My baby girl is here! Jestyn Reese was born on Saturday, November 20, 2010 at 1:21pm. She weighed 7 lb 15 oz and was 21 inches long. She is perfect :)
...and then my angel smiled at me.....
...and I was in love. I didn't want to do anything except hold her and stare at her. Seriously, what newborn is this alert and expressive 10 minutes after entering the world? She's so special. So anyway, I'm going to attempt to catch up. I guess I'll start with my labor and delivery story. Then I'll have to do a post later to document her first week.
Dr. Strebel was on vacation until Friday, the 19th, so I was given strict orders to not have my baby without her. I really thought I'd end up having to be induced sometime the week after her due date, but I listened to my doctor and didn't do any activity the week prior to my due date (the 20th). Once she got back to town Friday, I started walking, trying to move this process along. Anita and I walked, went to watch Unstoppable (side note: I love Denzel :) and the movie was awesome), then walked some more. I didn't feel any different and didn't even feel like she'd started to drop. But Saturday morning about 4:00am, I woke up with cramps. Still didn't think anything of it, until I realized I was getting cramps every 30 min...and it finally dawned on me that I could be having contractions! I was very calm, and decided to get up an take a shower at 6:00, just to see if the hot water would ease the cramping. Nope. So I woke up Jimmy at 6:30 to tell him it would probably be happening sometime that afternoon/evening. We were calm, and even discussed going to breakfast at Jimmy's Egg, then coming home to clean up. However, by about 7:00, my contractions started getting closer together-about every 7-10 minutes-and a little stronger. I told Jimmy to go ahead and get ready, just in case. By 7:30, I was sternly telling him to get me to the hospital:) I thought they might send me home, but I wanted to make sure I didn't have a baby at my house.
We get to the hospital and finally found labor triage. I walk up to the 3 nurses and calmly tell them I'm in labor. They asked me if it was my first child? Yes. When is my due date? Today. How long have I been having contractions? Almost 4 hours, but they have gotten stronger in the last hour. When was my last appointment? 2 days ago. How dilated was I? 1 cm. The longer I stand there, I realize they don't believe me that I'm in labor. And I realized by my answers that it sounded pretty unlikely. But I was still irritated and just wanted them to check. So they do and it turns out that I'm completely effaced and dilated to a 5 already! Give me the epidural! I'm pretty sure I said that more than once. Not so much because I was in major pain, but did not want to get it too late. They start an IV and do all the blood work, etc, and about 45 minutes later, my water breaks, and I'm dilated to a 9. Still don't have the epidural. My contractions became much stronger and closer together. I'm swiftly moved to a delivery room and the anesthesiologist finally shows up for my epidural, which I barely remember even feeling the shot after those contractions I was having. I think I told that doctor I loved him about 4 times. So after that shot I'm feeling good, until I started feeling contractions again and my blood pressure started dropping. I'm still not sure what happened, but they had to give me a shot to stop my contractions to get my blood pressure under control, then give me another shot to start them again. Craziness. If that wouldn't have happened, she probably would've been here about 11:00am. Anyway, Jimmy and my sister were both in the room. My delivery was very smooth after that and I didn't have to push too many times. I was just so exhausted and so excited at the same time. Oh, and my nurse even admitted to me later that they did think I was nuts when I arrived, they were taking bets that I was in false labor, and that I was way too calm to be dilated to a 5. I knew it!
So after all of that, I was given the most beautiful girl in the world. I could not have dreamed I would fall in love with her so quickly and that my world would change so drastically. I know that I am extremely blessed, not only because I had a great pregnancy and a fairly uneventful and quick delivery, but because Jestyn is just the most incredible baby. I know I'm biased, but she truly is perfect. And I'm the luckiest girl in the world to have my husband. I never doubted that he would be a good dad. I always knew he'd be awesome. But he is just the proudest dad I've ever seen. He's so hands-on and helpful and could possibly be even more smitten than I am with her. And I'm pretty sure that every time I see him hold her I fall more in love with him.
