Ensley's Birth Story

Josh had been off work since the 24th of February since the only available job was in Canada and he wanted to be closer to home then that. We used that chunk of time to fix things around the house, enjoy our baby shower and finish up purchasing the things we would need for baby's arrival. March 4th I had a doctor's appointment that was very uneventful. I wasn't checked and the doctor scheduled another appointment for the day after my scheduled due date. March 7th, at around 8:00 am I woke up to use the bathroom. Almost instantly I noticed I was having cramping very similar to menstral cramps. The first I had in the entire pregnancy. They were exactly five minutes apart from the get go. I woke Josh up to tell him I was feeling uncomfortable and described the pain. He immediately said "You're in labor" I told him "I don't think these are contractions, they just feel like period cramps" to which he replied, "That's what the doctor said they would feel like, don't you remember?" I didn't remember her saying that, but I did remember that contractions could be brought on by dehydration, and since I had been sleeping for hours I decided I better try to drink some water and see if they would go away. I filled up my water bottle and started sipping it while we lay in bed. They weren't going away, they were getting stronger and closer together. I decided I wanted to get up and jump in the shower in case we needed to head to the hospital. The next thing that needed to be done was installing the car seat. This was something that Josh had procrastinated doing until literally the last minute. He got it put together and installed, under pressure, no problems, like a champ. I was in labor in the nursery watching him add the head support cushion, strap covers, and weather cover and ooing and ahhing over how cute it was between the ow ow ow I kept repeating during contractions. By the time we loaded my bag into the car (no baby bag, we hadn't had one packed yet), I had been having contractions for two hours that were as close as two minutes apart. I said, "Okay, time to go to the hospital, this is when the doctor said we should go" Josh was a little dumbfounded. You only ever hear stories of first labors lasting days, or women having multiple false alarms and being turned back when they try to be admitted to the hospital. He asked if I was sure I didn't want to wait a little longer at home. I told him the hospital was only just down the street, and if they turned us away, it wouldn't be  a big deal. I didn't want to be the girl who waited too long and couldn't get an epidural. Which ended up being a very good call. When we entered the hospital I told the receptionist that I thought I was in labor. She asked if I wanted a wheel chair to go up to the third floor birthing center. I told her I could manage. When we went up to the third floor the nurses took us into a room where they gave me a gown to put on. I had a hard time figuring out front from back, it took me awhile getting it on and when I went to open the door to the bathroom to go back out into the room I noticed directions for putting on the gown. Nice. I climbed into the bed and gave the nurse all my information as she typed it into a computer that was next to me. Then they had to check me. It was the most pain I felt during the whole ordeal. I screamed, and cried, and hyperventilated, while some nurse walked by in the background and snided "It shouldn't hurt that bad" well, it did. I was at a five. They asked if I wanted an epidural I said, "Yes, I think that would be a good idea" She also asked me if my water had broke. I told her "No, I don't think so" to which she said "Actually I think it has and it seems like there is meconium" This had me a little worried, she assured me it would be ok, they would just need to stall me while I was pushing her out so they would have time to suction her mouth before she had a chance to take her first breaths. Getting the IV in seemed to be quite the ordeal, as I was a little dehydrated, my veins were small, and I have poor circulation. Three nurses, a smaller needle, and four attempts later the anethesioligist was finally called up and she had only a little trouble inserting it. "Fifth time's a charm" I said. I was checked again after that and was dilated to a seven. I needed to wait until the IV fluids were done draining into me before I could have the epidural and I was very nervous that I would run out of time before that could happen. Luckily I didn't. After the epidural I didn't feel the pains of the contractions at all anymore. I couldn't even tell I was having them. I was very hungry though and could feel hunger pains. All I could think about was how much I was looking forward to eating a packzi for breakfast before my labor had started and nixed the idea. After having some family visitors for awhile I was  put on oxygen to help wake up baby who had fallen asleep in utero despite the contractions. The nurse was concerned that this would make it harder to push her out. After that I was checked again. I was at a nine and a half and the nurse said the doctor would be coming in soon and had me start with some practice pushing. The first attempts seemed horrible although the nurse and Josh were both very reassuring and just helped me by telling me what I was doing wrong, not holding in my breath while pushing. I got the hang of it fast however, because once baby was further down in the canal my stomach muscles seemed to take things into there own hands and were contracting involuntarily more or less. The nurse said this was a very good thing. Since my labor was moving so quickly they tried to slow down the delivery part so that I would have more time to stretch I guess. The nurse was having me skip pushing every other contraction and just breath through it. This was very difficult and uncomfortable to do and it didn't help anyway, at all. The doctor came in to deliver ( not my usual doctor who happened to be out of town, just a random doctor that I had not previously met) he was told, "They didn't take childbirth classes" something that we kept hearing a lot as if it were a huge deal, and almost immediately he gave me an episiotomy. I didn't feel pain, but I knew what he was doing. Even that didn't help much. I still ended up with a four degree tear as I birthed my 9.4 lb baby girl. The birth was amazing, I didn't feel any pain. However, the aftermath was terrible (still not as painful as getting checked when I first arrived) they had turned off my epidural while the doctor stitched me up. I could feel every stitch, and how long the thread was that he used. There was quite an ordeal when I nurses lost track of three cotton gauzes. The places the doctor searched not once, but twice was horrendous. Josh was very upset about that. I'm surprised he didn't punch everyone in that room in there faces, if he weren't on an I'm a daddy high, I'm sure he would have. I'm not sure exactly how long it took to get everything cleaned up and taken care of, but I delivered at 5:15 and our family that was waiting patiently in the waiting room weren't actually able to come into the room until 8:30ish and visiting hours ended at 9.

