Friday, 13 days prior to Anderson’s due date I woke up in pain. I woke up and had to get dressed, meaning out of my pj’s, as a new employee was coming over to train with me. On this particular day I proclaimed that this was going to be a long two weeks and that I have finally reached the point where I am “done being pregnant.” Come to find out the reason I was so “done”, was due to the pain of the contractions. I was actually in labor all day Friday while working, but was not really sure until after the fact. Back labor for me, was really hard to depict from just the typically back pain of being toward the end of my pregnancy. While I did work the entire day, I work from home so I was much more comfortable than say my friend Caroline, who had her baby three hours after she got off work. Once I started to figure out that I really was having contractions, I took a bath to help with the discomfort. At 2:00 in the afternoon my contractions were a steady 11 minutes apart. This is when I started to actually realize I was going to have a baby at some point over the weekend. Like I said, I took a bath, took a walk, called Eric and the wait began.
We did not wait at home because we had not yet bought a car seat. Buying a car seat was on our to do list for the weekend, but at this point we thought maybe we should take a trip to Babies – R – US and buy the remaining things on our must have list. Which by the way, we really did not need any of them except the carseat. As a new mom, I was determined to at least have the 12 receiving blankets that we were told we had to have at our baby care class. I have not used one of those blankets successfully. I learned very quickly that the lady that teaches our class must being getting some sort of commission on those suckers, which is entirely possible because she was old enough to have invented the receiving blanket. The blankets from the hospital however are the perfect size, I suggest stealing a few 
Tons of things actually ended up in the basket because I would pick up something on my list, put it in the basket and then see another pattern or color and change my mind. The problem with being 9 months pregnant and having contractions while shopping is that if it ended up in the basket at anytime, it stayed in the basket. The outcome, we purchased double or triple of most of the things on the list.
After the shopping trip we headed over to Panera Bread. Please be advised that Babies – R – US and Panera are with in a mile of the hospital. Panera is actually connected to the hospital via the skywalk. If anything, we were probably in better shape shopping than just hanging out at home. Eric eventually insisted that we head on home (after he had feed me, my last meal) when the contractions dropped to 7 minutes apart. We arrived home, which is about 5 miles down the road and while Eric installed the car seat I did laundry. I had to wash all the items, that I just had to have, that I had just purchased at Babies – R – US. I needed those items for when my baby came home from the hospital, so they had to be washed and tag free.
Eric finally retired to bed as he did not think he would be getting much sleep, as he figured we would go to the hospital in the middle of the night. At this point I was on a roll and had decided that it was a good idea to do all the laundry in the entire house, including the towels and washing some of the linens that were on the bed where Eric was sleeping. Can we say nesting! I did not really nest until the last mile, but I think I made up for it at that point. Including Vacuuming because it seemed to clam the baby down and subside the contractions a bit.
Once the contractions were 5 minutes apart we made the 5 minute commute to the hospital. We checked in about 2:00 AM on Saturday February 11th and received the depressing news that I was not very far along. At this point they still wanted to keep me and they just made me walk the halls instead of sending me home right away. I was totally fine with walking as I did not want to stay confined to my bed this early on. The only thing I really was not a fan of with this arrangement was Eric taking a detour to the vending machine to get a snack. I found it very rude that I was about to give birth to his child and not currently aloud to eat and he could not control his hunger.
Now this is where the story starts to get fuzzy as far as time duration etc. I was in my bed, it was sometime in the morning and the nurse was in my room “checking me.” Suddenly she had a worried look on her face, was moving the monitors all around my belly and hitting the call but for assistance. The nurse needed another nurse to come in, I knew that could not be good. I have no idea when they told me, but I know it was after they laid me flat on my back, started running an IV and used terms like “stat.” They did however finally share with me that they lost the baby on the monitor, but they found him again and he was breathing fine now. They were not a fan of this happening, but at this point they were not too concerned. The production of this event landed me in my bed for the rest of my stay. No more getting out of bed, no going home and absolutely no eating.
The on call doctor came in to visit me and at this point they made the call that with him failing off the monitor, which he had done again, we were going to induce labor. They estimated that it could take up to twelve hours, but I had at least a few good hours before I needed to push. With his news Eric decided with the doctors and nurses position to head home to walk Luke. While Eric was away the doctor came in again for a visit and baby fell off the monitor again. He was grabbing his umbilical cord and cutting off his oxygen supply. That was the straw that broke the plan. He grabbed that cord one too many times and that last time he was off the monitor for 2 minutes, which was too long. (doesn’t mean he wasn’t breathing that long, but they were not able to get his reading back right away, so they just don’t know how long it was) The doctor announced to me that we needed to get this baby out in 30 minutes and we were going to do an emergency c-section. Of course a c-section was certainly not in my plan, but it typically is never in one’s plan as a first time mom.
Once I was told I was having a c-section there were nurses in my room with scrub caps on prepping me for surgery with in minutes. I called Eric, who had only been gone for 20 minutes, I told him the news and that he needed to come back. He was already on his way back and was about 3 minutes away. Once he arrived they threw the scrubs at him and he had just enough time to locate the camera and follow me to the operating room. Of course we forgot to grab the baby book out of the room, which was one of those things I just had to purchase at Babies – R – US the night before, to get baby’s first footprint in the book.
I remember the nurse sitting me up on the table so that the anesthesiologist could administer the epidural. Once they laid me back down, they did a few more things to prep me, none of which I remember. They talked to me about who knows what and I am sure my answers where probably very entertaining and then suddenly Eric was in the room. Shortly after they allowed Eric in the room there was also a baby in the room. I remember them talking about him for what seemed like EVER before he was brought around with a goofy like hat that had a pom pom on the top of it. The nurse and Eric took his little hat off so I could see his sweet little blind baby hair. (Which I was later telling everyone it was curly because his head was still wet and the yukies made it look curly. My baby does not have curly hair, not at all.)
Later I woke up to Eric sitting beside me in recovery and I then learned it had been a few hours and that he had been off galavanting with baby in the nursery. Once I was “a little” alert they decided to take me to my room and I was able to stroll by the nursery to see my baby. Which I totally pointed to and claimed another baby as my own. The next day when I was more “with it” was clear that 9lb baby looked nothing like my 6lb 7oz Anderson Reese.
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- Fresh from the oven
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- The nurse showing me my lil man.
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- Such a little guy!
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- Screaming, he wanted to be back inside my belly.
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- In our room and in my arms for the first time.
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- Eric having more quality time with the little guy.
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- Look at that hair!
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- How did he fit inside of me?!
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- He’s in LOVE!
