A baby story... (part 1)

One of the many reasons that I've always loved blogging is that it's pretty much like a journal of my life. I can go back and read what I was thinking about or going through at any given point. I know that's nothing new...I'm sure that's why a good number of people blog. I especially love being able to read back over the posts from when I was pregnant with Dallas. It is so special to me to relive those memories, and I am excited that one day, she too will be able to read those posts and see all of the pictures of me while I was carrying her. It may be many, many, many years before she appreciates any of it, but that's okay. It is my hope that some day she will be able to read through all of it and that it will make her feel so special to know how much Dustin and I loved her and how excited we were for her to be a part of our family before she was even born.

I very much regret not blogging during this pregnancy. That's one of those things that people always talk about -- how the 2nd child (and any subsequent kids) don't get nearly the attention that the first one did. Before I had this baby, I think I kind of had the thought in my mind that once you had one baby, the birth of any other babies wasn't as special. Now that I have two children, though, I know very well that (for me at least) that is not true in the slightest. The truth is that once you have a child, you're just busy. And when you're busy, you have to decide what is the most important to you. As I said in my last post, for me, spending time with Dallas along with all of the other things that come with being a stay at home wife and mom just became way more important than spending time writing a blog. I do wish I'd made time for a few "this is what I'm going through" posts here and there during the pregnancy, but...I didn't. Thankfully I've told my pregnancy story a bunch of times, and it's still fresh enough in my mind that I'll be able to at least write about the big stuff...the important things that this baby may someday want to know. So, here it is -- our (2nd) baby story.

(I want to add -- I was planning to put a lot of pictures in this post to go along with what I write, but since I'm doing this from my phone, that would be way too difficult. I don't want to keep putting off publishing this, so all the pics will just have to wait till another time :)

All my life I've said that I want two children. Then I met Dustin, who said that he wanted four, and when we got married, we agreed to compromise at three. There are three kids in my family -- me being the middle child -- and I've always liked the spacing between me and my sister (2 years) and brother (4 years). After having Dallas, I think Dustin and I both knew that we wouldn't wait too long to have a second child. Not too long after Dallas's first birthday (September 18, 2010) we started talking once again about having another baby. It was like Dallas all over again since it was also September when we'd first started trying to get pregnant with her. By the first of this year, even without taking a pregnancy test I was pretty much convinced that I was pregnant since I had found out that I was pregnant with Dallas also at the beginning of January. On January 6th, I took the test...knowing that it was really early to get an accurate result. Sure enough, though, it said that baby #2 was on the way!

When I found out I was pregnant with Dallas, Dustin was standing right next to me, so he saw the lines on the stick at the exact same time that I did. This time, I was impatient and took a test while he was at work. I guess I could've kept it to myself for a while and thought up some cute and creative way to tell him that he was going to be a daddy again, but instead, I called him at work, told him that Dallas and I had had a rough morning, and asked if I could stop by his office for a few minutes on my way out to my parents' house just to help us cheer up a bit. When we got to his office, he came out to the parking lot to say a quick hello. I actually had to fake and few tears to get him into the car for just a second, and then I told him -- we didn't really have a rough morning. We're actually having another baby! He was very excited to say the least, and since we weren't going to share our news immediately with everyone we knew, I'm sure it was difficult for him to go back to work and pretend like nothing had happened. I know it was hard for me to act normal!

We had my family (parents, brother and sister -- that almost NEVER happens) over for dinner about a week after we found out, and although we had planned to wait a little bit longer to share our secret, we went ahead and told them that night that Dallas was going to be a big sister. Actually, when Dustin prayed for the food, he said something like "...and please bless this new little life that's growing inside of Angela." After the AMEN, they were all excited and asked if we were serious :) We told Dustin's family about a week after that when we went to visit them and celebrate Christmas. Dustin told them that we had one extra present for them...but it wouldn't arrive for about 9 months.

Morning sickness started early with this baby, so of course from the very beginning everyone was just sure that we were having a boy. Sure enough, on April 20th, the doctor confirmed that Dallas would indeed be getting a baby brother for her birthday. Yes, my due date was September 16th-- just two days before Dallas would turn two.