31 weeks

     The holidays are over. Christmas is not my favorite holiday by any means. I find the whole present giving and recieving awkward and uncomfortable. I don't like to give people gifts they pretend to enjoy and I don't like pretending to like things I get. But, this year went well. I know I got Josh something he would love, and I was excited to give it to him. I ordered it right after Thanksgiving, that's how on top of things I was. It was a mechanic bike stand. And, he does love it. He set it up in his man cave and has been on a shopping spree of sorts with bike parts. I'm glad he has a hobby he enjoys. He works too damn much not to have something fun to play around with when he's home.
      He got me a bunch of great things this year. An awesome new camera for all those new baby pictures I'll want to take. A set of pearl earrings that he wrote were from the baby on the gift tag and a pearl ring from him. I've been wanting one forever and I love it. He got it from the same jeweler where we designed my engagment ring. I love that place. He and his wife have a home in Sri Lanka where they travel periodically to buy precious gems, and their diamonds come from Canada. She creates the jewelry and he sells it. Beautiful stuff: with really thick bands and strong settings, heirloom quality.
     My doctors appointment after all the holiday food binges was not pretty. I gained 10 lbs in two weeks. That's awful. My next appoitment is tomorrow and I haven't lost any of it. Atleast I haven't gained anymore though. My appetite is back. In the first trimester I was ravenous. I didn't have morning sickness, but I felt like I was starving constantly, to the point of tears. So when alot of other pregnant women are throwing up and losing weight I was gaining and gaining. The second trimester, things went back to normal and I was eating the same amounts that I did before pregnancy. I was doing great. Now, I'm hungry in full force again and I'm just hoping I don't gain a mizillion pounds. I was a skinny girl to begin with. Too skinny probably. Ethiopian, according to my dad. After pregnancy, I wouldn't be too sad if I weighed a bit more than I did before, but I definitely don't want to be huge and depressed about it.

