And now the real blogging begins....

I have found that since I have a baby, for some reason I tend to be on the computer much more often, so I will hopefully be better about updating, but we'll see how that goes.
We've *seen* how it's gone in the past...

So a little bit more of the updates.
Since the post announcing my pregnancy, me and my husband (and our two dogs) have moved! We're now located about half an hour away from where we were previously, and let me tell you, the move was crazy.
We found our current house the 21 or so of August, and our landlord at our trailer was going to up the rent the 1st of September. Well we wanted to move anyways so that seemed like a good deadline to move by, and in a week, we had signed papers, packed up our (meager) belongings and moved! We had loads of help from family and friends, which we really needed, because our house was not clean at all. There were multitudes of dead roaches and dirt everywhere, and it looked as if someone had fried chicken in the kitchen and then splashed grease all over the cabinets and counters. It was nasty.
So we cleaned EVERYTHING, and moved all our boxes in on Wednesday, cleaned more on Thursday, let off some bug bombs, and spent the night at our friends' house on Thursday, and then I came back and unpacked.

Oh, and this was the same week that my sister gave birth (which I had the pleasure and honor of attending), and I was 16 weeks pregnant. That was the longest week of my life!!! Besides the week leading up to my Butterbean's birth, of course. My sister went into labor early Monday morning, called and let me know that it was the real thing around 1 PM Monday afternoon, I went to her house (where she gave birth! So cool!), and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening there with her and her husband, and their midwife until baby N was born at 3:58 AM. Baby N had to be sent to the hospital though, because she had inhaled some meconium while in the womb. That was scary, but she was okay, and it wasn't nearly as bad as the midwife had suspected. But she did have to go in an ambulance and spend 2 days in the hospital. So I didn't get to sleep that night until it wasn't night anymore! I went to sleep about 7 AM and only slept for 3 hours.
Then that day I was packing my house up (read; staying up late packing the last minute items), and then Wednesday was full of moving! It was a long and stressful few days.

Whit and I basically cruised through the remainder of my pregnancy, but his retail job was terrible. Although he worked in the afternoons (so we could both sleep in), he worked until at least 9:15PM and since we'd moved he was even farther from home, and wouldn't get home until around 10.
UNTIL, the pastor of our church offered him a part-time job working for his gold store. They buy gold and silver and give you CASH, but they're not like the cheesy places you see on TV. They have an "A" rating from the BBB, and their scales are actually calibrated once a year by an expert to ensure you get the best price! (Can I work for them too? I can do advertising!!!)
That was great, but then we was working both jobs. And that meant he left at 9:45AM and didn't get home until 10PM.

It was tough for him to be gone all day. And I hated it. I tried to keep myself busy (that's what friends and family are for!!) but I still missed him. And it went on like this for 4 months.

UNTIL, our pastor offered him a full-time position! We knew it was a possibility in the future, but it was dependent on whether they had a spot for him, and we didn't think they would for several more months. It was such a blessing that he was able to get this better job, because once he started working there full time, he worked for only 8 hours a day, and he now gets EVERY Sunday off consistently, and an additional day off every week. He gets home from work at about 6:30, which was very important to me, because I wanted him to be able to spend time with Butterbean before she went to bed at night, and I didn't want to be putting her to bed at 10:30 every night!

And icing on the cake is that now we have health insurance through his work! I was on Medicaid for the duration of my pregnancy, because my parents' health insurance didn't cover me for maternity benefits, so I would have had to pay for EVERYTHING out of pocket and when you see the doctor 17 times it gets pretty expensive.

All in all, we've been extremely blessed. We were provided with the major appliances for our house (most of them for free!), a load of furniture that we never had room for, a wonderful house that (although in the sketchy area of town) has been our home for these last few months (double the space for the same amount we'd been paying before), a well-providing job, working with and for great Christian people, and a beautiful, healthy, baby girl!

God is so good!

My next blog I'll actually get into the nitty-gritty everyday stuff, and I'll stop giving the update-style posts!
Look forward to it!

She's here!

God blessed me with a very easy, run-of-the-mill pregnancy, complete with going past my due date! Our little girl was due February 6th, and didn't arrive until February 19th! Almost 2 weeks late! 

Here's the story!

I was 9 days "overdue" and had set a date to begin induction. Me and my loving husband went to the hospital Thursday (the 16th) to begin Cervadil, a prostaglandin insert. They finally put in the Cervadil after trying to find a vein for an IV. It took them FIVE tries, and me getting nauseous! I was nervous, because if I couldn't handle the silly IV, how was I going to handle going through labor without meds? 

The cervadil was put in around 10:30 PM and I started having mild crampy contractions almost right away. But since I had the Cervadil in, I wasn't allowed to get up and walk around, until I got up and used the restroom before they started the pitocin. So that night was AWFUL, and I didn't really sleep much.

At 6 AM they came in and started me on Pitocin. We started at a low dose, and my doula came in right after they started the drip. The contractions weren't that bad! There wasn't much for my doula to do. We got from a "dimple" cervix, to the nurse being able to put her finger in, to a solid 1 by the time afternoon rolled around. I was disappointed that was only as far as we'd gotten, but tried to stay positive. They had the pitocin on its minimum setting because my body reacted well to it, and much higher and the contractions were coming too quickly and stressing the baby. 

