Our Wait is Over....

We finally have our second baby girl in our arms!

Hayden Charlotte arrived on (Thursday) 4/25/13 at 2:59AM. She was 6lbs, 10oz and 21" long! I was 38w4d pregnant.

That Wednesday, the 24th, I went in for a routine doctor's appointment. They had been monitoring me via ultrasound for excessive amniotic fluid-apparently I was on the borderline. No one knew why I had too much, there was no gestational diabetes, Hayden was drinking and swallowing well, she has/had no kidney issues and was a normal sized baby. Apparently, sometimes these things just happen for no apparent reason. Anyway, that Wednesday I went in for my ultrasound and my fluid went from 21 to 31 in a week's time! Dr. R chose then to send me to the hospital for induction, stating that there was no real risk to the baby, but that going into labor on my own could be dangerous because of the fluid (cord prolapse, placental abruption, etc).

So off Dan and I went to the hospital. I was kind of shocked, but not really. I could feel how much fluid I was carrying around and it WAS uncomfortable! Anyway, the doctor came in and checked me and to my surprise, I was already 4-5cm on my own with no help!!! So I guess she would have been coming sooner rather than later anyway. The decided to break my water and wait, thinking that things would pick up quickly. Welllll-we waited and waited and waited and waited....and waited some more. Waited for my contractions to start. Nothing. Dan and I walked the halls continuously and....NOTHING. The thing about induction is that, for the majority of the time, you are extremely bored and waiting for something to happen. Or waiting for doctors.

At 7:30 pm, they decided to start Pitocin. You can imagine how thrilled I was, remembering the Pitocin hell I went through last time with Alex. But, I knew that my labor needed to be kick started and that it was necessary. Things didn't get bad until about 11pm. Then the real shit started. The "Oh my God!...I want to rip my head from my body to stop feeling this"! At this point, I was more than ready for an epidural. Fortunately, this time I got a good one! The doctor only stuck me in the spine once (rather than three times, as with what happened with Alex) and my lower half and legs fell sufficiently asleep!

Things progressed fairly quickly from here. I pushed for about 15-20 minutes. The nurses had no idea I would go as quickly as I would. They should have asked me! Same thing happened with Alex. Anyway, because they had no idea how quickly I could push a baby out, they didn't call the on-call doctor until the very end. At this point, they were yelling at me to STOP pushing so she could get there! Grrrrrr! It is basically IMPOSSIBLE for a woman who's baby is crowning to STOP pushing. Your body just takes over. Anyway, Dr. K made it with about 30 seconds to spare and Hayden Charlotte was born!

I'd like to say things were perfect from there....but they were not. Hayden had some trouble breathing when first born and had minor oxygen desaturations, especially during feedings. This was likely related to being in so much fluid and being born so quickly, her chest didn't get squeezed enough coming out-so the fluid wasn't squeezed from her lungs. She spent four, LONG, stressful days in the NICU monitoring her breathing. It was scary. It was a feeling of complete helplessness. But thank you God, she's home now and doing fantastically! And thank you God for the NICU nurses, they are absolute angels, all of them.

So we are adjusting to being a family of four. Dan's parents are over from Australia and his mother is helping out a ton with cooking and either watching Hayden or Alex. Alex is loving her little sister and is good with her-but testing us a bit at the moment. But it's what I expected. Now I will leave you with some pictures....Ok, scratch that...Blogger is broken and not letting me upload anything. I'll do it later....