Welcome to the world Lexi Addison Wahlquist!!!
I am so glad to finally be able to say that! Before I forget all the details I thought I'd better share Lexi's birth story. So here goes...
As you know, we had our growth scan at 36 weeks 1 day and she was already measuring over 8 pounds. The doctor scheduled an induction for November 13th. I had my membranes stripped at my appointment on the 2nd and was just sure it would send me into labor like it did with Tate. I had all the grandparents on alert and Frances even stayed in town an extra day after Halloween to watch Tate when labor started. Well, Friday came and went with absolutely nothing. I was so incredibly discouraged and thought "Well, I guess she's not coming until the 13th". I worked Friday and we had a family day Saturday with just the 3 of us.
Sunday morning Tate came into my room sometime in the middle of the night/early morning so he was with me when we woke up at 8 am. He started getting out of bed and I felt something leaking. I literally thought to myself "I don't think I'm peeing. Am I peeing? No, not peeing". Lol! I called for AJ to come help me get up and told him I was pretty sure my water had just broken. We were both kind of shocked at first and started trying to figure out what we needed to do. I called Labor & Delivery and asked how soon I had to come to the hospital. They said I could shower and get ready and then head over. Our daycare provider, Krissy, was our emergency person to watch Tate until family arrived. Well, her family goes to church on Sundays and I wasn't sure what time they left. I quickly called her and she said they were walking out the door, but would wait for Tate. So, AJ was already in the shower and I'm trying to gather clothes for Tate and pack his diaper bag while calling my parents to get them on the road. Tate (of course) poops so AJ gets dressed, gets Tate dressed, and takes him over to Krissy's house (about a mile away). I am tearing up saying goodbye to my baby and making sure he has breakfast for the car, milk, and his breathing machine because of course he needed a treatment and hadn't had one yet. It was pretty chaotic for about 20 minutes! Once the boys headed out, I showered and got dressed. At this point, I'm leaking faster and am trying to hurry up and get the rest of my things together. I managed to waddle down to the basement and send over the latest copies of my maternity leave info to my boss, set my away message on my email and grab my work phone. As I'm heading to the car, my water is starting to really gush and become a problem. I put my work phone away message on in the car and we hurried to the hospital.
AJ let me out at the door and I wrapped a dog blanket (that I was sitting on) around me since my pants were all wet now (water breaking is super glamorous!). Luckily, they put me straight in a room and I didn't have to do the triage part since it was very obvious that labor was starting. I got changed into a gown and into the bed (interesting because of the water still leaking!). At this point, I had no contractions and was sitting up smiling and joking with the nurse. Our nurse turned out to be one of my favorites from when Tate was born so that was awesome and very comforting. We loved Amber! By the time we got to the hospital it was 9 am and by the time I was all settled it was about 9:30 and my family was in Sedalia about an hour away. The nurses started my IV, sent off my bloodwork, and checked me- I was at 5 cm. They wanted to wait a little bit to see if the contractions would start on their own before doing the pitocin. I started having some contractions and went ahead and requested my epidural. Luckily, my mom arrived shortly before the anesthesiologist so she was with me when they did the epidural. With Tate, I was in so much pain from the back labor that I do not remember the epidural at all. This time, I was very aware and scared. It actually wasn't painful, just lots of pressure and yuckiness. The lady got it in, then tried the test meds and nothing happened! For some reason it didn't work so she had to take it out and do it all over again. Thank God it worked the second time. The meds kicked in immediately and I stopped feeling the contractions. They started the pitocin and said they would increase it every 30 minutes until my contractions got strong enough to start dilating me more.
It took a few hours to get things going and I had to ask for an increase in my epidural meds when the right side started wearing off early (maybe 1 or 1:30ish). The extra dose made my legs feel like bricks and lasted 2 hours. About the time it started to back off a little, the nurse checked me and I was 7-8 cm. Shortly thereafter, I started having sharp pain in my right hip. I called the nurse to discuss. I didn't want another dose of the pain meds because I had to be able to push pretty soon and I couldn't feel anything with the last dose, but I didn't like this severe pain. I thought we'd just roll me over to my right side and let gravity help get the meds to the right side again. The nurse decided to check me before rolling me over and surprise- 10 cm! I freaked out! I couldn't be at 10 that fast. It took forever to get from 5-7 cm. The nurse had said once I was fully dilated we'd do some practice pushes to see how long she thought it would take me. From there, she would call the doctor and let her know to either come right away or hold off and let the nurse push with me for a while. I pushed for like 2 hours with Tate so I was fully expecting to push with the nurse for some time before calling the doctor. So, I did 2 practice pushes with the nurse (and no feeling in my left leg still) and she said to stop and don't push and she was going to call the doctor and tell her to hurry over. Again, freaking out! At this point, I'm not even sure my doctor is going to make it because I'm trying hard NOT to push with each contraction. Baby nurses start arriving in the room and I know things are happening very fast at this point. My doctor walks in, gets her outfit and gloves on and we push. Half a push and she tells me to stop. The cord is around baby's neck and her heart rate has dropped to 70 something. She cuts the cord so Lexi can breathe and I can see the doctor looking at the screen and saying we need to push now (rather than waiting for the next contraction). So, I push and out comes baby.
3.5 pushes total. Ridiculous! They gave her to me and I was concerned that she wasn't crying. They took her over to the warmer and I remember just saying "Is she okay, why isn't she crying?" over and over. My mom was over with her and everyone is telling me she's okay, but I don't hear her crying. They gave her a little oxygen and she started crying. Hooray! She was still early, so it was taking her a bit to figure things out. The doctor is stitching me up and she and Amber are talking to me trying to distract me from Lexi (so I wouldn't worry). It was super fast compared to the clean up process with Tate (we did cord blood banking with him and that was a lengthy process), but it seemed like forever until they brought her back to me. It all happened so fast and was unexpected that day. I think I was in shock the whole first day and night in the hospital.
My dad and brother were able to come in about 15 minutes after she was born and then AJ brought Tate and Grandma Frances to visit a little bit later.
