As I mentioned in one of my first blogs, I was having trouble getting pregnant, even with fertility treatments. My Doctors told me I needed to lose weight and get healthy if I wanted this to happen.... they thought they'd never see me again, let alone a baby..... Well, Here she is! My Reason for starting this whole journey. My precious baby girl, Lilah Inez Baugus.
She was born June 13th at 12:47 pm
7 lbs 1 oz and 18.5 inches long.
She is perfect, and our little family is now complete. AND all this hard work, and this long long long wait, were 150% worth it. I over came things I NEVER thought I would, I accomplished things I never though I could, and I surprised a lot of people... Including my doctors! And myself!
My due date was June 15th. I went to the doctor Wednesday June 12th for my (hopefully) last check up. I was mentally done, I was feeling ok, aside from not sleeping well, but I was ready to have my body back to myself, and meet my little girl! I was 2-3 cm and 80% that afternoon. We discussed scraping the membrane, but Doctor advised that it can cause very painful unproductive contractions, and she prefers not to do it, So I trusted her advice, and went home disappointed. I had read every wives tale I could find, and tried almost all of them, too. The only one I hadn't tried, that I was willing to, was eating pineapple. So that afternoon I got myself some pineapple and ate it around 6:00pm that evening. I have no clue if that is relevant, but it sure is odd that I started having contractions a little after 10:00 pm that night! I didn't even know that's what I was having until about 11:30 when I realized it was repetitive, and intensifying. I woke Ari up around midnight, and just let him know I was having them, and they were about 6-7 minutes apart. I tried to get some rest, but I couldn't fall asleep. I laid in bed, and timed the contractions for about another hour, Around 1:00 am I woke Ari up again and told him they were 4-5 minutes apart now and we decided to head to the hospital. I wanted to labor as long as possible at home, but I was told to go to the hospital when the contraction got to 4 minutes apart. So that's what we did. When we got to Labor and delivery they checked my cervix and hooked me up to the monitors. I was still 3 cm and 80 %, they couldn't get the monitors to catch a steady stream of the babies heartbeat, and it wasn't reading my contractions. The nurse could feel them when she touched my stomach, but the machine was not picking them up. So I had to lay there for what seemed like eternity trying to get a solid 20 minutes stretch of good readings. I was miserable. The pain was getting worse, and one of my main plans was NOT to labor in bed. I was finally able to move to the birthing ball, I just had to stay next to the machines. That helped a little, but I really wanted to walk. Around 5:00 am they checked me again, and I think at that point I was at 4 cm and Dr Jang had been called. My contractions were extremely erratic at that point, but were definitely intensifying, They finally decided to admit me and get me my own room. Or so I thought.....! It was another 2 or so hours! And they made me spend it in bed on the monitors. I was miserable. I kept telling Ari that the reason I wanted to do this without an epidural was so that I wasn't confined to my bed. Speaking of that, the nurse kept PUSHING pain meds, and telling me "Well this is going to be a really long road for you if you don't take anything"... "if you are already in this much pain you should take something"... etc. So encouraging. I kept telling her I could handle it a lot better If I could get out of the damn bed! We didn't get along well :)
By the time Dr. Jang came in around 7:00 I was in tears, I was frustrated, tired, and in pain. She checked me and voila, I was at 7 cm! Woo hoo! And she told them to let me out of the damn bed! Thank goodness for her, I love that lady. Now we were in business, they moved us right away, and I was free to move around and do what I wanted to do to manage the pain. When she came back to check on me about 30 minutes later and I was calm and smiling she was pleasantly surprised! I told her all it took was them letting me out of that bed! I labored for a few more hours. Mom and Dad were there with us now, and Ari was updating everyone via text. I'd say it was a little before noon and I was just about at my breaking point as far as pain went. I had been doing a lot of walking, and then bending over the bed and rocking and breathing through the contractions. I was getting 2 at a time back to back now though, and they were rough. I decided I wanted to try a narcotic for a little relief. I'd been laboring for over 12 hours, and awake for over 24... I was running out of steam. Dr. Jang said to check me again, and If I was under 9 cm I could have something. I was 8.5...... So they gave me a half dose.... about 20 mins later Dr. Jang said it was time to break my water, and that was going to really kick up the contractions..... thanks a lot! Great timing! I had JUST started feeling the tiniest bit of relief, lol. Oh well. So anywho, she broke my water, and it was like 30 mins later that it was time to push.... I think.... something like that, it all runs together at this point. Everything went really fast from there, thank goodness. I pushed for about 30 mins I think... the cord was wrapped around her neck, and she had meconium in her waters, so they were rushed to get her out of there... They ended up having to use the vacuum, and out she came. What a whirlwind experience..... I remember hearing Dr. Jang ask for the vacuum and feeling a sense of panic and concern, and then pushing like once more, and seeing this blue little person coming at my chest! She was here..... she was really here. I couldn't believe it. Even after carrying her for all those months, I still couldn't believe that this little tiny person was mine. So there you have it, that's my story... the condensed non graphic version :)
I hope that someone out there that is at the end of their rope, and thinks they will never be able to have a baby, reads this and sees there IS hope, you just have to work for it!
