Picking up where I left off on Birth Story Part I…

Monday, June 18, 2018, midnight: Jake snored on the couch in the hospital room most of the night, and while deeply grateful for the epidural, I didn’t get more than a few minutes sleep, tossing and turning in the uncomfortable hospital bed. Angie, our awesome nurse, and Dr. Lo came in to check on me every once in a while, but other than that it was pretty quiet. The epidural made my contractions slow down a little bit, so it seemed like the whole process was taking longer than what I had experienced earlier in the day when contractions were consistently ramping up.

Finally, around 2:30 a.m., I was fully dilated. Yay! My hopes of being done quickly were dashed when Dr. Lo said that they wanted to wait for the baby to descend a little bit more before pushing and that another lady on the floor was ready to push, so they were going to deliver hers first. I was annoyed with the wait, but what could I do?

Shortly after they came in, I started feeling the contractions again on my right side… and I began to panic! This was exactly what had happened last time with Meredith… noooo! Last time, even though the anesthesiologist had tried to give me a stronger dose and I switched sides several times, the epidural wore off completely by the time I was ready to push with Meredith. Despite taking lamaze classes during my twin pregnancy, I was not prepared for a “natural” birth at all last time and was basically hyperventilating the entire time.

My next door neighbor is an anesthesiologist, so the entire year, I had been bugging him with questions about every possible scenario regarding my epidural. His reassurance coupled with some breathing exercises I had been practicing for this exact scenario made me feel a little more prepared than last time, but I still wasn’t going to give up without a fight! I was pretty forceful telling the doc that my epidural was wearing off, and contractions were becoming painful, but thankfully, this time Angie and Dr. Lo were both on it immediately and troubleshooted right away. After another shot of pain meds, everything calmed down and I felt much better. Angie told me that even without the epidural, I was a good candidate to deliver without meds because of how calm I was and how well I breathed during contractions when I could still feel them. Um, no thanks!

Finally, at 4:30 a.m., it was time to try pushing. I’m convinced my nerve endings are abnormal because in addition to the epidural not working in certain places, my legs felt completely numb and I couldn’t tell whether or not I was pushing anything out! We’d wait for a contraction and then Angie would count to ten while I tried to push that baby out, which was a very weird feeling not being able to tell what was happening.

In between contractions, Jake, Angie and Dr. Lo chatted about their kids, work, etc., and were all having a grand time, while I just mostly sat there with my eyes closed, summoning up enough energy for the next push. This is why they call it labor! It was exhausting and after an hour, I kept telling them there was no way I could do this anymore. Dr. Lo and Angie lied every time, saying I was SO CLOSE and to try again. They and Jake were great cheerleaders, even though I knew they were lying! I was so not close. The baby was positioned transversely, and then turned sunny side up (face up), so apparently, that’s what was taking so long. Last time, Meredith came out with her elbow up, resulting in some 3rd and 4th degree tears, and after looking at my chart, Dr. Lo said she really wanted to make this birth go a little smoother than last time for me. I don’t know what’s with our kids and weird positions when they enter the world, but they definitely come out on their own terms.

Dr. Lo and Angie were both awesome, very calm and helped me relax. All the lights were dimmed and, Dr. Lo used some massage oil to help reduce tearing, and everything was pretty quiet, for the most part. It was definitely the most “zen” birth experience I’ve had!

By 6 a.m., the baby was “almost out,” but kept popping in and out… argh. She was taking her sweet time! Angie’s shift was over at 7 a.m., and I was desperate to have the baby born before a shift change! We were all hoping it wouldn’t go much longer, when finally, Dr. Lo called another nurse in to get ready to weigh and clean up the baby, etc. Just like the previous births, Jake was fascinated by the entire process, was asking the doc a million questions, taking pictures and asking if I wanted a mirror so I could see what was going on. NO THANK YOU.

After 2.5 hours of very intense pushing with no breaks,  the doc, nurse and Jake were yelling to keep going because she was coming out, and suddenly, there she was! It was 6:43 a.m. when baby made her grand debut after leisurely hanging out in the birth canal forever. I felt like a balloon had instantly deflated inside me and I immediately felt a lot less pressure and heaviness. The doctor put her on my chest to hold and my first thought was, “This baby feels huge!!” She was also screaming her head off, which was a good sign. I was so tired, I didn’t really say or do anything but simply enjoyed that first baby snuggle. Jake excitedly cut the umbilical cord and went over to assist the nurse/take pictures of cleaning and weighing her.

Dr. Lo did a nice, quick job of stitching me up and it helped that even though the baby had come out sunny side up, my tearing was not nearly as bad as it was last time. My legs were still all the way numb, so that was a weird feeling, but other than that, I felt so happy to have that baby out!

Angie was so happy to have been able to be there for the birth and we all hugged before she had to leave. She was incredible. She filled in our new nurse, who was very organized and on top of everything, especially with organizing meds, paperwork and check ups on myself and the baby so that distractions were minimized instead of a zillion people coming in and out.

Throughout the night, Jake and I had discussed our short list of top names one last time and I told him he could make the final call on this one. We had two or three we were going back and forth on for months, and wanted to wait until she was born to make the final call. While the nurse was weighing her, we called her Baby Girl, and as soon as she was all wrapped up, we decided she was definitely an Eleanor Rose. “Eleanor,” a royal name meaning “bright and shining” was Jake’s favorite from our top three and we chose “Rose” because the entire year, the twins had suggested variations of that name (Rosabella being their top choice haha) for her first name. She really was a queenly, bright little rose! We call her “Elle” for short as well as by her full name.

