On November 28th, I had woken up from a pretty bad night of sleep, interrupted with lots of contractions. I had thought they were simply BH contractions because I'd experienced a few nights similar up till that point. However, upon waking up, I had realized that I thought my water broke. For a person whose never experienced it before, I was just like-- well, this might be it. And it was about 6:30am, so I turned to look at Alex and simply stated, "Hey, I think we might need to go to the hospital today..." And he was just like, "What?! Like right now?! It's happening?" In Alex's mind, he had imagined a much more intense or rushed moment, rather than me just calmly letting him know my water had broken... Haha.
I called my OB at that point and let her know what was happening since I was only 38 weeks along, and she instructed us to just come on in, and the triage nurses would confirm my water really had broken (Alex was convinced I had just peed on myself, LOL, to which I was like.... Okay, well, I know that didn't happen, but whatever!!) and they would let me know how far along I was in the labor process if my water really had broken.
So, right around 7am we headed over to the hospital, and after some brief testing, our sweet intake nurse confirmed my water had indeed broken and said that it was our ticket to stay and we'd be meeting our baby soon! It's definitely true that nothing can really prepare you for that moment. This little baby we'd been anticipating for the past 9 months was finally coming. It felt surreal, a little scary and mostly just unknown, and for me--- just the impending idea of labor was truly right around the corner.
I went into labor with my mind made up to not have an epidural (I guess I mostly just wanted to experience it all, and see what I was capable of doing and all that...) and as the hours went by, I continued to feel confident about that choice. Hour 6, still felt pretty good, handling contractions relatively easily, same for hours 8, 12, 14... (and it just kept going on and on....) and by hour 16... contractions had REALLY ramped up, a LOT more painful and unrelenting. I was getting only maybe 30 seconds between intense contractions. Alex stood by the bed the whole time, letting me know when they were coming, and how intense they would be and when they'd be over, which was really helpful to me. Then I just hit my breaking point. The pain was becoming so intense, and when they had checked how far along I was after 16 hours, I was still only 4cm dilated! That was NOT what I wanted to hear. LOL.
Honestly, by then, I was SO exhausted, and hearing I wasn't farther along, I knew it was time for me to call it on the no epidural business, because I really didn't think by body would be able to take much more. So, in came the guy who administers epidurals, to bring me some much needed relief. Holding still for him to insert the needle in the midst of intense contractions was insanely hard to do, but somehow I managed and within 5 minutes, I felt like a different person. I was finally able to relax my body and rest as the contractions continued to come. Fairly soon after that, they check my progress again, and it had shot right up to 9cm within a really short amount of time. And right around hour 17 we began pushing to deliver the little one.
I kept watching the clock, because I was excited at the possibility of Joy being born on November 28th, because my birth date is on a 28 too, but as the hours went on and we approached midnight on the 28th, I realized that wasn't
going to happen! Which is totally fine, she came right when she needed to. And after 3 more hours of pushing--- at 1:59am, on November 29th, our sweet little girl was born!
The intense feelings of love, relief, excitement, amazement in that moment is literally something I don't think words can accurately describe unless you've gone through it yourself. Seeing her for the first time was just unbelievable. Such an amazing feeling.
Going home was exciting and a little scary. The first week for me was pretty rough, evening out with all the crazy hormone levels, and just realizing that we are now 100% responsible for a tiny little human being, it was a lot for me to take in. You think I would have been a little more prepared since I had 9 months to think about all that. LOL but, again, I don't think it's one of those things you can really ever be totally prepared for. You just dive in when it's your turn.
Each day gets better and better for me as my body heals and everything emotionally and such goes back to it's normal levels--- and even learning how to care for Joy has become less intimidating as each day goes on. I know that we'll continue to learn as we go for sure, I feel like we learn new things daily with her! And we're each kind of adjusting and getting used to less sleep and more demands from this sweet little life, and it's just been so incredible so far.
We have felt SO supported and held up by our families and friends, coming around us and bringing us meals, encouraging us, and I especially have felt so uplifted by my amazing husband. He has been the most selfless, strong, encouraging and tender hearted through this whole process, and I truly feel so so thankful that he's the one I get to do this parenthood thing with.
So, there is it! I'm sure there's random details I've left out, but, that is the gist of it all! We're incredibly thankful for our precious little gift and it's so exciting and crazy that this is only the beginning of a lifelong journey as a family! Can't wait to see all the things God has got in store for us as we continue on!
 |
| Best Gift Ever! |
