Well, it's been an entire week since our sweet Lucy joined the party. It's been a loooong, exhausting week, but filled with lot's of good things too. Before I forget, I want to write the details of the day.
On Wednesday morning, the 16th, I was laying awake in bed with progressively more annoying back pains. It was only in my back though so I just thought it was from sitting at work the previous day or something. By 3am, I couldn't take it anymore, so I got up and took tylenol. While up, I suddenly panicked thinking about how unready I felt for the baby to come so I went to work for the next few hours doing laundry and cleaning. Then I realized that if Ryan had to come from work, he would only have his work clothes (a uniform) and so I quickly packed a bag with a change of clothes for him to keep in his car for a few days just in case. At about 5 am I was feeling slightly better and went back to bed for another hour until we had to get up for work.
I was going in to work late that day because I had my weekly doctor's appointment that morning. I was dilated to a 4 and 80% effaced, but the baby still hadn't dropped much, which was the case for the prior few weeks so I thought nothing of it. My doctor then asked if I had felt the contraction I just had, which I didn't. So she sent me into another room to get hooked up to the machines that measure contractions for an hour. Halfway through, the nurse came in and grabbed the stats thus far and said "Oooh. Did you feel that contraction?" which I hadn't. But as soon as the nurse left the room I started to feel them but they were only in my back and very very uncomfortable for the short time time each one lasted. After the hour was up, my doctor checked me again and I had dilated to a 5 and the baby had dropped a lot lower. I was in total shock when she told me I was in active labor and to go to the hospital!!
I immediately left and called Ryan to come home from work since he has a 45 minute drive home while I went and packed a bag for me. When we got to the hospital, they were ready and waiting for me and took me right to my room. It was almost like my contractions were being nice and just waiting for the right time to come because as soon as I was in my hospital gown and bed, they came on strong and fast... just like my request for the epidural!! All I have to say is that epidurals are sent straight from heaven. Pretty sure about that. 30 minutes later I was hooked up and loving every relaxing minute of life. It was the most comfortable I had felt in months! Anyway, I was laying there for about 20 minutes or so talking to a nurse when I felt my body jolt, which turned out to be my water breaking! The nurse checked me right away and I was complete and ready to have this baby! The nurse was shocked because she was expecting to have to give me pitocin and break my water in a short while, but thankfully my body did it all on its own. The only problem was that my doctor was in the middle of appointments at work and couldn't come in for a few hours. So Ryan got a good nap in while I laid there trying to relax. What seemed like 95 years but was actually just about 3 hours later, my doctor showed up. The room was already set up and we were just waiting for her, so she took a look and said "Woah! She's ready and it looks like she's got a lot of hair!" My thought was "um, what?! You can see her?! Let's get this show on the road!" As soon as my doctor was ready, I pushed through some contractions and about 12 minutes later there was my little girl laying on me! She had some good screams/cries, was a nice pink color, had lot's of hair, and even opened her eyes to look at me! She was beautiful. It was amazingly fast and painless and, despite all of my crazy fears about labor and delivery, I surprisingly enjoyed every minute of the process and couldn't have asked for a better experience.
We had 3 names that we were deciding between, but when we saw her, we both agreed she was a Lucy. We wanted her middle name to have some sort of meaning, so we chose Jolyn (pronounced "joe-lynn") which is my middle name as well and is my two grandma's names together (Joann and Marilyn). The first night we were home, she cried inconsolably the ENTIRE night which made me kind of want to return her (kidding... kind of). I have to be honest though that this has been one of the hardest weeks of my life, both physically and emotionally, and it's still often a struggle, but it's getting better and better each day and we love Lucy so much. It's so fun to always be noticing little insignificant (but significant to us) things, such as a smile (who cares that it's not intentional?!), her staring at us with her wide-open eyes, and even her little kitten-like whimpers. We feel so blessed.