Eleanor was so plump and chubby that it wasn’t a surprise she weighed in at 8 pounds, 12 ounces and 20.5 inches. As soon as she was dried off, she did the breast crawl and immediately started to nurse like a champ. I’m sure she was starving after we cut off her constant food supply in the womb!

Look at that conehead! Thankfully, that went away.

Welcome to the world!

WHERE AM I???

At first, we thought Eleanor looked a lot like Meredith, but after looking back at pics, we thought she was more of a mix of Samantha and Amelia!

We spent the morning trying to cuddle Eleanor amidst the flurry of nurses, the pediatrician, and people with paperwork constantly coming in and out. My OB, Dr. Price, came in to visit and we joked that she’s now 0 for 2 on my deliveries because she hasn’t been on call for either Eleanor or Meredith (for the twins I had to see a perinatologist and it was scheduled, so Dr. Price didn’t deliver them either). We also congratulated Dr. Price on being spot on with the due date of Father’s Day, even though Eleanor took her sweet time and came out a few hours overdue.

The meds were taking forever to wear off, so I didn’t get up to walk around for a few hours because my legs were still so numb, and even when I was ready, I had to have help getting around. It definitely seemed like a slightly more difficult recovery than Meredith’s.

We were sad that Jake couldn’t make the Daddies and Donuts Father’s Day breakfast at the twins’ preschool, but luckily, my mom was able to go with them. Aunt Sarah was at home to help with Meredith and the twins and Sheela helped with pickup and drop off at preschool, so all the teamwork definitely helped things go smoothly at home so we could relax with the new babe. Jake went in to the office to check on things for a little bit in the afternoon, while I lounged around with Eleanor and ordered food from the hospital cafeteria. It seemed like a vacation! After taking a shower and putting on some real clothes, I felt like a human again.

Hi, I’m new here.

Later that day, after swim lessons, my mom, Aunt Sarah and the girls came by to visit. In preschool, Samantha and Amelia had announced that their baby sister was born and were so proud! Meredith came bounding in and immediately gasped, “Oh, baby so cute!” when she saw Eleanor. Everyone took turns holding her and just stared at the new baby with complete awe. Siblings meeting the baby for the first time is always my absolute favorite, sweet moment!

Meredith became a big sister today!

After a lot of holding and being extremely interested in the breastfeeding, the girls turned their focus onto the Chick-Fil-A they had picked up and wolfed that down. We did hugs and kisses goodbye and Grandma and Aunt Sarah took the girls home, while Jake and I prepared for our first night with our new newborn. Everyone kind of assumed that since this was #4, we were pros, but no matter how many times we had done this before, we still felt slightly like we had no idea what we were doing! It was slowly starting to come back to us– the diapers, the swaddling, the super sharp fingernails, the delicious newborn smell, the feedings, the newborn grunts and little sounds!

At this point, I had been awake for over 24 hours and was shutting down fast. I went to sleep early and we had the kind nurses take Elle to the nursery and bring her back to me to eat every few hours during the night. Our favorite nurse, Angie, was back on shift that night, and made her an adorable little bow hat while watching her in the nursery.  Every time they brought Elle back to eat, Angie informed us that she was making fast friends and having fun with a couple of other babies in the nursery that night!

Tuesday morning I was feeling better, but was still on pain meds and still very sore. I felt like I had ridden a horse for 24 hours straight and then said horse ran over me and bruised me up. We could have stayed an extra day or two, but I wanted to get out of the hospital as quickly as possible to go home, so our nurses helped streamline all the paperwork, and poking and prodding of little Eleanor. When the pediatrician visited on Monday, he said Elle’s lab work had come back and her numbers were slightly elevated for jaundice. After another test on Tuesday, her numbers were still going up, so he said we could either stay and have her monitored at the hospital for another day, or go home and take her to our regular pediatrician’s office to continue testing until her levels normalized. We decided the latter and were packed up and ready to go by noon.

Unfortunately, our nurse that day was our least favorite of the stay, and was MIA whenever we needed anything, getting meds, getting more diapers and supplies… and we are pretty low maintenance compared to some of the patients I had heard about! She had two kids at home and one on the way, so it was understandable that she’d be tired, but she basically complained about her job the entire time and was so negative about everything! Other than her, our hospital stay was great and we loved the staff who helped bring Eleanor into the world and take care of us afterward. A good nurse makes such a difference!

Even though we were leaving that afternoon, we had to move down to a smaller room on the level below the delivery rooms to make room for more moms who had come in that day to deliver, so that was kind of annoying. We basically sat around and took advantage of the hospital cafeteria until we were finally ok’d to go home. My favorite part of the hospital stay is all the freebies, so I grabbed as many diapers, wipes and supplies as I could and our nurse pushed me in the wheelchair out to our car while Jake loaded. Our drive home was significantly less stressful than with the twins. Eleanor slept peacefully in her car seat all the way home, while I tried to nap. With the twins, I still vividly remember sitting wedged between their two little car seats in the back, my hands gripping both of their carriers, while Jake drove, white-knuckled, 60 mph on the freeway, with me constantly barking orders to slow down, avoid bumps, and, “Watch out for that crazy driver!”

We arrived home a little ahead of schedule and Grammy was just getting back from swim lessons with the twins. They had bought all sorts of cute decorations to welcome us home, and so they quickly put those up while we unpacked and got Eleanor situated.

It was so nice to be home, even though the other three girls were crazy for our attention all evening and bedtime was a complete circus. Adjusting to our first week of life with four five and under to be continued…

Lots of love,