A Baby Story

Well, here it is - Our Baby Story:
Friday, January 23 I was 38 weeks pregnant and in a horrible mood! We had just moved into our house the day before, and I had spent all of Friday unpacking and organizing the kitchen. Tired and cranky, I told Mike goodnight early and went to bed around 9:30. At 10, I suddenly woke up from sleep thinking that I'd just had a pain, but I wasn't sure. I laid there for around an hour trying to decide if I was in labor and listening to Mike play Grand Theft Auto on surround sound. Finally, I figured I was probably in labor and called Mike to tell him that I thought I was probably in labor.
Mike bounded up the stairs 2 at a time with a huge smile on his face. "It would be better if we could at least wait until the end of the weekend!" (We didn't yet have the crib put together or a washer/dryer in place). After timing a couple of contractions, we decided to make a paper mache cast of my belly. By this point, I was no longer uncertain of whether I was in labor, and in fact I was having back labor. It was hard to be still for the cast of my belly to set! I did though, and in hindsight I'm glad Mike thought of doing it. It's amazing how much bigger I was 4 days ago, haha!
At this point, it is around 1 am. I went into the room that was going to be the nursery and started putting baby stuff together for the hospital trip. I felt a contraction coming, doubled over with it, and then my water broke when I stood up. Without going into too much detail, that is a WEIRD sensation! It continued leaking for hours after the initial break. Inconvenient. :)
I took a shower, and Mike called Labor and Delivery Triage, who told us to come on in. It was around 1:45 when we left. I had started vomiting around 1:15 (which the nurses assured me was normal, although they looked none too pleased to hear about that particular symptom!)
Anyway, we got to the hospital, got checked in, and I was 3 cm dilated and 70% effaced. I cannot tell you how supportive Mike was. It was really incredible. If I go into too much detail, he come back after me and delete it, but I will suffice to say that he is every bit the amazing man that I knew him to be.
Around 3 am, we got to the delivery room, I got some nausea/pain medicine, and the nurse started checking us in. The contractions were much stronger than I had expected, and even the pain medicine didn't seem to be helping much. It did however, make me extremely loopy for the check-in procedure with the nurse who promptly began harassing me about being a lightweight and a cheap date. I tried to think of some witty comment relating the cheap date thing to being pregnant, but in my haze, I couldn't think of anything. :)
At 4:30, I got a "walking epidural". This is apparently the epidural that they give that has light basal rates of drugs, and the patient can increase the dose on demand with a handheld button. The epidural was fantastic. The contractions became bearable, but I could still move/feel my legs. I fell asleep and so did Mike (he had the uncomfortable Dad chair though).
At 7:30 I woke up needing to push. Unfortunately, 7:30 is shift change. I tried pressing the demand dose on the epidural, and the machine started alarming. It was out of medicine. A helper nurse came in, silenced the epidural machine, and told me that my nurse would be in shortly. About 15 minutes later, the machine went off again and the same helper nurse came in and said that the epidural was not going to help the pressure I was having anyway. She told me my nurse would be in soon. I was really needing to push by this point.
Finally, the nurse came in, checked me and felt Maddie's head right there. Of course, I had gone from 7cm to 10 cm in about 1.5 hours. The nurse called the MD, set up the room, and I started pushing a little after 8. Madeline Grace McDonald was born 5 pushes later, and plopped right on my stomach for Mike and I to ogle and stroke while she got wiped off.
I couldn't believe it happened so easily. I spent the day on the phone with family/friends, and of course with Mike and Maddie. Mike made a trip home to put the crib together. The next day we came home.
I had big plans. I wanted everything to be perfect for our new family. There were a lot of things to clean up and unpack, dogs to care for, and general organization to be done. By the end of the day, I was exhausted and had basically only accomplished doing some laundry. By today, I stepped over some boxes to get to my computer in order to post this blog. When Mike, Maddie and I go to bed, we'll step over some as-yet-unorganized clothes and wall hangings in the rooms. The coffee table is too full for anything other than the knick-knacks that are covering it but don't belong there. Oh, and there is definately no way I'll be back to running and working out in the time span I had planned.
The best part is, all of this IS perfect for our new family. This is how we are doing this, and we are making it work. I feel so blessed and lucky and in love, and as happy as I am right now, there isn't anything I would change.
(well, except maybe for the being so far from family!)
Thanks to all of you for all of your kind words, e-mails, texts, facebook posts, and phone calls! It was awesome to be able to share this with everyone - even if we did have to do it long distance!

Here are some pictures of the newest McDonald!