Baby girl is here!! I'm finally posting Caroline's birth story, over four weeks after the fact! I fall more in love with her every single day and I can not imagine life without this precious girl!
Miss Caroline was definitely taking her sweet time to get here. Before she made her arrival, I was pretty impatient and tired of the "she'll come when she's ready" or "still no baby?!" comments that I was receiving. But finally, almost a week late, she decided to put me out of my pregnant misery. I never had contractions or braxton hicks my whole pregnancy, but they finally came when I was 40 weeks 5 days and late late that night my contractions were consistent enough to go to the hospital.
Everything started out great. My contractions were getting pretty painful, but everything was going well. I tried to put off the pain medication so I could walk around but it wasn't long before I caved in. As soon as I got it I was in heaven and wondered why I even bothered with the walking...
When the pain medication started wearing off my nurse told me I could already get my epidural, even though I was only a 2 or a 3. I got my epidural and was instantly in heaven again! My doctor had to break my water twice, because it didn't fully break the first time, so that was a few hours wasted in between, but after the second time my body finally started making progress.
I think I was an 8 when I started feeling my contractions again. Someone replaced the bag for my epidural which helped for a little bit, but not very long and I could feel everything again! Then, because contractions aren't awful enough on their own, I got a fever. The fever meant I could have an infection which could be passed to the baby, so my nurse informed me they were going to have to take Caroline to the NICU as soon as she was born, which resulted in me bawling my face off for about ten minutes.
Then the cherry on top: pushing! Pushing that baby out was the most traumatic experience of my life! Because of the whole fever thing I had to wear an oxygen mask so they made me delay the pushing process as long as possible (I'm still feeling my contractions during all of this waiting around nonsense..). When they finally let me start pushing, my new nurse informs me that pushing could take up to two hours for first time moms! But despite this little fun fact I'm (unnecessarily) optimistic because my day nurse had told me that Caroline was so low I'd be able to push her out fast... Nope. Took me about an hour and a half to get that girl out! And it didn't help that my doctor said that Caroline was getting distressed by me trying to push her out, so I could only push every other contraction (she just really didn't want to come!). The whole time I was pushing her out two thoughts kept going through my head: 1. I would give anything for a c-section right now and 2. I furiously hate anyone who chooses to give birth naturally (in hindsight I am very glad that I didn't have a c-section and I harbor no ill will towards anyone who opts for a natural birth). So 36 sleepless hours and 20 hours of labor later, Caroline was finally born! This is where I should have finally been rewarded with my magical and happy baby moment after all that hard work, but I only got to hold her for maybe 30 seconds before they whisked her off to the NICU.
Got to visit this beautiful girl in the NICU before we were moved to our new room!
Practicing her kissy faces in her sleep!
Finally has some room to sprawl out now that she's out of Mommy's tummy!
The second day after she was born, I got a spinal headache from my epidural and couldn't really get out of bed, so they finally let her come stay in our room for a little bit so I could breastfeed her. This was right after my blood patch so I was starting to feel better and I got to snuggle with her for the first time and finally have my magical baby moment :)
P.S. This picture is deceiving, but I promise I don't really have a mullet
It took forever, but we finally got to leave that awful hospital and go home!!
