And then came 2 o'clock in the morning when I got up to pee. That is when I felt a sharp, super painful cramp come on. At first they just felt like my regular menstrual cramps I got before getting pregnant (they got pretty bad). After I went to the bathroom, I went back to bed and tried to go back to bed, but the cramps got worse and worse. They got to the point where I was gripping the blankets and crying out in pain, which eventually woke Robert up at around 4. He suggested that we should go to the hospital, but I didn't want to go all the way to American Fork just to have them send us back home. So I told him that maybe I should time my contractions first and see how frequent they were. I pulled out the timer on my phone and sat there for about 45 minutes timing each painful contraction. Most were around 3 minutes apart, and Robert said "Let's just go. I don't mind driving you up to American Fork, and if they send us back home that's okay. We can go just to see if you're at least progressing." I finally consented and told him I needed to go to the bathroom one last time. I went, but this time when I wiped there was some blood. At this point I was freaking out and was packing up last minute things into my hospital bag, and off we drove to the hospital. We got there around 5 a.m. and we got ourselves checked in. They had me put on the hospital gown and they came in and took my vitals and strapped on a fetal monitor to check baby's heart rate and a thing to time my contractions. They also checked my cervix to see if it had dilated any. I had my doctor's appointment the previous Thursday (2 days before) and I was only dilated to like a 2.5, but when they checked me they said I was 4+. They told me to wait an hour and they would check again to see if I progressed. I had to endure another hour of contractions, and I got to the point where tears would no longer come out and I kept thinking, "When can I have that blasted epidural???" Finally at around 6 they came to check my cervix again and I was at a 5+. They admitted me and took me to get my epidural. That was the best!!! Now all I had to do was wait until I dilated to a 10. The doctor came in to break my water, and then I took a nice little nap because let's be honest, I was tired from being up all night and those contractions wore me out!
I woke up a couple of hours later (maybe it was around 9:15?) when the nurse came in and said I was dilated to a 7.5, but that my contractions were slowing down. They gave me some oxytocin to speed up my contractions, and about 15 minutes later the nurse came in and said, "It didn't take much to get you going! I think you're ready!" I got so nervous because I wasn't sure if my little body could push something as big as a baby out of me! But that still didn't keep me from looking in the mirror to watch as baby was coming out. I started pushing at around 9:40, and an hour later at 10:38 a.m., Baby Day was born (at this point we still didn't know what her name would be)! She came out to be 6.6 pounds and 18 1/2 inches long with green hair (she passed meconium in the womb). They wiped her up (just a little bit) and handed her over to me. To be honest I thought they were going to at least wash her up before giving me this bloody, mucousy mess and I was a little grossed out. But at the same time I didn't care because I had finally given birth to my daughter! It's still crazy to think I have a daughter and that I'm a mom. I held her for a little bit while Robert cut the cord, and then they took her to weigh her and clean her up a bit and to check her vitals. Then Robert and the baby went down to the nursery to get some other stuff done, while the nurse got me ready to move me down to the room I would be staying in for the next 2 days. I got up to get washed up a little bit, but I got so light headed that the nurse tried to hurry and change me out of my bloody gown and to get into a new one and sat me down in the wheelchair. My vision started going white and bells were ringing in my ears. The nurse rolled me out to get to the elevator and another nurse joined her, and then I fell asleep. At least that's what I thought I did because I thought I was just so tired, but apparently I fainted in the elevator. Next thing I remember was getting up out of the wheelchair and getting put into my bed and the nurses asking me if I was okay. I said "Much better!" and they laughed and I wondered why they were laughing and later learned it was because I passed out. At this point I was still kind of out of it and don't remember too much, but I know my family was waiting out in the hall for me but the nurses had to check my vitals again before they could come in. Then they came in and... yeah things are still hazy so I don't remember much except talking with them and them taking pictures and holding baby once she and Robert got back from the nursery. And Robert's parents and grandparents came in to see the baby for a bit.
The next day I didn't realize how sore I was! Giving birth is hard work! Plus I was probably exhausted from shaking non-stop the entire time before giving birth and even after (I guess the epidural causes the shakes for some people). Robert and I spent a lovely 48 hours in the hospital and finally got to bring baby home on Monday. As mentioned in previous blogs (I think), we hadn't decided on a name for sure yet, but had the names narrowed down to 4 and we were going to decide which name she looked like most. She was nameless for quite a while because it was still hard to tell what name she looked like. I for sure knew she didn't look like a Sadie though, so that was crossed out. And I still didn't want Chelsi (even though I know Robert really, really wanted that name), so that was crossed out. We were down to Myla and Kallie. Monday morning rolled around (we were being released from the hospital at around 10:30 a.m.) and we still needed to name her! I kept asking Robert what she looked like more, and told him I was fine with either because she looked like she could be either name. Robert still wasn't that warmed up to Myla, so I told him we seriously could name her Kallie, but he kept saying, "No, it's okay. We can just name her Myla." But I didn't want him to pick that name just because. I didn't want him to be calling her a name he didn't like, just like how I didn't want to be calling her Chelsi. I bothered him one last time Monday morning (I had been bothering him all weekend haha) and he just told me to get the yellow form out (the hospital gave us that form to have us put down a name for her birth certificate) and we'd pick a name. I pulled it out, got back into my bed and saw that Robert had already filled out Myla Mei Day when he filled the forms out on Saturday. So pretty much everyone thought she was nameless except for Robert. What a stinker! I could have been calling her Myla that whole time instead of "Baby".
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| Myla at 1 day old (I think... pretty sure I took this on Sunday...?) |
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| Myla just sleeping away. |
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| Chilling in the Bili lights. Her jaundice levels were high enough that she got her own tanning bed! |
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| I got her to smile! |
She is such a cutie! Maybe I'm just saying that because I'm her mom, but seriously. Look at that face. How can you resist that face even when it's 2 in the morning and she won't go back to sleep until 6?
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