I’m not big on sharing graphic medical details, so this won’t be too gory, but I did want to share a bit about how Taylor’s birth went down.  I was two days past my due date, and only mildly anxious for her to arrive.  For some reason I was really at peace with her either taking her time or coming when my doctor decided it was time to induce.  My mom on the other hand was ready to meet her and sent me out on two long walks and fed me pineapple for lunch.  Not sure what did the trick, but I definitely started having contractions that afternoon.   But they hadn’t gotten very intense, so we went ahead and had dinner with friends at one of our favorite local pizza places.  But somewhere around 11pm the contractions were getting much stronger, so we decided to call my doctor and she told us to head into the hospital.

Once we got to the hospital and checked in, they confirmed I was having pretty strong contractions pretty regularly and had dilated to a 4.  So they went ahead and gave me the epidural.  Reese and I laughed because they are like okay… 9 months pregnant, having strong contractions… curl your back out and don’t move AT ALL.  EASIER SAID THAN DONE. But once that was in, I started to feel pretty good and just laid back and waited to progress.  Several hours later, my water broke on its own, so we thought this thing was really going to get going.  At this point I was mostly relieved just to be started in the process and to get to listen to her heart beat on the monitor all night long.  The nurses kept asking me if I wanted to turn it down so I could get more sleep, but I just loved listening to her, so I wouldn’t let them turn it down.

Sidenote: Reese had gotten a bug bite a few days before that he was allergic to and had made part of his leg swell up and look very angry.  Urgent care had given him a steroid cream that really hadn’t done much to help it, so while I was in labor, he ran down to the ER and got a steroid shot and came back up.  I have to give major kudos to the nurses at Presby Plano for helping that happen quickly so that he wasn’t gone from me for very long!

But by 9am the next morning when my doctor came in to check my progress, I hadn’t progressed very far (like less than 1cm).  So she decided it was time to call it and have a c-section.  I definitely had wanted a natural birth, but didn’t have my heart just totally set on it… I mostly just wanted a happy healthy baby, so C-Section it was.  Reese asked the doctor, okay so timeline for this… what are we looking at? She turned to him and said: she’ll be in the OR in 20 minutes and baby will be here within the hour.

So Reese made the phone calls to relevant family members to tell them she was going to be here PRONTO, and all of a sudden there was a swarm of medical personnel in my room prepping me for surgery.  Since I hadn’t slept all night and had the epidural going a lot of this is sort of a whirlwind, but I have various funny memories of pieces of it.  Once they got me to the OR, they had Reese wait outside for a bit while they ‘prepped’ me, and I’m not sure if it was the medicine or the stress of the procedure or what, but I got the shakes BIG TIME (which I’ve found out later are very common for people to get after their c-sections, but I definitely had it during the entire procedure).  So I spent almost the entire procedure with the sweet older anesthesiologist telling me to try and relax or I’d have a huge headache.  RELAX?!?! I’m having major surgery to bring my daughter into the world!! Relaxing is kind of hard to do at that point!

They finally let Reese back in before the procedure got started and that helped quite a bit, and I remember focusing on him and him telling me funny things to keep my mind off of whatever was happening on the other side of the sheet.  Pretty soon they told me she arrived and I saw them carry her over to the table to check her out. I’m sure it wasn’t long, but it felt like forever between when they said she was here and I heard her first cry… so in true initiation into motherhood my first instinct was to worry if she was okay.  Reese got to go watch them rinse her off, weigh her and measure her, and then he got to bring her over to me to say hello for the first time!

After that they got me all finished up and we went back to the Labor and Delivery room.  As soon as we were there I got to hold Taylor for the first time and try to nurse her (again this is something that falls into that easier said than done category).  And this whole process was complicated by the fact that I got nauseous from the medicine and movement, so had to put her in her bassinet for a little while.  But soon enough we got to nurse, cuddle and then eventually move up to the maternity area of the hospital and into our home away from home for the next four days.

And because everyone loves baby pictures, here is one I took when she was one week old (and I promise she has more outfits than this pink sleeper, but both the pictures I’ve shared on here happen to be in the same outfit!