Just like my pregnancy with Dallas, this pregnancy was difficult. Thankfully I had no issues with preeclampsia, and it was a huge blessing not to be working, but I started having terrible back and rib pains early on, and it was determined that my gall bladder was to blame. After several (very expensive) sonograms, my doctor proclaimed my gall bladder to be low functioning, full of sludge (sounds gross, huh?) and gave me a prescription for Loritab. After a few weeks, I was switched to Percocet and took that for the last 2 1/2 months of the pregnancy to help manage the pain. My doctor has since said that my gall bladder will need to be removed before I have any more children, and even though that won't be happening for several years, we've met our insurance deductible for this year, so the surgery will definitely happen some time before the new year. It's scary, but it's also exciting to think that if/when we have more kids (because yes, it is now an IF after all of this drama) I won't have to deal with this issue again!

Since the problems that I had during delivery with Dallas, we knew from the very beginning that this baby would be born via c-section. My doctor scheduled the surgery for September 9th -- one week before our baby boy was due. I, of course, was hoping that he would come earlier than that. Again, since I was having a scheduled c-section and because of my gall bladder issues, my doctor said that if I had any symptoms of early labor or regular contractions, she would go ahead and take him. I'd been having Braxton Hicks contractions since 19 weeks, but somewhere around 36 weeks they became real! Unfortunately, the real contractions did nothing for my uncooperative body, and my 37 week appointment came and went.

The Tuesday night of my 37th week, my contractions became noticeably stronger. I still didn't think I was really in labor...nevertheless I downloaded a contraction timer app and started to keep track. Irregular. 11 minutes. 15 minutes. 8 minutes. 30 minutes. 2 minutes. It was quite frustrating. I was so uncomfortable...I ended up just taking a bath and going to bed early. I figured the contractions would either wake me up and we'd go to the hospital, or I'd wake up in the morning and go to the pool with my friends as I'd been planning.

Wednesday morning, I woke up as I normally did... to the sound of Dallas playing in her bed. One thing was different though -- I was still feeling some pretty strong contractions. Up to that point, my BH contractions had occurred mostly in the afternoon, evening, and night times. I started timing them again, and even though they were still very irregular, I went ahead and called my doctor. As is usual, a nurse from the office called me back, and explained what was going on -- strong, very uncomfortable and yes even painful contractions and, by this point, quite a bit of low pressure -- as if the baby was pushing down. The nurse agreed that I was most likely in early labor and told me to keep track if my contractions. If they continued or got worse, she wanted me to go on to the hospital. She said that since I was scheduled for a c-section they didn't want me to labor at home for too long and risk having me dilate too far or the baby enter the birth canal or anything like that.

By this time, I'd called my mom to come over to keep Dallas...just in case. After a few more hours of contractions (still very irregular!) I called Dustin and told him that when he got home from work I wanted to go to the hospital to be checked out.

Honestly, I didn't think I was in labor. I never went into labor with Dallas, and even when given pitocin in the hospital I never progressed, so I really didn't think it would happen on it's own this time, but I was so very uncomfortable and so ready to NOT be pregnant any more that we went anyway...just in case.

After I told Dustin I wanted to go to the hospital, he went ahead and left work. When he got home, we packed our hospital bags (I'd only had the baby's bag and about half of my stuff packed before then) and took off. It was extremely difficult to say goodbye to Dallas because 1) I didn't want to upset her by making a big deal out of the fact that Dustin and I were leaving her, and 2) I didn't know whether to say, "I'll see you in a little while," or "I'll see you tomorrow after I have this baby oh and by the way your world is about to be seriously turned upside down." It was upsetting to say the least.

By the time we got to the hospital, checked in and got all set up in a triage room for monitoring it was about 6pm. The nurse hooked up monitors for both my contractions and the baby's heartbeat. It was apparent from the beginning that although I was having contractions, they were still pretty far apart and not coming at regular intervals. After a while the nurse checked to see if I was dilating at all, but just as my doctor told me at my appointment a few days before -- I was not dilated at all. Of course, I immediately started feeling pretty dumb for having come in to the hospital, and from then on I was just waiting for them to send us on home. It was very disappointing to hear that even with all of the contractions and even with all the low pressure I'd been feeling that I was still not actually progressing towards labor.

I was surprised when the nurse never even said anything about us going home after she checked me. At one point I think I asked if it looked like we'd be going home, and she said she didn't know and it would depend on what my doctor said when she called to give her a report. I was glad that we still had a chance, although I still really didn't think anything was going to happen that night.

To be continued in part 2...