27 weeks

     Let's see, I'm 27 weeks and three days. Or something. What am I doing with myself? Well, lately I've been staying up until my sister gets off work so I can have some sort of human interaction each day. Josh is working in Ohio. He'll be home Wednesday for two days atleast. That's nice, but it will be the only days he's been home this entire month. It doesn't look anything like Christmas around here, let alone alot. Because I'm not about to attempt to put lights on the house in this condition. I probably wouldn't attempt it if I weren't pregnant. And, decorating a tree by myself seems too depressing. I might as well watch A Charlie Brown Christmas while nodding enthusiastically. I still have Halloween candy on my coffee table (we overbought), Jeezy Chreezy.          
     So, anyway, mostly I've been researching information about cloth diapers. All day. Yes, it's possible. You'd be surprised. I feel like I'm kind of an expert already, and I've never even used one. I'm excited about it though. When I tell people my intentions to cloth diaper they aren't very supportive. My dad was kind of disgusted and seemed to be having flashbacks of using them with us. Yeah, well, they've come a long way. I AM going to try out sized prefolds and snap on covers, which is about as archaic as it gets nowadays. But, alot of cloth diapering mommas don't waste time with that and buy AIO (all in ones) which are most like disposables. You just happen to wash them. Or pocket diapers, that are covers with a sleeve you can stuff absorbant inserts into. You can adjust the absorbancy depending on what kind of insert you stuff into it and how many. I will also be trying these. I don't think disposables are evil or anything. In fact, I plan on utilizing them in certain situations. Like when we travel, or someone else is watching her, and possibly at night. I know we could afford disposables. It's not really about that. Though saving money is never a bad thing. It just makes sense to me to use them. I don't know, maybe it's just ingrained in me since I was a cloth diaper baby. Yeah, you have to wash them every other day. Yadda yadda who cares? I don't imagine it being anymore annoying than having to go to the store every week for a case of diapers and lug bags of human waste out of my house. Besides, have you seen cloth diapers? Hello! They are adorable, and free of licensed characters like Elmo and Winnie-the-Pooh <---although he does seem like an appropriate figure to put on a diaper. I plan on purchasing some covers with a tattoo print on them from a work at home mom among other equally adorable looking ones. It's going to be amazing. I hope.          
     That way, if something goes terribly wrong in the breast feeding department (something I also intend to do, but from my understanding has many complications that could arise and be unresolvable. There is the possibility that I won't be able to breast feed for this that or the other reason and there won't be anything I can do about it, but I know I can put a cloth diaper on my baby) atleast I won't have to buy formula AND disposables. That would be ridiculous.

Nesty nesty

     I'm in my 22 week of pregnancy. That's more than halfway. We had our first ultrasound last week and as soon as the tech put the wand to my belly the money shot came up. She didn't even have to tell me the gender, it was so obvious, I said it myself. I was in disbelief. This whole time I've had nothing but feelings of having a boy. So much for my intuition. I hope Josh didn't get his hopes up too much, I wouldn't even let him say it might be a girl, that's how positive I was. Well, she's a girl, and as much as I used to say I didn't want boys ever and would sell them on the black market, I was really looking forward to it being a boy. It's so bizarre. I don't even know when I started feeling that way or why. Maybe I was just preparing myself in case I was having a boy. And I'll be excited if I have one in the future, but right now I'm really looking forward to tutus and teaparties and hairbows.

     The nesting has commenced. Probably since we know the gender now, and I feel like I can start preparing more and getting everything in it's place. It's mostly frustrating though, because even though I have four long months ahead of me, everything feels like it needs to be finished now. Yesterday, I decided to try to get some stuff done in the baby's room, mostly cleaning all my craft stuff out and the rest of the junk that's made its way into there. I cleaned out three drawers, moved the contents into a storage crate and carried it down into the closet that I'm sure will be too small for all of my crafts. Then, I decided to try to get these two questionable spots off the blinds that have been there since we've bought the place. They never bothered me before only because the room is hardly ever used. So I go back up, armed with some cleaner and paper towel and I'm wiping and I'm wiping and it doesn't look like either spot is coming off, but it's turning the towel brown. Gross. I don't want to know. I got frustrated and gave up. There are bigger things that need to be tackled, like putting a knob on the door, and taking the doors off the closet. But I can't do those things by myself, so I made a list for Josh for when he comes back from Canada. Today I vacuumed, and since things can never be too clean right now, I decided to clean the vacuum. How very Danny Tanner of me. I haven't had this vacuum very long, but so far I've had nothing but love for it. It's the Hoover Windtunnel upright bagless vacuum and it's so lightweight and sucks so good. I thought the washable hepafilter was a really great feature until today. I couldn't get the damn thing out to rinse it. There are pictures and simple directions, and I still couldn't do it. I was pretty disappointed in myself.