I have not updated this blog in a while! Sorry, everyone! Life just got very crazy with expecting our baby, working and keeping up with the rest of life.
Well, Autumn arrived October 5th at 8:40am! WOOHOO! She was just a tad bit early but only by 2 weeks. She just surprised us, is all. That morning around 2:00am I woke up because I had to pee and I felt a little leak happening. I honestly thought I was just peeing a little. I mean, c'mon, I'm super prego - I figured it was bound to happen. So I jumped out of bed to avoid peeing in it and then came the water....LOTS of it. So I said "Chris - Chris - wake up! My water is breaking!" Chris shot up out of bed and said "Alright! Let's go!" I started to panic and then could not stop shaking and when I panic because I'm genuinely scared, I whisper and other people need to whisper too haha so I looked at Chris and whispered "I'm freaking out, dude" and he said "It's okay. You're going to be great and we're about to meet our baby. Ok?" "Ok." "Alright, now let's go have that baby!" I made my way to the bathroom because, even though my water was breaking, I still really had to pee haha My other thought was "Okay - I can just go sit over the toilet and my water will finish breaking there and it won't get all over the car." Wrong! As soon as I stood back up because I thought it was over, another *splash*. So I thought "okay, screw it, let's just get in the car." We gathered up everything else we needed, packed up the car and rolled out.
I finally was able to get through to Labor & Delivery and let them know we were on our way. I didn't start getting any real contractions until about halfway to the hospital. They really weren't that bad. Just felt like some light cramping. I was sitting on a towel because I really didn't want to ruin our car. I would check my sweatpants every now and then to see if they were getting really wet and - nothing. So, again, I thought "hmm - it must be over." NOPE haha as soon as I got out of the car at the ER entrance it was like my water was breaking all over again. I looked at Chris and said "okay, apparently it was pointless to change my pants because I'm soaking these too. It looks like I'm pissing myself." When we walked into L&D we began to check-in and one of the nurses asked me "Are you Mrs. Tate?" I said "yes." She said "Okay, Mrs. Tate, we can't find your paperwork." I laughed and said "Ohhhh, don't tell me that. We filled everything out and nothing ever left the hospital." She continued to look for my paperwork while another girl took Chris and I back to our room. She cracked up when she saw my pants....it seriously looked like I had peed myself, y'all. I left a cute little water trail on our way to the room.
We got to the delivery room and I got changed into my gown - but don't you worry - I made sure to leak even more water all over the floor. :) I got settled into bed and they checked my vitals and began asking a million questions while Chris went to go move the car from the ER parking. One of the nurses came in to place my IV. Now, let me tell you what, I have never been so close to involuntarily smacking a stranger out of sheer reaction to pain. She could not get this IV placed to save her life and instead of just trying again she decided wiggling this big-ass needle around in my wrist was a better idea. I was like "omg, omg, what the hell is going on?" She said "Just trying to get it into the vein sweetie." "This hurts a lot." "Okay, got it." My wrist proceeded to throb for the remainder of my stay - not exaggerating, y'all. Well, once my IV was placed they hooked me up to the rest of the baby monitors. They immediately noticed that after each contraction I was having, Autumn's heart rate would drop. But it would come right back up so I figured it wasn't really a big deal. The nurse just said "Hmm, that's not good but we'll keep an eye on her to make sure she doesn't do anything crazy on us." They decided to have me lay on my left side to help circulation and that seemed to help Autumn at the time. I was only 1cm dilated so they put me on a petocin drip to help get labor moving along. When they noticed it was a regular thing with Autumn's heart rate dipping, they took me off of the petocin to make sure that wasn't contributing to things.
