Happy Birth Day Carnival - Einey Edition

Alex, over at Formula Feed and Flexible Parenting, is throwing a Birth Days Carnival this week in honor of her Younger Son’s (YS) 2^nd birthday. Since Meenie also celebrates a birthday this week, I thought I’d join in the fun and re-live the births of my daughters.

My first pregnancy was fairly typical. I had the usual morning sickness, I worked and then, October 2000 shortly after returning home from celebrating our first wedding anniversary, we found out that the baby didn’t have a heartbeat. I was fourteen weeks along and it was the worst news ever. To further complicate things, after the D&C we found out that I had had a partial-molar pregnancy. It’s a fairly rare complication. Regardless of what caused the miscarriage (and we were glad we knew- many people never knew) and that it wasn’t fully a “baby” were still devastated. Due to the prognosis, it also meant six months of monitoring my HcL levels before even attempting to try another pregnancy.

Fast forward seven months later to May 2001 – yup, I was already pregnant and given a due date of January 18, 2002. After getting the go ahead in April, we never thought we’d get pregnant right away. May was bittersweet – we found out we were expecting the same time I was due with my first. And because of the miscarriage, we waited telling people. But also, we were given extra ultrasounds starting at six weeks to make sure everything developed properly. This pregnancy was textbook. I gained minimal weight – just 16 pounds! and many people commented after I gave birth that they didn’t know I was pregnant. Even people in our birthing class thought I had months to go. So 36 weeks into my pregnancy – and the day I had an OB appointment where the doctor told me – see you next year - and Christmas Eve, we were gathered at my parent’s house to celebrate Christmas with my extended family. I remember being uncomfortable- something I attributed to the pizza we ate – it always upset my stomach. We left around 11pm pm head to midnight Mass where I was still uncomfortable – hell I was 8 months pregnant and it was way past my bedtime.

I awoke around 8 am with this gush of fluid. I went into the bathroom, cleaned myself up and since it stopped –which a baby’s head acts like a plug when your upright, who knew? – crawled back into bed. About a ½ hour later, it dawned on me – woops, I think my water broke and it wasn’t me just pissing myself (not that I make a habit of doing so). So I woke Husband up told him we needed to go to the hospital (I didn’t even bother calling), and he, proceeded to take his damn sweet time. Seriously, the man got up, took a shower, and checked his email. All the while I was standing there saying, um you know I’m in labor (no contractions, but since it was my first time, I didn’t know what to expect next).

We got to the hospital around 9:30 am and they told me not to get comfortable, that it probably wasn’t my water. After all, I still had a month to go and I wasn’t acting s I was in labor. After confirming it was my water that broke and I was in fact staying, they hooked me up to the monitor. It did show I was having regular contractions, I just never felt them. And the monitor kept falling off. So we called both sets of parents and said we wouldn’t be joining them for lunch or dinner. Our birthing instructor was on duty and assigned as my nurse – so I was very happy!

The contractions started between 10 and 10:30 am – still nothing too bad. Around 2 pm, Husband finally took the nursing staff up on the free Christmas dinner being offered. And the jerk considerate husband who didn’t want to be away from his laboring wife fool brought the food back to the room with him. I quickly banished him from the room. The birthing instructor/nurse stayed with me. He finished his meal and all I could smell was turkey and cranberry sauce. Around this time as well, the contractions started getting hard. Not unbearable, but strong. I got a dose of Stadol to relax. At 3:30 pm the shift change came on. Still about the same. Around 4:30 pm I started to push and Einey was born at 4:42 pm, Christmas Day, 2001. She was 6 pounds, .08 ounces and 21 ½ inches long and covered in goo. Boy was she messy! She also was having a tad bit of difficulty breathing, so they took her to the NICU and took x-rays. Husband went with her. After the x-rays came back – lungs were clear – she was put in an incubator to help her breath. Now from the time they took her away and stitched me up until about 8pm, I don’t remember anything. I fell asleep. I remember being wheeled down to the NICU to see her and hold her for the first time. She had an oxygen tube that we needed to keep attached. But by the next morning, she was breathing fine and able to come back to our room. The next morning, Husband also uttered the famous words to my OB “That was easy, we should do that again soon”. It’s amazing he made it out of that hospital in one piece!

One more thing that stands out. Husband thought he'd be helpful and bring some stuff back home before he brought Einey and I home. SO he grabbed my bag of clothes that I wore to the hospital in, not bothering to check inside. Two days later when we were checking out, I got dressed and went to put on my shoes. Yup, they were at home, in the bag. Luckily it was unseasonably warm that December and I had thick socks! The next two times, I made sure I had shoes at the hospital when I left!

A week later – New Year’s Eve, we were back in the hospital for some bili lights. Breastfeeding was rough – we lasted 6 miserable weeks. After two days, we were sent home and haven’t looked back. She is now 6 ½ years old and headed into second grade in the fall.

Six months later, we started trying for number two. Einey was such and easy baby, and we were more than ready to add to our family again. I had just left my job for my foray into stay-at-home-motherdom.

Be sure to check out the Meenie Edition and Moe Edition.