So we keep going and by 7 PM there hasn't been any more progress. We're at a stand still. We decide to turn off the pit, let me eat, and get some sleep, and then start again in the morning. 

I did take some stadol (sp?) to help me sleep because I was still having contractions after they turned off the pitocin. My hubby has a video of me talking because that stuff knocked me out almost immediately and talking through it was HARD!!! But I slept pretty well!

Friday they started me on pitocin at 5 AM, and we started walking, and moving, and trying to stay active. We got all the way to 4 cms by the time noon hit, and they still kept the pit pretty low, it was only set to 2 (and it is often set to like 20 or 30). The contractions started to get more painful, and I had to think about breathing through them. At about noon, my water broke and it was meconium-stained, but Seraphina tolerated the pit-induced contractions REALLY well, and we could watch her "tracing" on the fetal monitor and see that she was okay. We got all the way to 6 cms, but the contractions weren't getting me much farther than that. So the Doctor suggested we put in an intrauterine pressure catheter to see how strong the contractions actually were (it's much more accurate than the machine with the belts since it sits in the uterus and can be zeroed out). It was good that we did, because it revealed that the contractions were about half the strength they needed to be to cause major changes so we upped the pitocin to 3, and then after a few minutes of watching the baby's heartrate, we upped it again to 6. 

The pitocin set to 6 caused contractions without breaks between them and was stressing out the baby, so it was turned down to 5. The doctor suggested we try an epidural to help me relax, but I wasn't sure that was what I wanted to do, so me and my hubby and my doula prayed about it, and decided to keep trying. They had to replace my IV which was LAME. It started to make my hand swell so they had to move it to the other hand. Although they got a smaller needle this time and got it on the first try. I was so relieved. The IV was terrible!

My mantra through the really tough contractions was Philippians 4:13. "I can do all things through Christ Jesus who strengthens me." I started saying it over and over through the really tough contractions, telling myself mentally that if I can make it to the peak, I can make it through the contraction. And I did. But when I was checked again at 9pm, I was still a 6. I was so disappointed, and I decided to try the epidural. Apparently my body needed the threat of the epidural, because I started having REALLY strong contractions over the next hour and a half. When they came to do the epi, I sat through it and that REALLY sucked, then after they placed it, the nurse checked me and would you believe it, I had gotten to NINE cm in one hour! I was SO FRUSTRATED! I was so close to going med-free, so they offered to turn off the epi, and let it wear off. I decided this was what I wanted to do. The epi never really had time to get to my uterus, so I was still feeling contractions, just my backside was numb, and my feet felt like they had fallen asleep. 

So we let the epi wear off. And when the nurse came back in thirty minutes I was a complete 10!!! The baby was only at +1 station though, so I had to "labor the baby down" as the nurses called it. 

Pushing wasn't that fun, but it did help me get through the contractions to have something to do with them. My doula suggested we try a different position or two once I got the feeling back in my legs, and then we rolled over onto my back with my knees in the air to get the baby down further (not flat lithotomy position, but with my back propped up). The nurse felt for the baby and suggested that we move my head down some more to make sure I wasn't pushing the baby towards the rectum, but out the birth canal. So we did that. 

And then we started getting really close! My DH and my doula held my legs for me while I pushed the baby down and my DH held one foot while I actually pushed the baby out. I started getting so excited when they called the doctor in and the room started to fill up with nurses and pediatrics! I knew I was close then! I labored down for about two hours, and actually pushed her out in about an hour! I couldn't believe it when she actually came out! I couldn't believe it was finally over!!! She was covered in meconium, but they didn't have to do anything more than use the suction bulb to get it out of her mouth and nose. The doctor laid her on my chest and I got to see her pretty little face for the first time.

 

 She is so beautiful. She has TONS of dark hair, that I'm hoping doesn't fall out, because it is beautiful. Her eyes are such a dark blue me and DH disagre on what color they actually are, but she'll probably end up with dark brown eyes like I have. 

She weighs 7 lbs, 13 oz, and is 21 inches long! (the ultrasound we had at the beginning of the week said 8lbs 1 oz, so it was pretty close!). She measured at 14.5 inches for head circumference. I LOVED my Doctor. He did his job well, suggesting interventions, but not pressuring me on them, allowing us time to consider everything and giving overall good advice. I'm so thankful that after two days of induction, my little girl is here and doing well! 

 

(The first time Daddy got to hold her.)

I couldn't wait to bring her home!  

I was also very sore! Not in the places you'd expect, but my legs, and my back and my arms even from all the different positions I was in! That was the worst part.  

But in the end, I got the natural childbirth I was hoping for, even though I faltered a little bit. I am so thankful for a healthy baby and to be going home tomorrow!!! And I couldn't have done it without my AWESOME doula and my sweet Husband. They were incredible through the whole thing. 

 

(Our Doula, Angel, with Seraphina!)

 

Going home outfit!