Then, it was time to meet with the anesthesiologist. We discussed my epidural and the possible risks associated with it and all that. He said (in a nutshell) "Okay I'm going to shove this thing in your back and it's possible I'll hit a nerve but the odds are astronomical" He seriously said the odds were astronomical and I believed him...like a FOOL! Haha He left to go get everything and to place another woman's epidural before mine. Chris and I used that time to pick through some movies and breathe through a few bigger contractions. These were still not that bad but let me also point out that I used to have black out painful menstrual cramps before I ever started birth control sooooo this was still small potatoes. He eventually came back to begin the fun that was my epidural placement. They had me sit on the edge of the bed with the back of my gown open and a pillow hugged tight to me to help with contractions and to make me more comfortable as I would have to be hunched over while he placed it. Chris sat behind us to watch the magic happen. The doc injected some lidocaine into my back - that hurt for a brief moment. Then he said "okay, I need you to sit as still as possible, now, and tell me if you start to feel any pain. At all." I felt some pressure and then just heard and felt some *click, click, click* and then all hell broke loose. He kept hitting a nerve in my back that would send a shooting pain into my lower back. I mean he hit it over and over and over again....for about 10 minutes. In the midst of all this madness I began to have some pretty big contractions sooo that sucked. Anyhoo, he eventually decided to try to place this thing higher up. So, again with the lidocaine injections, some pressure, *click click click* and some more pain in the same place. I started worrying I was just going to have to do this thing all natural. He finally got it figured out and said "Okay, I think we're set. Now I'm just going to give you a little bit of medicine through here to make you feel better and then we'll start numbing you." I suddenly felt like I was getting very light and then I just busted out laughing. He asked "you okay?" I said "yeah I just feel kind of f***ed up, like, maybe I'm drunk" hahaha it was ridiculous.
They got me set up in bed again and at first only my left side was getting numb. They fixed me up with a pillow under my left side to, hopefully, make the anesthesia start moving to my right side. I eventually stopped feeling my contractions and Chris and I decided we'd relax and watch a movie. We both fell asleep. The next thing I knew, I was waking up to 4 or 5 nurses hovering over me, talking a lot and moving me around. The would roll me to one side, then the other, then raise one leg, then the other, check my dilation, roll me around - it was crazy. I was having a hard time waking up enough to figure out what the crap was happening. Chris had opened his eyes at this point to see what was going on but thought it was just the shift change happening and they were just coming in to do all the "formalities." I actually thought the same thing too until they put an oxygen mask on my face. That was about the time Chris realized something else was happening, too. I immediately looked over at our monitors and noticed Autumn's heart rate was dipping and not coming back up - it just kept going down now. One of the nurses leaned over, finally, and said "okay, sweetie, we're going to have to take you to the OR." I started crying and just kept asking if my baby was going to be okay. She kept saying "everything is going to be alright." That was not answering my question. Dr. Fujii came in real quick to tell me I was going to need a c-section because Autumn was not cooperating they way they needed her to cooperate in order to let me push. They checked my dilation and I was only 1.5cm (this was 5 hours after they originally checked me. Oye!). The nurses told Chris to put these cute little pink scrubs on and they would come get him from our room.
They wheeled me down the hallway and into the OR. I am COMPLETELY freaking out at this point because no one is actually telling me my daughter will be okay. They just keep telling me that I'M going to be okay. Ugh. We got set up and the started pumping more and more anesthesia into me through my epidural until I'm basically numb from my ribs to my toes. But not numb enough because as soon as they began they had to stop because I could feel way too much. Excruciating pain. After another minute and even more "feel good juice" they continued and it still hurt a lot but not nearly as much. Eventually Chris was allowed to come in and I have never been so relieved and happy to see his face. He was a wonderful distraction. The anesthesiologist did a great job of just talking to us during the entire procedure and making sure I was as comfortable as possible. He said "Okay, now you're going to feel a lot of pressure. Like an elephant is sitting on your chest. Okay?" I said "Um...okay" and he could not have been more accurate. I didn't know what they were doing but Chris told me later that 2 of the nurses put all of their weight on my ribs to push Autumn out. As they were letting up I heard the most beautiful sound in the world - my baby's first cries. :) I immediately started crying all over again and looked at Chris and just couldn't stop smiling and thanking God our baby was okay. I noticed very shortly my ribs were throbbing and I felt like I'd been hit by a truck. It was such a crazy several minutes because I was in so much freakin' pain but I was so excited and happy!
It felt like an ETERNITY before they let me see Autumn because they had to get her cleaned up and checked out and get me put back together. While they were putting my guts back in (haha) it felt like someone was holding my stomach and just lightly squeezing. I got this feeling like I was going to be sick but all I could do was hiccup really hard and that ended up making me throw up a little. Thankfully all I had eaten was jello. Chris went over to see Autumn and he took some pictures for me. I remember thinking "she's so cute!!" They finally brought her over for me to see and I was almost speechless. All I could say was "my baby...my baby" and all I wanted to do was touch her. My movement was very limited since my arms were strapped down and the arm they released had all this crap hooked up to it. But, I was able to stroke her cheeks and they brought her close enough for me to give her some kisses. It was the most amazing moment of my life, to date. I love her so much.
I wouldn't say that I'd never truly loved until that moment. But, I will say I've never experienced a love like this. It's intense, overwhelming and fierce.
