1 year ago today

One year ago today, Mr. T and I were anxiously awaiting the arrival of little Miss Isabelle Mae. I am not a patient person, so waiting for her to arrive was tough on me. I just wanted to hold my baby and kiss her chubby cheeks (thank you 3D ultrasound!).  All along my due date was August 16th, but everyone kept telling me "you'll be late" or "oh, those first babies never come on time." I didn't want to believe them, but it turned out... they were right.

We began seeing our doctor once a week for a month leading up to my due date and she checked me each time, only to tell me that I wasn't dilated or effaced at all. Awesome, thanks dream crusher doc. The doctor did tell us that we would induce the 17th  and she would probably make her appearance on the 18th. We decided to induce because at that point the only thing that the baby (Isabelle) was doing in there was gaining weight and she could do that outside of my belly where we could watch her. So we had a FOR SURE date that we would meet her which was exciting! Except if felt like it would never come.

On Tuesday, August 17th  Mr T, my sister, brother in law, nephew and parents went out to my favorite restaurant where I had my "last meal" of my favorite dinner...Nachos, macaroni and cheese and water (To add salt to the wound, the restaurant we went to had $2 Miller lites. My drink of choice. Everyone at the table ordered one, except me. I was sooo ready for a cold beer by then!) I settled for water with a lemon. It was delicious. At 7:30 pm. Mr. T and I checked into the hospital for the induction process to start. Pretty quickly I met my nurse (Shawn) and she hooked me up to the machines to watch Isabelle's heart rate and to watch for contractions. While being hooked up, I learned that I WAS having contractions, but I wasn't realizing it! (I'm not tough, just dumb a newbie at this whole pushing a human being out of a tiny hole). She also showed us how we could watch Isabelle's heart rate on the monitor and the range that her heart needed to stay in. I was glad she gave us that tid-bit of information. (more on that later)
After we had settled in (about 30 minutes) our nurse gave me some medicine to help my cervix efface. That's when the fun really started. My contractions got stronger and it was getting hard for me to sleep which was stressful because I knew I was about to do the hardest workout of my life and I needed rest! The nurse gave me some medicine to help me sleep, which basically did nothing to help me sleep it just made me feel loopy. My doctor was great at telling me beforehand what to expect, so I felt like I knew all the next steps. We would wait until I was more effaced and then in the morning they would give me petocin to help me dilate and get the contractions started and that's when the fun would start. Wrong.
After they gave me sleep medication, I couldn't sleep and started to feel nauseous. Then I felt like I peed the bed (a.k.a. water broke). Everyone in the room was surprised at how quickly this was seeming to go. My nurse also said that based off the fluids from my water breaking, they could tell that the baby had pooped in utero, but that was OK. She reassured me that it wasn't a big deal, so I went with it.
 I was starting to feel really sick and the pain was getting a lot more intense. I was NOW feeling the contractions. Then my dinner decided to show itself again (yup, all over Mr. T).
My brother in law is an anesthesiologist and told me that I could get an epidural whenever I wanted. You don't have to wait to be a 3 or 4, you can basically get one when you walk in the door. During every contraction, I heard his voice telling me that so I decided to get the epidural then. I knew I wouldn't get any sleep without it. If I had to do it all over again, I would have skipped the sleep medication. It did nothing for me. The epidural did everything for me (even though it took them 2 tries to get it in!)
At about 4:00 a.m. my contractions got more intense, even though I was now sleeping through them (Thank you LORD for anesthesiologists!). My nurse and Mr T were by my side the entire time helping me to relax and making sure I was comfortable. I got in the habit of just watching the monitor. When you're pregnant there is nothing better than hearing your babies heart beat and now that I could watch it, I was glued to the monitors. We started to notice Isabelle's heart rate dropping below the "target area" and I could see the expression on our nurses face was worried. She told me she was going to call my doctor and let her know what was going on, but it wasn't a big deal at all and everything would be great. Next thing I knew, our doctor came in with a smile on her face and said, "I have been monitoring you from my computer at home and I'm not liking how low baby's heart is getting so we're going to go ahead and get her out of there." I was confused. A c-section? I wasn't prepared for that. I thought all along we had a plan, but the plan quickly changed. It was better for Isabelle. Apparently every time I had a strong contraction, her heart rate would drop considerably low and the more contractions I was having, the longer it was taking her to get her heart rate back up. I still thank God that we were in the hospital to monitor that and not at home laboring.
A team of nurses came in and gave Mr. T some scrubs and told him to put them on so he could be in the surgery room with us. I could tell on his face that he was worried and was trying to fight back tears, which made me realize how serious this was, but before I could do anything I was getting wheeled into surgery.
The c-section started and went quickly. It's not painless. It may not be ripping of lady parts, but it's no picnic. Our doctor also said that I wouldn't be able to kiss and hold Isabelle immediately because since she had pooped in utero, they needed to make sure that they sucked everything out of her lungs before she took her first breath of air. The NICU team was there waiting for her arrival as well. I was freaking out and just wanted everything to be OK. At that point I felt the mothers love. I would have died on the spot to make sure she was okay. And she was. Mr. T told me that when she first came out, she was gray. Once they sucked her lungs...I heard her first cry. That was the most amazing sound I have ever heard. I immediately started crying as soon as I heard her. Mr. T got to go to be with her and told me she was perfect and gave me a kiss as he left to follow her out to get measured.
At 4:35am Isabelle Mae was born at 6lbs 9oz and 20 inches long with a perfectly natural Mohawk. The moment we saw her, I knew she was perfect. Happy and Healthy. Our baby.

Easily, the best year of our life.