in my arms as soon as she was born. Well, neither of those things happened.
On the morning of September 27th, I went to my OB appointment and all seemed well though the doctor didn't check me to see if I was dilating. I went home and started to not feel well. I was nauseated so all I wanted to do was lay down but when I laid down, my back really hurt. Needless to say, I was uncomfortable. I didn't really think I was in labor because there was nothing I could time as far as contractions go, I just felt crappy overall. After almost throwing up in front of the Comcast guy who came to fix our internet, I decided to take a shower which didn't really help. Chris came home in the afternoon and was not feeling well either so I thought that we had a touch of the flu or something. He laid down to take a nap but I was so uncomfortable when I tried to lay down so I walked around the house, sat on the couch, anything to try and get comfortable. At around 6:40 pm, I was sitting on the couch when I felt a pop in my lower abdomen. I thought maybe my water had broke so I ran into the bathroom. Instead of a gush of amniotic fluid, I had a gush a blood. I seriously thought that maybe my amniotic fluid had a little blood in it and all was normal. I called Chris in a bit of a panic so we grabbed my half packed hospital bag and anything else we could think of and ran out the door. I started to have contractions in the car about 2 minutes apart and continued to feel gushes of what I thought was amniotic fluid.
We arrived at the hospital at about 7:10 and as soon as I stepped out the car, I felt this huge gush and looked down to find my pants completely saturated and blood spilling out the bottom of my pant leg onto the pavement. It was at that point that I realized that what was happening was not normal labor. We went inside the hospital where I left another blood pool in front of the elevators. Luckily, a hospital employee who worked in Labor and Delivery was standing outside the elevators. She grabbed a wheelchair and was able to call and let the people on the 3rd floor know of the emergency and that I was coming. Otherwise, I would of had to wait at the registration desk. As soon as we arrived, they wheeled me back to a hospital room where I continued to bleed nonstop allover (disgusting I know). There were 3 or 4 nurses in the room and 2 doctors. I had one nurse taking my information, one putting in two IVs, one trying to clean up all the blood, one monitoring the baby and a doctor checking me to see what was going on. It was a madhouse, or at least it felt like it. One thing that was calming to me was that the baby was doing well according to monitors. Because of all the bleeding and because I was only dilated to a 3, they decided I needed an emergency C-section. They did not have time to place an epidural for sedation so I had to have general anesthesia. I said goodbye to Chris and told him to call my mom as they wheeled me away. They took me to the OR, put me out and Teylor Thresher was born at 7:47 pm at 6 lbs 15.9 oz and 19 inches long. Final diagnosis: placental abruption or in other words, my placenta was detaching. Chris was not able to come into the OR during the C-section but was able to be with the baby right after she was born. He put on her first diaper and held her for a while. I woke up in the recovery room an hour later. Chris brought in the baby to the recovery room and I remember hearing her cry as they were walking in. I started crying because it was overwhelming to think of what had just happened in the past couple of hours and now I had my baby. I was sad that I didn't get to have a normal birth experience and hold her in my arms in the first few minutes of her life rather than the first few hours and that Chris did not get to be there when she was born. But, I am so grateful that everything worked out well and that she was healthy. The situation could have been much worse and we may have lost her.
Lookin' good. Hah!
The blood pool I left in the parking lot. Yikes!
She has some hair! I thought she would be bald for sure. When I first saw her, she had a fluff of hair on top of her head but when I touched it, it fell off. Sad.
Teylor must have been real snug in my belly because her feet are always crossed like this.
Relaxing with Daddy!
First walk in the Bob.
Today is Teylor's due date. It's crazy that she has already been with us for 2.5 weeks. She is a lot of work but we sure love her!
We spent Thanksgiving in Oregon since Chris had finals the next week. Chris' dad was able to come and join us. I cooked the entire Thankgiving meal myself, the turkey and all. Next year we are just doing a turkey breast roast since no one ate the dark meat anyway.
