six weeks

Ella Bella is six weeks old! Time just flew by!

It's hard to believe that 6 weeks and 1 day ago I was freaking out about being induced. I was really spoiled with my first delivery. With him labor started on it's own at 11:23 pm at night and at 8:26 am he was here! So, I was more than a little concerned that artificially starting the process might make for a LONG labor.

I didn't sleep at all the night before. Then we had to call the hospital at 4am to see if they had an open room. They didn't, so they told us to come in at 6:30 am. We got there at 6:30 and they handed us tons of paperwork to fill out (I swear we didn't have paperwork with Moo) and we finished that right as the nurses were changing shift at 7. So we waited and waited while they chit chatted. We had CABLE so we didn't care :)

About 8am they came in and put in an iv and at a 8:45 my Ob breezed in fresh off vacation and broke my water. Such a bizarre feeling! It was about 30 seconds later that we realized the 10lbs I had gained in the past week was ALL amniotic fluid. What a mess! They cranked up the pitocin and the party really got started. I was 2 cm and barely effaced, so I figured it was going to be a LONG day.

We watched Bringing Home Baby on TLC and laughed and laughed at how idiotic first time parents can be. We were pros now :) no more silly first time mistakes for us! The contractions were painful and not fun but for me the bigger annoyance was being tied to a bed by iv's and blood pressure doo dads, and other random lines. I dreamed of ripping all thats stuff off and being able to go pee by myself! Nope not allowed, only bedpans. Ick. So I begged for them to send around the lovely epidural man so I could get a catheter too! :)

Getting the epidural with Moo was by far the WORST part of being in labor. I was shaking from the pain and was exhausted and had to balance myself on the edge of a bed without touching the floor. It just sucked. It took a good 20 minutes to get it in and then it was so strong I had no idea I even had a body below my neck.

This time around was so different! The anesthesiologist was WONDERFUL. I told him my past experience and told him I wanted to have an epidural light. It was SO much better. I could feel everything but pain! :) That was at 10:30 and I was only at a 4 and only about halfway effaced.... still a LONG ways to go. I was thinking maybe by dinner we would have a baby. We settled in for a nice long day of eating popsicles and watching discovery!

Sometime around 11:30 I told my very hungry husband to call my mom and have her bring up some food. She got there around 12:30 and we sent him off to eat in the waiting room so I wouldn't have to watch! While he was gone, I started to feel kinda weird. Nauseous and shaky, just off. Just before 1, the nurses came in and I asked them to check because I felt more contractions and pressure.

My mom guessed I was a 7.

The nurse guessed an 8.

My husband guessed a 10.

My husband was right! Not only was I at 10, but the baby was at like a plus 1! Oops! I kinda had a freak out at this point suddenly realizing that it was happening NOW. My OB was in surgery and came running in all his scrubs and about 10 minutes of pushing later the baby was out!

My OB intentionally held the baby so no one could tell is it was boy or a girl until he got the baby crying and cleaned up. The nurse had been teasing him all day about missing another birth that morning so he did it annoy them. :) I was sure it was a boy. So sure. Nope. A girl!

A big girl! That was the first thing my husband and I thought when we saw her. She was so much pinker, chubbier, and healthier than our son was. 7lbs, 140z and 22 inches! She was born at 1:09pm and by 1:15pm the OB had left to go back to his waiting patient in the OR and by 1:30pm all the nurses had gone too! It was such a different experience than with our son to be alone with her so soon after birth.

Recovery was a breeze. (No hate mail please!) No pain at all! Well, no pain until we tried nursing, little piranha.

Now she is six weeks old and is just amazing. She is HUGE. 24.5 inches and 12.5 pounds. She is cooing and trying to smile. She is still up once or twice a night, but will now sleep in her crib during the day. I am back to normal save the extra 15 lbs that still linger from pregnancy. These past 6 weeks have been wonderful. Having a newborn was equally amazing, if not more amazing to having a newborn the first go around!