December 4, 2009

6:55 am... thought I was peeing my pants... actually my water broke, it only took me 40 min. to figure it out. Duke had an interview for an internship and I was not ready to have a baby on December 4, although it was my prediction. If it weren't for Bill and Debbie, I wouldn't have been out of the house by 10:30.

On the way to the hospital, Debbie came along. We named her our "Shadow" which she gratefully accepted. We passed McDonalds, and I knew I wouldn't be getting any more food, so I wanted to stop for an ice-cream cone. After we pulled into the drive-thru and ordered my vanilla cone, we were informed the ice-cream machine could be broken. Shadow said, "God is watching over you Nicole, you don't want to be puking that up." Two seconds later, we were informed that I would be getting my $1 value vanilla cone, and I exclaimed "God is watching out for me!"

Then I asked "does the Shadow want anything?" as Duke drove off. She replied "I guess not." and I said "I guess the Lord is watching out for you too." it was so funny!

Now for the seriousness...

After checking in, and getting situated in the room, I was dialated to a 3, and was still enjoying myself. Then came the patossin... slowly and surely those contractions came. When I was at a 7.5 I went to the bathroom and decided it was time to get an epidural, so I could relax and enjoy a game of rummy. It was a good thing I did, because I was dialated to a 10 an hour later. It was 5:00 and time to push. As it turns out, I'm not made to have babies the right way, and after 2 hours of pushing, was wheeled to the operating room.

Back to the pushing, after 45 minutes, Duke looked at me and said "she hasn't moved for a while" I was determined that she was coming out. The doctor was also determined and so we tried a few different things, one of which was the vacuum. He told me we'd try it through 6 contractions. After 4, my mother-in-law (Shadow) said "nothing is happening", and in came a bunch of nurses, and I was shipped off to the OR. It was kind of emotional, especially because I could feel the contractions that I couldn't push through, and the anethsesiologist was taking his dang time (15 minutes to be exact) and it hurt. Duke thought both me and the Brinley were both going to die, thinking it was an emergency C-section. So he was emotional which then made his mother emotional. The rest was a breeze, even the recovery (especially since its been a month).

Now it's Duke's turn to the rest of the story since I was a wee bit loopy...