{Barrett Alexander Powell - 8lbs 2oz - 22in}

Barrett was born on Saturday, October 26th at 9:18am, just one day before my birthday. My water broke 3:26am in bed. And luckily like last time I was able to get to the bathroom and the bed stayed clean! I had only been asleep about 3 hours. Love starting a new life already behind on your sleep.  Mom came here to sleep and get the kids up.

Got to the hospital at 4:15 and was checked in.  I was only a 3cm and at my last appointment I had been a 2.  I was able to get moved into a room, watch a lot of news and get my epidural at 6am.  The nurses kept asking me about my pain because my contractions were huge but my pain was only about a 2-3.  They told me I could do it without an epidural.  I gladly told them I had no interest at all in doing that.  Pain meds all the way!

My contractions were hard and but not super steady.  I would have the mountain range thing going on instead of peaks.  So I would have super long contractions and not up and down. I got pitocin around 7am to help with that because I was only 4cm.

Barrett's heart rate dropped at around 7:30 and they turned off the pitocin. The nurses did a wonderful job controlling that (as opposed to when it happened with Milam) and rolled me over and gave me oxygen.  The nurse said she wasn't worried and since she knew I labored fast it just meant Barrett was probably being moved into the birth canal pretty quickly and we just needed to find a better position for me.  It worked and he was fine.

At 8:20 I was 10 cm and positive 2 station and the nurse told me Barrett had hair. They called the doctor and she was about 20 minutes out so they decided I was ok to wait on her.  They had me do a practice push and immediately told me to stop and close my legs.  The nurse said if I coughed or laughed he would come out. She ended up taking longer because the parking lot was blocked and she couldn't get into the hospital.  He probably would have been born around 8:30-8:40 (making all my labors literally the exact same length) but because my nurse wanted to wait he was born after two pushes (one big push and one small push) at 9:18 am.  They had another doctor on standby but my doctor was the on call doctor for my practice that weekend so I really didn't mind waiting since I had already had an epidural.  We just talked and laughed (not too much) while we waited.

Milam's Birth Story

Milam was born on August 22nd at 6:33 AM weighing in at 8 pounds, 8 ounces, and 21 inches long.

But, let us back up.

On the night of August 21st I had a few contractions around lunch time and a few around bed time but I was willing him to stay in longer because Georgia was starting school on the 22nd.  I just knew I could not miss her first day of school and I honestly didn't think I would miss it.  I had had contractions off and on through out the month so I really wasn't thinking this was it.  By this point I was 3 cm and 80% but again I wasn't really thinking that meant much.  But just in case, I had Georgia's bags packed, all her school clothes lined up, her lunch packed, and the car was packed as well.

At 1:20 AM I thought I felt Milam kick me really hard and that it had woken me up.  I sat up on the edge of the bed because I figured I would go to the bathroom while I was up and I realized what I felt wasn't Milam kick me it was my water breaking.  For half a second I thought I was peeing on my self but it became very clear that I wasn't.  Thank goodness...haha.  I waddled over to the bathroom and sat down to use the restroom and my water gushed for a bit.  Then, I relaxed, peed, and confirmed to myself that yes, your water just broke...ON YOUR FIRST CHILD'S FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN!

I walked back into our bedroom, woke up Jonathan and told him.  I was excited to meet Milam but obviously very, very upset.  I called my mom and she made her way over with my step dad to pick up Georgia.  They also had their house ready for a little house guest in case this happened.  Jonathan got Georgia up, carried her to me and I went to kiss her goodbye and instantly lost it.  Like I could hardly breathe I was sobbing so hard.  She yelled out, "I love you Mommy" and I ran back to our bedroom as quickly as possible to try and pull myself together.  After some time I composed myself and gathered all of G's things and we were all ready to go.

Jonathan and I made it to the hospital at 1:50 AM (And my mom said Georgia FINALLY drifted off to sleep was talking to herself saying, "I wonder what color his eyes are...I wonder what color hair he has?")  We were preregistered and got checked in and sent to triage.  They wanted to test my fluid and stats to see if I was in labor.  I hadn't felt anything more than a few back cramps until I was on the bed and hooked up to the monitors.  Jonathan and the nurse were commenting on how bad my contractions were and how they thought it was so odd I could hardly feel them.  On a 1-10 pain scale I kept saying I was at about a 2 or 3.  So, not bad at all and they were about 7 minutes apart.  I was still at 3cm and 80%.  (I had Jonathan keep detailed notes so I would be able to recall all of this.)

The nurse continued to watch my contractions, called the on call dr, ordered a few tests, and then she left the room and it was just Jonathan and I.  Around 2:30 AM I had a really strong, painful, contraction and before it was over another one started.  I remember telling Jonathan that I wish someone, anyone in the room would have be present to see that because I was wondering how everything was going and if a contraction that strong was normal out of nowhere.  The nurse came back in a little later and notice Milam's heart rate was really, really low (again, would have been nice if they had seen that WHEN it was happening) and English was not her first language so getting her to communicate what she wanted me to do was extremely hard.  Two other nurses quickly came in as did a male doctor (which I had never seen a male OB before so to be honest I was a little peeved).  I was finally able to understand what my nurse wanted me to do.  I got up on all fours, rocked back and fourth, and they put an oxygen mask on me.  Making this all worse was that they didn't tell me his heart rate was low.  The nurse just came in and started telling me to do things, she turned the volume off all the monitors, and asking me really nerve wracking questions.  "Are you holding your breath?  Can you feel him moving?"  One nurse worked on moving Milam's heart monitor all around and another nurse gave me a really quick IV.  And, I'm laying there and legitimately thinking Milam was gone.  Because she had turned the volume off (and not told J and I) I couldn't hear his heart and the nurse kept moving his monitor that I thought my back to back contraction had stopped his heart.  It was terrible and lasted about 5 minutes which I feel like is a long time for nobody to tell me anything.  During that time the on call doctor checked me.  He tickled Milam's head to try and get him to move and he wouldn't.  And again nobody mentioned what they were doing or what it meant.  Finally my super sweet L&D nurse, Stephanie talked me through everything and I was so relieved.   She showed us on the monitor what his heart rate was doing now compared to what it had been doing and that he was now responding great and that it just had been that one back to back contraction that he didn't like.  She said his cord had most likely been "smooshed" during that time and we just needed to find a good position for him.

