So, Savannah is almost 3 months old, but I wanted to get this on here. I'm going to change the date on it, so it fits on the blog more chronologically. Anyway, here's the delivery story. I started having contractions around 7 or 8 AM and they were pretty consistent-every 5-8 minutes or so and they lasted about 30 seconds. Well, they kept going like that for a while without getting much closer together or longer. It depended a lot on what I was doing. If I were laying down, they would be less frequent. Anyway, Dan and Lise left around 9 to go to the airport to fly home. Then Jason went to work around 10 and said to call him when I needed to go to the hospital. Well, I did a few things--gave William a bath, took Jennis to get some piano music, packed a hospital bag, called the hospital and pre-registered (I know I'm a procrastinator)--and then around 12:30, I sent Jason a text saying that we should probably head to the hospital around 1. He got home around that time and he packed a bag and we left. But before we went to the hospital we went to Carl's Jr. because I was starving and I knew they wouldn't let me eat once we got there. So, yeah, I was having pretty painful contractions at this point, but we ate our hamburgers and then headed over to the hospital.
We went up to Labor & Delivery (one of the hospital staff offered to get me a wheelchair on our way in when I stopped walking for a contraction) and got checked in and taken to a room. The nurse got me hooked up to the heartbeat monitor and the contraction monitor and checked me and I was dilated to a 4. She said, "Well, I'll check on you in about a half hour and if you've made progress we can admit you." Well, after a half hour I hadn't made much progress, but she said, "I can tell you are in pain with these contractions, so I hate to send you home. Let me check with the Doctor and I will ask him." About ten minutes later I saw a note pop up on the monitor where they record everything that is going on and it said something about how the Dr. said to admit me. Well, sure enough, the doctor came in a few minutes later and said, "Yeah, we're going to admit you, so you can get an epidural. Then, after that I'll come and break your water and that should help you make progress." So, I got an IV and then about a half hour later, around 5, the anesthesiologist came in and gave me an epidural. It was different this time because he had me sit up on the bed while he gave it to me. With William, I got to lay on my side while I got the epidural. Anyway, about a half hour after I got the epidural (5:30ish), the Dr. came back to break my water and I was already dilated to a 7, so that was good news. The Dr. broke my water and there was a little meconium in the amniotic fluid, so they said they would have a team on hand to make sure the baby hadn't gotten any in her lungs or anything. I was still feeling a little pain from the contractions, but it was so much better than before the epidural. The doctors changed shifts at 6, so the new Dr. came and checked on me around 6:30 and she said I was at a 10 and ready to start pushing. They got everything set up and I started pushing with contractions around 6:45. For some reason it was a little harder for me to tell when I was having a contraction with my legs up ready to push, but I pushed when I wanted and when they told me to andSavannah was born at 7:02 PM. Jason got to cut the cord right after she was born and they took her to the baby bassinet thingy so they could make sure she was doing okay. I didn't get to hold her for a little while because of that and I was a little worried because they weren't saying anything. But she was fine.
She weighed 8 lbs. 11 oz. and was 21 inches long. Everyone had been telling me that she was going to be smaller than William-probably 6 lbs. Even the doctors said that. But then when the Dr. saw her head, she said, "I think you have an 8 lb baby here!" So, yeah, that was a surprise. But I didn't tear too much. I am healing much faster than I did with William (I had an episiotomy with him).
