Here's the scoop

Okay so for journaling purposes I want to write down how it all happened....

Friday the 13th, Chris surprised Brindy with an early Valentine's gift. He normally works fridays, but he had gotten the day off so that he could go to the Valentine dance with me that night. But he would have to work on saturday so we celebrated Valentine's Day on Friday. His gift was perfect! I love calla lillies and he picked out some beautiful ones. I have been needing a planter pot to repot some plants I have and so he got me one of those and then of course some sparkling apple cider! And a little teddybear he said was for his baby girl.

I love my Handsome Valentine!

So we did go to a Valentine's dance on Friday the 13th. We got dressed and ready and headed out for a little bit of dance instruction before we went to the dance itself.

Us leaving for our Valentine Date Dance February 13th, 2009

It was really fun..until my zipper started breaking because I was just too pregnant and I was trying so hard to fit into that dress because I didn't really have very many selections for a nice dance. So we ran home so that I could change. We missed the dance instruction, but we made it back for the yummy pasta dinner and the fun part...the dance.

Our picture taken at the dance February 13th, 2009

There was a live band there and it was very like from a movie. The band was great! Chris isn't a huge fan of dancing and I am certainly no pro, but we sure had a good time just playin around. I did feel slightly silly being nine months pregnant and trying to bust a move, but it was a good time. Towards the end of the dance I think I actually was starting the first signs of labor, but didn't really notice it. I just thought that my abdomen was tightening up pretty good, like those false, "practice" contractions....but it must have actually been the real thing. By the time we left I started to realize that my stomach was tightening pretty often it seemed like, so I started watching the clock. It was tricky because I still couldn't really tell when exactly one ended or started so I kind of just had to guess, but by the time we got home I was feeling those contractions just about every 15-20 minutes and it was around 11:30 p.m.

I was not tired at all when we got home and was kind of getting excited about having some sort of sign of being in labor. I kept telling myself not to get excited though because it probably isn't the real thing. I waited until about 12:30 before I even said anything about having them at a regular interval to Chris because I didn't want to get his hopes up either. But even when I finally told him that I was pretty much having contractions every 15 minutes, he was dissappointed! I thought he was going to kind of freak out, but he just said, "Oh, Brindy! 15 minutes? I thought you were going to say like 3 minutes or something." ha ha... Well they kept coming steadily and I still was not tired. Chris was sitting on the couch flipping through some channels half in his sleep and I was actually sitting here, playing on our blog, watching the clock and getting more excited, but trying not to be because I was in no pain and there was no panic. Nothing like in the movies...where the mother is screaming and frantically grabbing the husband and running out the door rushing to the hospital.

Finally at 2:00 a.m. I got another tightening (contraction), and I literally felt a rush of liquid fill my pants! :) I just kind of jumped in my seat and gasped. "Chris!" I said, pretty much waking him up, "I think my water just broke!"
"What?" he said.
"I'm not even joking! I really think my water just broke!" I said again as I rushed into the bathroom. He followed me in a few minutes later.
"Are you still peeing?" he laughed.
"No, Chris I am not peeing...that's not pee." ha ha Then we really started flipping out. We were having a baby!!! Whoa!

We started gathering things to go and I started doubting. I just kept asking myself, what if it really isn't my water, my contractions aren't hurting at all, what if we get to the hospital and they send us back home, I would feel so foolish. So I told Chris we needed to wait a little longer just to be sure. He was positive and just kept wanting to go right then! But I won and told him to just at least wait until 3:00 a.m. and if I was still having contractions we'd go. And we called a few people to ask. We called my parents, so it was like 4:00 a.m. their time and they said, "yep! sounds like your water broke, you better go to the hospital." We called Chris's mom and she said, "yah, you better go to the hospital." and so finally 3:00 a.m. came and I made one more phone call to the doctor. And he said, "Well if you think your water has broke, you better come into the hospital." So I finally was convinced and we left for the hospital.

Us going out the door! Leaving for the Hospital!! 3:00 a.m. February 14th, 2009

We walked in and the security guard looked at us, "you know where to go?"
Chris looked at him and then smiled as the security guard pointed to the labor and delivery sign, "Labor and delivery."
"yep" he said.

So we got on the elevator and up we went, our stomachs were turning and I was just hoping that this wasn't a false alarm. We get to the door to go into the Labor and Delivery and there are two phones, one said "For visitors" and the other one was red and it said "emergency, for Mothers in Labor Only". So I hesitantly picked up the red one and told the lady, "I think I'm in labor..." so she opened the door and checked us into a room. I was still in no pain and it was now about 3:30 a.m.

I changed into one of those lovely gowns and Chris and I laughed because I didn't have anything on underneath anymore to catch my broken water....I was freaking out because I was leaking all over their floors and didn't know what to do! We were both just laughing so hard. I finally made it back into the bed and we waited. The nurse came in with some testing strips to see if it really was amniotic fluid, and sure enough it was! "You passed, you can stay!" she said. ha ha..woo hoo! It wasn't a false alarm and I was really going to have a baby sometime very soon!

Me thinking that labor isn't so bad. The monitors! Look at those Peaks! Me telling Chris to stop taking ugly pictures of me!

By 4:00 a.m. I was still hardly dialated past 1 cm. and my contractions were not painful. The doctors were concerned because my water was already broken and labor should have been progressing faster. So they started me on some petocin to try and help me along. The contractions started getting a little bit painful, but by about 6:00 a.m. I was still not dialated past 2 cm. At this time they were really getting concerned because our baby's heart rate kept dropping during contractions. This concerned them because labor was still not very intense at this point and if my baby was already struggling, how would she handle it when it really started rolling? So they put some monitors into my uterus and on the baby's head and turned up the petocin. This is when it started to get rather painful. The doctors kept prepping us for a cesarean section because the baby was still not handling it well and they thought with me still only dialated 2 cm. they might have to go do an emergency cesarean section. At around 8:00 a.m. I decided to get an epidural. After I received the epidural, the baby's heart rate improved and was looking great, I finally started dialating quicker, and things went so much smoother.

I got some sleep and Chris got some sleep and then the next thing I know it's about 2:00 p.m. and they told me I was dialated to 10 cm. and that we were ready to start pushing!! They waited for Chris's brother to get there so they could give me a blessing and then as soon as they were done, it was time!

Talking with Dr. Thorpe. Getting ready. (they kept making me wear that oxygen mask!)

I pushed through about three contractions, a total of about 10 minutes and our little Valentine girl was out and greeting us! Her cord had been wrapped around her neck twice, which explains the dropping heart rate. They took her over to the table to check her and Chris got to go over there. She was having a hard time breathing for a little while. Her lungs were full of fluid. They called in a resperatory therapist and I had to just sit on my bed and watch as my little baby just screamed and gurgled while this man sucked liquid out of her throat. They had to do that for about 15 minutes and finally they wrapped her up and let Chris bring her over for me to see. What a happy and overwhelming moment. I got to nurse her and then they were back to take her downstairs for a bath and all that. Chris got to go once again. They cleaned me up and took me downstairs too and from then on we have enjoyed our beautiful little girl! What a blessing she is!

There's how it all happened, what a life changing couple of days!