Addison

I was due with Addison at the beginning of April. Since my boys both came at 37 weeks, I was pretty convinced that she would follow suit. Well, I was wrong! That was a big mistake that I definitely won't make again. I was so sure she would come early that in my mind I was done being pregnant at 37 weeks! You can imagine, by the middle of March I was dying! I thought I seriously couldn't last one more day being pregnant. I begged and begged my doctor and he decided to induce me at 39 weeks which was March 22nd. Part of the reason that he wanted to induce was that I had been dilated to a 3 for a few days and since I live so far from the hospital, he thought it was kind of risky to be so far away and so close to delivering. We set the date and I made my way to the 21st.

On Tuesday I had an appt. My doctor explained that the induction process would go much quicker if I was dilated to a 4 at the beginning. Since I was only a 3 still, he inserted a foley catheder. If you haven't heard of it, don't worry, I hadn't either. It's like a little balloon with a tube on one end. This is kind of gross- but they insert the balloon (uninflated) into your cervix and then pump it full of water. It stretches your cervix out and when you reach 4 cm, then it falls out. He said by doing this it would take 3-4 hours off my labor. Sounds good to me! They put that it in the early afternoon. It didn't really hurt, but it wasn't super comfortable. That night we met up with my family at Ballpark Pizza to celebrate Jacob's 2nd birthday. When I look at pictures of that night- I look so awkward! It felt kinda yucky to move very much so I tried to sit really still and not move. We stayed the night with my parents and Aaron and I both woke up early the next morning. How are you supposed to sleep, knowing you are having a baby the next morning?? When I got up to get in the shower I discovered that the catheder had worked and it fell out just like it was supposed to!

We got to the hospital around 7 am. After checking in and changing, I got settled in my room. I think they started me at around 8:30. I immediately asked for an epidural. (love my doctor- he lets me get one as soon as labor starts) We had Aaron's parents down for the big event and of course all my family was there. I progressed pretty quickly and I could tell we were getting down to business about 11:30. I told the nurse I felt like I needed to push. I'm not sure she agreed with me, but since this was my 3rd, she took my word for it and checked me. I was a 10 and ready to go. I remember she was a little flustered because the room wasn't ready for the delievery yet. They quickly brought down the big overhead light, set up the warmer for the baby and she paged Dr. May. I forgot to mention that with all 3 of my births, my epidural always wears off at the end, usually the last hour or so. So at this point I was in pain and wanted to get it over with. My doctor showed up and I pushed 3 times and out came our little girl.

At this point, things went into slow motion. I have very vivid memories of the next few minutes. (I didn't mention earlier- during my last 3 weeks of pregnancy they disovered a heart condition with the baby. It was called arythmia. We didn't know a lot about how much it would effect the baby, but they definitely kept a close eye on it and I had very thorough ultrasounds and many non-stress tests at the end to monitor her condition.) During this labor and delivery we had my mom, sister, grandmother and Aaron's mom with us. We were all a tiny bit on edge because of this heart condition. As Dr. May pulled her out, I didn't hear any crying. He put her on my stomach and when I looked at her she was purple-ish. I remember thinking "Get her off me and get this baby crying!" He picked her up very quickly and rubbed her for a minute to get her breathing. This didn't work either. The next thing he says is "Get the team!" I am looking around the room trying to figure out what in the world is going on. Aaron is still up by my head and he says "Oh sh*@!" He NEVER swears, so to hear him say this totally freaked me out. He is usually the calm one. Then I look over at my mom,sister, gma,mother in law and they are all standing together with their arms around each other and they are crying and looking panicked. At this point I started freaking out and went into panic mode. A bunch of people rushed into the room and started doing stuff to her in the warmer. There was a lot of commotion. I remember my doctor trying to talk to me to distract me and it was making me SO mad. I wanted him to shut-up so I could hear what was going on. After a few minutes she started to cry and it was the best sound I have ever heard. I guess the cord had been wrapped around her neck a couple times and she came out not breathing. It had nothing to do with her heart and a following ultrasound showed that the condition corrected itself at birth. They cleaned her up, swaddled her and handed her to me. I could NOT stop crying. After awhile it was kind of embarassing. Even after all the nurses left and my family was all in there, all I could do was hold her and cry. I was so relieved that everything turned out ok and I kept thinking about how long she wasn't breathing. It was by far the scariest birthing experience I have had. Addison Beth was born at 12:06 pm and tipped the scales at 8 pounds 10 ounces- almost 2 pounds bigger than both her brothers! She had lots of brown hair and was already chubby. I finally had my girl- I was thrilled!