Just for fun

So, this post may be more for JUST me, but since I am playing a little catch-up, I thought I should post Laine's birth story.  I promise, after this post, I will give more up-to-date posts as to our current crazy state of life, but for now, just humor me.  After all peeps-it has been forever since I have regularly posted.  (On a side note, it is midnight and I am drinking a glass of wine).  Hey-this is what life becomes when you have 3 kids under the age of 5.  These are my moments of ME, ME, ME.

So, here it goes:

If you look at my previous post, you will notice that our family pic on Christmas Eve shows a very preggo (38 weeks) me, and the pic at 3:30 am, Christmas morning shows me looking like I got hit by a semi-truck, despite the fact that I am holding a gorgeous little girl.

Luckily, my mom was in town for 2010 Christmas.  I will tell ya'll that I did everything to get this baby out BEFORE Christmas.  After all, I had Bryce at 36 weeks, so of course-she was going to come before 38 weeks, right?  That week before Christmas, mom and I walked the mall every stinkin' night for hours, we walked Sam's club while eating pineapple-you name the supposed "throw you into labormyths" I tried it.  I forgot though that I was preggo with a stubborn little girl, so none of those tricks worked.  On a side note peeps.........Brady, from day 1, told me that she was going to come "On Christmas."  For those of you that remember Brady's prediction of Bryce's birth---well, Brady is 2/2, but that's another post in and of itself.

Ok, so Christmas Eve, we all went to 4 pm mass at church.  We came home and ate a fabulous Lamb dinner (which doesn't sound so fab now, but you have to hear the rest of the story), put the boys to bed, watched tv, "Santa came," and off to bed we went around 11pm.  Well, around 12:30 I woke up with the worst chills ever.  Seriously, I almost thought I was having a seizure, I was shaking so bad.  For the life of me, I couldn't get warm.  I remembered we had a fire going that night, so I got out of bed and went to sit by the fireplace.  Still, I just shook, and shook, and shook.  After a couple minutes, I went to wake Jeff up and I asked him to come sit with me to see what was going on.  Now, he wasn't so happy because he thought I had lost it thinking that because I was "cold" I was in labor. However, being a totally rad hubby that he is, he humored his very preggo wife and sat with me (or rather dozed on the couch).  Well, shortly thereafter, I got contractions.....and then they came, and they came, and I still shivered.  After about 20 minutes, Jeff really finally woke up and said let's go to the hossy.  So, we woke my mom up, said we were leaving and off we went into the car, me wrapped in about 3 blankies, still shivering, now having painful contrax every 4 minutes.

We get into traige at the hospital, and get hooked up to the monitor and thankfully they throw those gloriously warm blankies over me.  Well, Laine's heart rate was 180, which a normal heart rate is 120-160, so she was high, but she was very, very active, so it was not a concern at this point.  Then, they take my temp and I have a fever of 102----yikes!!!  That explains my chills, and apparently, that's why Laine's heart rate was so high.  The doctor comes in and checks me and I am dilated to 5, with regular contractions.  So, needless to say I was having a baby.  Keep in mind, this is all happening around 1 am at this point.   Anyways, we get moved to a delivery suite, my regular OB comes in and discusses things with me, and that's that.  I had wanted to try to deliver without drugs because I did with Bryce (not by choice-he came too fast), and I was managing the pain wonderfully, so I told my dr-no epi.  Not to mention, with a fever, not all doctors will administer an epidirual, so I may have had no choice in the matter.  Anyways, they started me on antibiotics, the NICU doctors came in because Laine was going to have to be taken away immediately to check her to make sure she didn't have an infection from me etc etc.  Well, shortly, thereafter....my contrax are about every 2 minutes, lasting about a  minute each and they SUCK!!!  Holy hurt!!!  Bryce came so fast, I didn't have time to hurt.  This little girl though was killing me.  Jeff and my nurse were heroes.  I remember drinking gallons of water in between contrax and trying not to scream.  I think Jeff's hand lost blood flow from me squeezing him so hard.  As I was transitioning, I lost my lamb dinner (hence---no more lamb for me, or probably for my sure for that matter).  Then, I HAD to push.  As soon as my nurse ran to get my dr, she met her at the door.  My doctor had been watching my contrax on the monitor and knew it was TIME.  So, she cam in, broke my water (which, this was the first child my water DIDN"T break on it's own), and told me NOT to push-she was right there.  At this point, I hurt sssooo bad.  I hurt so bad, I couldn't feel contractions, I just felt constant pain, so I just remember pushing for all my might.  I am pushing and I could feel Laine's head, but she felt stuck, and I just wanted her out.  I remember saying, "JUst pull her out." and my doctors response was, "wow-this is a big baby for a little girl."  Ok doc...not what I want to hear at this point.  IDK-shortly thereafter, out Laine came-beautiful as always, and holy, thank God-the pain was gone.  She was gorgous, and pink, and screaming loud, and well..........BIG!  Go figure, my biggest baby was my girl.  She weighed 8lbs 6 oz.  She was born at 3:30 am Christmas morning.  What a gift, huh?  She was wisked away to the NICU, but returned to me with a clean bill of health after two hours of observation.  Unfortunately, she had to have a port put in her little arm, because she had to have IV infusions of antibiotics for her first 24 hours of life due to my fever.  At 6:30 am Christmas morning, we were wheeled down to our room for a nice, long, deserved nap.  Jeff ran home to see what Santa brought for the boys.  :)

Luckily, when a mother has a fever in labor, the cure for it is delivery.  I didn't suffer any complications, and Laine didn't either.  They did send my placenta away and the umbilical cord and both came back positive testing or chorioamnioitis, which is basically an infection in the placenta.  It can have devastating effects on the mother and baby, but thankfully, due to a quick delivery, fabulous medical care, and good luck-we were just fine.  The cause for the infection is unknown.

We are a complete family of 3.  Jeff and I have decided we are done having children.  We want to enjoy these 3 gifts God has blessed us with, and provide them with the best life we can.  Of course, we will never forget the 2 angels we have in heaven-who we know we will meet one day.   For now, here on this earth-we are a wonderfully, healthy, often times crazy and chaotic, family of 5!