Lil Pumpkin is Here!!

Well, the day we have waited so long for finally came on October 19.  Pumpkin is here and we are so excited!!  I think I am the most excited.  I enjoyed being pregnant since this was my last time, but buddy I always feel soooooo much better once I have my babies that I am so glad she is here.

Her arrival came in a whirlwind!!  And because her story is so different I am going to document it on here.  I don't think I will ever forget it, but I want to make sure I remember! Because I was an elderly pregnant woman :) I had to get weekly ultrasounds starting at week 36.  Pumpkin always looked good and passed her tests with flying colors, but starting at 36 weeks they began to say my fluid was on the lower side of normal.  Week 38 came and my fluid was on the very low side of normal and the high risk doc wanted me to come back in 2 days to get checked again.  So I drank like it was my job the day in between and I got my fluid up.  So we came home on October 18 thinking that we could wait another week.  That night, we were finishing up dinner with girls and my doctor's office called to let me know that the high risk doctor saw something he didn't like with my fluid and wanted us to be induced the next morning at 5:30.  So we packed the girls up and took them to Pop and JuJu and tried to get some sleep in order to head to the hospital the next morning.  I didn't sleep a bit!

My sweet friend Sarah is a L&D nurse at Williamson and she was just finishing up her night shift when we got there.  She knew we were coming and got us in the biggest room on the floor and set everything up for us.  She even hand picked my delivery nurse which was truly a God send and we LOVED her.  I was group B strep positive this time so they wanted me to have 2 rounds of penicillin before I delivered.  They started the pitocin slow and started the antibiotic.  I progressed pretty slowly, but was ready for my epidural early so I made sure to not miss a window.  The CRNA came in and started the epidural.  The first time I was crooked on the bed so she couldn't get it in.  So she took everything out and moved me to where I was straighter.  She still had a difficult time getting the needle in my spine and that took a little while.  She put in the test dose and then turned the epidural up as high as it would go.  Then they laid me back to put in my catheter and I believe that started a perfect storm of a few things.  Speaking to some people after the fact, they think the epidural went into a blood vessel which can cause you to have all kinds of reactions.  Then, they work by gravity and when they laid me back flat, I think it caused the epidural to move too high.  I went in knowing that I had an SVT (heart arrhythmia) but my cardiologist assured me that I would be fine.  And I was, but boy did I have a scare.  My belly was way too numb and I went in with a cough.  Because it was moving up so high I didn't feel like I could cough hard enough to get everything out.  Then my heart started going crazy.  Nate said at one point it got up to 150.  The only thing to do in order to get me out of those was for Nate to hit me really hard on the back and it would jolt my heart back to normal.  But he had to keep doing that over and over again so we decided to turn the epidural off and see if that helped the problem.

It did and things started settling down.  And because the epidural was so strong I was still not feeling contractions.  And as I started feeling them again I just had Nate watch the monitor and we would decide when to turn it back on.  I wanted to wait as long as possible because I was scared of having another reaction or having to have a c-section because of my heart.  Right around this time the nurse upped my pitocin - and buddy did it work quick.  I was a 5 when she upped my pitocin and she and the doc decided to eat lunch and then the doc headed back over to the office.  Well within an hour of her checking me, I delivered Pumpkin.

My nurse was amazing through all of this.  She was very calm and took very good care of Nathan and I and tried to keep us both calm.  So once I was settled everyone left the room and I tried to rest a little bit.  I didn't get to rest very long.  I could tell the contractions were ramping up and then all of the sudden I told Nate it was time to have her, he needed to call the nurse.  He called twice and she came running in and checked me.  It was time for Pumpkin to arrive but I had to try to wait for the doctor.  In a matter of minutes they had the nursery nurse in there set up, the surgical table set up and the doctor flew in asking if she missed it.  She almost did.  From the time the doc came in to the time that Pumpkin arrived was 10 minutes.  I only pushed for 4 of those minutes and our beautiful little gift arrived.  And let me tell you, I couldn't feel the contractions, but I could feel everything else, so I am so glad that she arrived that quickly!

She was born at 1:05 in the afternoon and she was our smallest baby weighing in at 6 lbs. 11 oz. and she was 20.5 inches long.  Everyone keeps saying that she looks like Monkey and I do see it.  It's funny if you look at all three of them on the day they were born, they all look exactly alike to me.  I love it!  What a blessing to have 3 little girls.  Thank you Lord!