Once everything had settled down we were moved to our room for our stay at 3:30 AM.  With Georgia I didn't get "the shakes" until after my epidural.  This time I got them as soon as I realized Milam was ok.  My whole body just started shaking uncontrollably and did so off and on until he was born.  I'm assuming it was mostly due to nerves associated with the prior heart drop.  My contractions were getting stronger and were about five minutes apart.  I could talk through them but didn't want to.  People in general got on my nerves...especially the triage nurse.

At 3:50 I got my epidural.  The doctor did great and so did my nurse.  My L&D nurse was literally the best and sweetest person ever.  I thought it would be hard to top Georgia's but Stephanie was phenomenal.  

At 5:15 AM I was dilated to a 6, at 5:40 I was a 9, and at 6:05 I was 9.5

At 6:15 Milam had finally dropped I was very nauseous and ended up throwing up a few times.  At 6:25 I was able to start pushing.  I only pushed through two contractions and Milam was here!  6:33 was his official arrival time!

He was all wrapped up in his cord so that took them a bit to get him untangled.  Then, the doctor laid him on my chest to finish cleaning him.  He laid there and I just talked to him.  I laid him on my chest for awhile but then I was just too interested and wanted to know his stats.  We cracked up when we found out he was 8.5 pounds.  Then, they put him back on my chest and we just snuggled there for a bit.  I fed him and then began to start feeling very nauseous again.  They laid my bed back and got me a few damp towels.  I was feeling very clammy and sweaty.  I threw up off and on for awhile.  Once I started feeding him I started to feel better again.

Our hospital doesn't have a nursery so they do everything in room.  I got to watch his bath and all of that fun stuff.

I may post more pictures and detail of our hospital stay later.  It was really hard to get good pictures because while we were in the hospital it was cloudy and rainy meaning not a lot of light coming in the windows.

Georgia's Birthday

Here is how our sweet baby girl made her way into the world:  Induction Style

At my 39 week appointment the doc and I scheduled an induction for the 16th/17th since these things often come in parts and can drag on.  So the plan was to go in on the evening of the 16th and deliver sometime on the 17th.

Monday - May 16th - 8PM - Checked into the hospital.  Even though we pre-registered and I had a scheduled induction there was still paper work to fill out and questions to answer.  Then my nurse butchered my arm put in an IV and drew some blood which took FOREVER because two different nurses couldn't find a vein.  Then I made the mistake of telling my nurse the IV still hurt and she tried to fix it.  Eventually Jonathan just told her to stop and that it was fine since I'm pretty sure I was breaking his hand during the entire process.  FUN.  By the time we were settled in our room it was 10:00.  I began Cervidil (to speed up dilation and effacing) around 10:20, got another round of blood work and we were settled in for the night...two monitors(one of which being G's heart rate - very loud) and a blood pressure cuff (that goes off every 30 minutes) makes for a great night's sleep :)

Tuesday - May 17th - 6:30AM - I finally just decide I'm not even going to try sleeping anymore...it's really pointless.  So, I brush my hair and put on a bit of makeup.  I'd been having slight contractions the entire third trimester but rarely felt one because they were just "practice". 

The dr took the Cervidil out and I was still at a one (so it didn't work on dilating me but did efface some) so she went ahead and broke my water at 9:00AM.  I say 9:00AM is when my labor started because as soon as my water broke (showing that baby G had already pooped and may be under some stress) I went from feeling no contractions to having contractions off the scale and 2 minutes apart.  I had STRONG and PAINFUL contractions for about an hour and a half and got my epidural at 10:30.  Epidurals are heavenly :)

Once the epidural kicked in I visited with my mom and nanny until 11:30.  When I was check at 11:35 I was already dilated to a 7 shocking everyone and no longer needing pitocin which everyone initially thought I would.  So, my "induction" was really only breaking my water and my body totally took over after that.  They watched her heart rate with my contractions and could see that she wasn't under stress and that she just happened to go to the potty a bit early.

Just 30 minutes later at noon I was at an 8 and I started pushing at 1:33 and 20 minutes later (only pushed through 8 or 9 contractions) she was HERE!  The dr. and all the nurses were very impressed I might mention since Georgia is my first and my entire labor start to finish (first contraction all the way to her birth) was a little less than 5 hours!  My doc and nurse said I should teach others how to be the perfect OB patient...haha!  I told them I didn't really have any say, that's just how it happened.

Her apgar score was officially a 9/10.  The nurse said it would be a 10/10 but she didn't give those.  I watched all her tests being done while my dr. stitched me up.  I had a 3rd degree tear that required 10 stitches and the dr. explained that it was due to the fact that I dilated so fast and that she came out so fast my body had no time to stretch.

We're both doing great!