Gabriel's Welcome

The last part of pregnancy was crappy. It always is. I had a lot of contractions from about 33 weeks on, none painful, but I stopped working mid-July. That helped a lot with the contractions, but not so much with the weight gain :) I slept all day, rarely got out of my PJs, and made Ryan bring me Wendy's about 3 times a week after he got off work at 10pm. Yeah, the combination was not lovely to my waistline. I'm still working on about 15 more pounds until I'll feel really good about my weight again, but I have clothes that fit and that's what matters!

Gabriel was born on a Tuesday morning. The Sunday before, I was supposed to play the organ. We showed up to church, I practiced for a bit, then I got really sick. I was so hot, felt really faint and nauseous and couldn't even read my music! We told the bishop to find another plan (five minutes before sacrament started...poor guy.) and went home so I could rest. I drank a bunch of water and laid down the rest of the afternoon. My wonderful parents came and picked up Olivia to give me a break. Ryan went to work and I decided I felt good enough to get some tidying of the house done. I started having regular contractions, and these felt a little different than what I'd experienced before. They were getting closer together, about 5 minutes apart and lasting about 1 minute each. I even started keeping track on my trusty little contraction timer app. LOL. And then I went to bed. And they stopped. Ok, so if you've ever been to that point and had everything just quiet down, you get mad! I was so angry. I wanted this baby out so bad! I couldn't understand why I was almost 39 weeks and still pregnant. Everything hurt; I was out of breath all the time and I couldn't play with Olivia. I was just done!

I was still a little grumpy when I woke up Monday morning, but I took Ryan to work and took the car out to my mom's to do her hair instead of staying home and wallowing in self pity. I did her hair, it turned out great, I packed up Olivia and we headed back into Salt Lake to pick Ryan up from work. We went home, Ryan went to work at his second job and I got Olivia ready for bed. There were no more contractions. I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I would just have to wait until Friday morning to have this child (my c-section was scheduled for Friday, Aug. 19th). Ryan got home about 11pm and we got ready for bed. My back was killing me, so I took a shower. When I climbed into bed, I relaxed and then...for lack of a better term...felt like I wet my pants! I just love that feeling. LOL. I thought I knew what was happening. It happened with Olivia, but I couldn't quite remember exactly what it was like, and I kept second guessing myself. I waited about 1/2 hour, running to and from the bathroom, wondering if I should go in. I finally decided that it was probably a good idea to get checked out just in case, so I told Ryan to get ready. I dried my hair, but I didn't want to waste any time with the flat iron...which made for a lovely case of frizz-head that I had to live with for 2 and a half days. Pretty.
We got to the hospital, checked in, spent a little while in labor and delivery waiting for my doctor to show up, the usual. I was not progressing at all. Not even a little dilation 4 hours after my water broke. I was so antsy. And tired. I decided to have a c-section instead of trying VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) and was so relieved when the decision was actually made. The nurse took some blood when she put in my IV and sent it to the lab. And then the lab called to say she had put stickers with the baby's name on the tubes instead of mine. Apparently they are very picky about these sort of things and wouldn't use the blood for testing, even if they changed the stickers. So I got poked. Again. And away went four more little vials of my blood. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to have any left!

The whole crew arrived shortly after that. We got all set up in the OR. I remember there were mirrors in the OR and I caught a glimpse of myself...not pretty. Hosptial gown+no hair+little makeup...I know I am vain, but I HATE how swollen I get at the end of pregnancy. Ryan was allowed in the room with me the whole time and I was so grateful. I was getting so nervous and started shaking pretty badly from being so tense, and he helped me relax. After the spinal block was done, it took a few minutes for me to get numb enough to start the procedure. The doctor kept pinching to check for feeling and I kept telling her to wait because I could still feel it. I was so scared to feel ANTYHING. There was one point during the procedure when I just about jumped off the table because the pressure was so intense, but overall it was comfortable. I got a massive migraine (I felt it coming on before we got to the hospital) while we were in the operating room and the anesthesiologist put an oxygen mask on me. It was amazing the effect of the pure oxygen on my headache. Headache gone. So fast. I need that at home. Gabriel was born at 3:59 AM, 3 seconds before 4. He started screaming right away.

It sounded just like Olivia's screams and that was the best sound ever :)