It's be a long time...

Things have certainly changed since October whenever I last updated. Oops. Well, first big change- I'm not pregnant anymore! (Duh, given that it's almost mid December!)

Our little bit, Lilliann Ruth, arrived on November 21st, at 4:29am- she's a night owl like her momma. I went in to labor on my own- my biggest fear this whole pregnancy was that I would have to be induced again like I was with DS, and wouldn't have at least the chance to attempt a natural, drug free childbirth. That didn't happen, b/c I'm a pansy and couldn't hack it, but at least it was on my own terms, not b/c I had a ton of Pitocin being pumped into me. But, I get ahead of myself! I guess I should first share Lily's birth story, from the beginning (which may be a little TMI, but, what about birth isn't TMI, really?)...

The 20th was my last day of work- couldn't have been better timing! It was amusing that day, because we actually had a fire alarm pulled at school due to a small oven fire, and when the fire brigade showed up, several co-workers and I joked that now would be a perfect time for me to go into labor- little did I know, I would that day! I felt good all day, and when I got home from school, was even feeling a little on the frisky side and decided to have some fun with my hubby. I'm not sure if this is what officially broke my water or what. I fell asleep for a few hours, and when I woke up, noticed that things were awfully juicy. When I went to the bathroom, I noticed that the "discharge" was pink tinged, and still wasn't sure if it was my water that had broken, or if I'd irritated my cervix or something. Once I started walking around the house, and had filled a pad within about 10 minutes, I knew that it indeed, was my water that had broken.

It was about 6pm about this time, and I knew I was in for a long night- I wanted to make sure I got something to eat, because I knew I wasn't getting anything once I was at the hospital. We went to a local Japanese steakhouse with my sister, and during dinner, I finally started noticing contractions- they weren't painful, but literally took my breath away- it felt like someone was squeezing the air out of my lungs each time! They were about 7 minutes apart the entire time we were at the restaurant. My husband was worried about going somewhere that would take so long to eat- he was like, are you sure you don't want to go somewhere faster? But I knew as long as the contractions weren't painful, I probably wasn't anywhere near delivering, so I wasn't in a hurry to get to the hospital. Around 8, as we were headed home to meet my father in law, who was picking up Aiden to watch while we were at the hospital, I finally called my midwife and let her know my water had broken. She said as long as the contractions weren't painful, I was ok to labor at home another hour or two, but that she wanted us in by 10.

So, we went home, I finished packing up the hospital bag with last minute things, and posted to Facebook and the Bump that I was in labor and that Lily would soon be making her appearance. The whole time, I was calmly excited, cool and collected- totally not how I thought I'd be when I went into labor! Steve wasn't freaking out, necessarily, but you could tell he was antsy to get to the hospital- I don't think he wanted to deliver his own child!

Finally around 9:30, we made our way over to the hospital- we were in triage by 10:30, but didn't make it into a delivery room until almost midnight. The whole time I was in triage, the contractions were still very mild, but pretty much the second we got to the delivery room, they started to get a little more painful. We walked around for about 45 minutes, before I had to come back to the room for intermittent monitoring. After that, I found myself in a rocking chair, rocking in between contractions and gripping the arms of the chair for dear life during them. I kept trying to relax my body and breathe through the contractions... but this, my friends, is much easier said than done. By the time they checked in on me again at about 2am, I was shivering when I wasn't contracting, felt like I was going to puke, and my contractions felt like they were one on top of another, even though the monitor said they were still 3 minutes apart- apparently time does not follow normal rules while in labor. The nurse checked me, and got my hopes up by saying she thought I was fully dilated- my midwife came in and gave me the reality that I was still at 6cm, but that she thought I was entering the transition stage of labor.

Damn all the research I'd done at this point, because instead of my peppy cheerleader rooting me on "you're in the last stage! You can do it!", my evil internal cheerleader starts jeering at me "This could still last another 3 hours! The Ring of Fire is yet to come! You can't do this! Get the epi!". The evil cheerleader won. About 15 minutes after the midwife stepped out, while gripping on to the bedrails as though they would help somehow, I finally blurted out "I want an epi!".

Of course, it took the anesthesiologist almost a half hour to finish up with another patient, and then a good 20 minutes to get my epi in... then, it only worked on the right side of my body, so she had to put in more... then my ass was still not numb and I could feel contractions there (though comparatively less, so I probably could have hacked that much pain- would that still have counted for a natural childbirth?) so in went more meds... I went from being able to wiggle my toes to being completely numb waist down. I'd had an epi with Aiden as well, so I knew what it should feel like- this time I wasn't able to feel a thing when the time came to push, whereas last time, I could vaguely feel the pressure of the contractions and the pressure of the baby.

So, it's around 3am at this point in time, I've worked since 7am, and am pretty well exhausted from my 3 hours of painful contractions, so what else does one do? I took a nap! When I woke up, to my surprise, the nurse checked me and announced that this time, I really WAS fully dilated and that she could feel the baby's head and that it was time to push! I was actually rather astounded- if I'd known it was only going to be another hour, I so would have skipped the epi. But, hindsight is 20/20, and we all know I have shitty eyesight anyway, so it is what it is. They got the room set up, woke up my husband (who I thought at first was just going to sleep through the whole thing, b/c I called his name 3 times before he woke up!) and next thing I knew, I was pushing! Four contractions and twelve pushes later... Lilliann Ruth joined the world, and she was (is!) just beautiful!

We got to sit and stare at her for a good hour, getting to know her, before I finally gave her up to the nurse to weigh and measure her before nursing her the first time. She clocked in at 7lb 12.5 oz, and 20inches long- a good lb less than her brother, but only an inch shorter. She has the longest fingers I've seen on a baby- Everyone in my family says she'll be a pianist, I say she'll be a good volleyball player! She latched right on when it came time to nurse (not perfectly, and that is still a work in progress, but, it's working for us!), and at the end of the day, any regrets I had about getting the epi evaporated, because I was just completely smitten and in love.

Brother Aiden was, unfortunately, not able to meet her at the hospital, as they weren't allowing anyone under 17 to visit due to the lovely famed H1N1. We called him in the morning to tell him that he was officially a big brother, and he was the reason we busted out of the hospital as soon as they would let us go- we missed him, and our little family just wasn't complete without him! That, and who can get any sleep in the hospital?

Fast forward 3 weeks later... Lily has just about outgrown her newborn clothes, and is ready to move up to the next size- same with newborn diapers. She eats like a champ (sometimes too well- I'll swear I've just fed her and she's off and rooting again!), is in generally really happy and easy going, and sleeps well. I chalk the good sleep up to having her sleep in our room and bed with us- she snuggles next to me at night for the most part, wakes to eat once at 3, then again at 7, and lets me sleep in till about 10 (her brother, different story!). She's met almost the entire family- the only people she's not yet met are my grandmother and aunt and uncle, and she'll get to meet them at Christmas. Everyone is, of course, totally in love with her- what's not to love!

We've not remained holed up in the house like apparently everyone thinks we should- I'm 99% sure we all had H1N1 back in August, so I'm not worried about her getting it- she'll either have immunity from the womb, or from my breastmilk, so we're good either way. Plus, no one in our household is good at the being cooped up for long thing, DS especially.

New things I like this time around that I didn't do with DS and wish I had- co sleeping, baby wearing, and being way more confident about my parenting abilities and not worrying so much. It's rather nice.

I have a baby sleeping on my arm right now, which makes posting pictures slightly difficult- next post will be purely pictures! And hopefully won't be two months from now!