he's here

liam glenn arrived tuesday evening at 6:46pm weighing 6lb 15oz.

aside from a small pitocin drip, it was a completely natural birth. i couldn't have been happier. i'll get the whole story up soon - it's hard to take time away from our perfect little foosa. i still cannot believe he's here and he's ours :)

labor limbo

yea so this whole birth thing isn't going according to any plan.

contractions began saturday night while i was on a walk with my sisa. i tried not to get excited - we had dinner with my family and our little easter egg hunt. after dinner, i told everyone about the contractions and we went on a family walk. they were intensifying - we all decided to get coldstone thinking that would be the last night before foosa. boy were we wrong.

will and i headed home after coldstone, the contractions were about 5 min apart. i bounced on the birth ball and downed gatorade, will ran around cleaning, packing the bags in the car and making cookies for our nurse basket. the contractions started coming every 3 minutes but weren't super painful. we decided to get in bed and try to sleep. i woke up about every 30 min to a bad contraction but managed to sleep through the rest. at 5am, they were intensifying and i had a huge urge to poop. so i had some breakfast, pooped, then got back in bed. at 7am, I woke up and decided to go for a walk. contractions were every 3 minutes, i was so confused - i knew they should be more spaced out since they weren't super painful. we decided to skip easter mass and head to ihop. after pancakes, we went on another walk. contractions intensified and will decided to mow the grass while I took a shower and straightened my hair. after 19 hours of contractions, we decided to go to the hospital to get checked - I thought maybe i was one of those freaks of nature who couldn't gauge their contractions then had their baby on the toilet.

contractions were every 2-5 min at the hospital. nurse janis checked me and i was at 4cm - 19 hours for one measly centimeter. dr. r came to talk to us and said we would be better off heading home - if we stayed, they would just try to do stuff to me and dr. r knew we wanted natural. so home we went and we took a little nap. at 6pm we headed back to my parents house for easter dinner and more walking. by 9pm i had to focus and breathe through the contractions so we headed home to get some more rest. again, thinking it would be the night.

the contractions dropped off as soon as we got home. i was devastated, confused, and not sure what I was doing wrong - i got in the shower and had a meltdown - will talked me out of it. told me my body is doing everything right, it just has more preparing to do. i couldn't help but feel like i was going to be pregnant for 9 more months. or maybe just never even have a baby.

this morning i headed into the doctor to get my blood pressure checked - it was still high. dr. p also wasn't thrilled with my bloodwork from friday. i told her about my headaches over the weekend and she said she'd really advise that we induce tomorrow since all signs are pointing to preeclampsia. she could see the disappointment on my face. i've worked so hard for this natural birth and now i feel it's starting off with interventions. i know a healthy baby and mama are most important, so i agreed to the induction. since i'm already so far along and foosa is sitting so very low, she wants to just break my water and see if things pick up on their own. she feels confident that we probably won't even need pitocin.

so cross your fingers that everything goes somewhat smoothly. i cannot believe we'll be meeting our foosa tomorrow. i'll try to update soon :)

birth story - part I {pre-labor}

i'm still pregnant. and this is going to be long.

this is the pre-labor part of the birth story. i definitely never imagined labor this way - i always thought i'd go into labor (like feel first contraction, get excited, tell will), water would break in dramatic fashion, contractions would intensify, we would head to the hospital and out would pop foosa.

in truth, my body has been in pre-labor for weeks now. i'm 3 cm dilated, 90% effaced, baby is sitting at +1 station and i'm contracting every 3-5 minutes.

so i go to my 39 week dr appt this morning. i gained the "normal" one pound (total 40 pounds). then the nurse checks my blood pressure - 141/102. uh oh. it's always normal so the nurse has another nurse double check it. same. and i had sausage ankles, also not a good sign. they tell me dr. p will most likely have them wait a bit and recheck me at the end of my appt. okie dokes. so in comes dr. p who tells me she is concerned that i'm preeclemptic and she'll probably be sending me over to the hospital for monitoring. then she listened to foosa's heartbeat (145), measured the old belly (right on track), and checked my progress - she was literally beaming as she told me i was 3cm, 90% effaced, and foosa is sitting at +1 station. she said if they did end up inducing me, things were looking very positive. she said she would rather not have to go the pitocin route because she knows i want a natural birth and it would be much better to let things happen, well, naturally. beautiful, doc, we're on the same page.

so they let me sit for a while and chill then rechecked my bp - it was the same, so dr. p sent me across the street to the hospital. i had already texted will at the beginning of the appointment when i knew it was a possibility, so he was in route.

once i got to labor & delivery, nurse buffy showed me to my room and let me pee. i was surprised to find blood all over my underwears - i normally bleed a tiny bit after internals but only notice it when i wipe - so i pee and wipe...and wipe...and wipe a huge amount of bloody mucous (lovely, yes?), so i'm guessing that's the fabulous bloody show. all signs are pointing toward meeting foosa soon :) not to mention, i had been having contractions all morning, but those are nothing new at this point. buffy hooked me up to a foosa heart rate monitor and another monitor to measure my contractions, and the blood pressure monitor. then she took 2 vials of blood. my bp started coming down immediately and will showed up (with bagels too :) because i was so starving thinking i would grab panera after my dr appt on my way to work). i was contracting every 3-5 minutes. i told buffy i'm worried that i won't know when it's the real deal. she said i'll know because i'll be crying. got it.

after being monitored for about an hour, they wheeled me down to the ultrasound. holy crap, foosa is huge! last time we saw him, his whole little body so nicely fit on the screen. and yes, he's still a he :) they checked my fluid levels which were perfect, took a bunch of foosa pics to send to the dr, and estimated he weighs 6lbs 6oz! this can be a pound off in either direction, but it looks like i don't have a 10 pounder in there after all!! i was thrilled to hear this :) i then got wheeled back to my l&d room and hooked back up to the monitors while they waited for the ultrasound results and the OK from my dr. we finally left at 2:00. if i don't go into active labor this weekend, i have to go back to the dr monday morning to get my bp checked. our favorite dr is on call this weekend, so it would be pretty ideal to go ahead and just get this party started.

so no foosa yet - i'm not sure why my body hasn't decided to go into active labor. i'm relaxed, we're ready, and my body needs to get the memo that it's time to kick this labor into high gear. we're going to make spaghetti & meatballs tonight, get the house all nice and clean, and lounge around - i'll get my ass on the treadmill tomorrow. enjoy your weekend and send some active labor vibes this way :)

the belly shoot

thanks so much to our friends, tracy & kevin, for these wonderful photos. we love them :)