Update-apolooza

Ok, it's been awhile since I could get on here, and I'm sure you all can guess what I was up to. ;)

#2's Birth Story - may be slightly graphic

On may 13 at 5am I woke up with some contractions. They were very irregular and not
terribly stong. I lost a big chunk of the mucous plug at 11:10am. The contractions went on all day and by 9pm they were averaging about 5 minutes apart, so I called my midwife. She and the student came by and I was a fairly tight 2cm, 80% effaced. She told me to take some gravol and tylenol and try to sleep. Overnight, the contractions spaced out enough that I slept ok.

May 14, the contractions, while still spacey, were stronger. They went on all day, so I thought for sure I was going somewhere soon. By 7pm they were averaging out to less than 5 minutes apart, so I called my midwife again. She came and checked me out, and I was a disappointing 3cm. She said I probably wouldn't get any sleep, but to try to rest because it would probably be all night before I finished. We got Bri to bed and settled down to watch some TV, I was starting to eat a freezie. I kind of choked on a little bit of it, and when I coughed, I felt a break and then fluid gushing all over the place. It wasn't actually all that much at first, although my pants were pretty damp. I stuck a towel in some boxers so I could still move around, (this was around 8:45), then I advised my midwife that it had broken, and called my parents and Erica (other labour support person) to come over.

Somewheres about 9 the contractions were REALLY strong. We called the midwife back and told her it was time to be headed to the hospital. Erica thankfully showed up before the midwife called us back. She has a Durango on loan right now and it was really good to be able to be on my hands and knees in the car. I don't think I could have done that in the Prelude, and I really did need Mike there to lean on. In the car, I started feeling the "urge" (more on that word later) to push, which frankly scared the crap out of me.

We got to the hospital around 9:30, 9:45pm. I'm not exactly sure. I didn't want to walk, but I just could not sit. The stupid hospital makes you walk a bloody mile before you get to L&D, the jerks. I had said at home that there was no way I was labouring laying down, it just hurt too much that way. However, at the hospital they needed to draw my blood and check me, so I had to lay down. And once I was down, I was not getting back up. At 10pm I was 7 cm dilated and the baby's head was there. That there urge to push was still going on, and I didn't understand why since I always read it wasn't good to push before you were fully dilated. But yeah, um, "urge" my ass. I thought you felt a contraction, and then you made a conscious decision to help it out by pushing. Hell no, I consciously did nothing, my uterus said 'I'm pushing now, you may fold in half and scream'. I couldn't have stopped if you paid me.

My midwife guessed it was time, and checked me again 10:30 and I was all set to go. I guess her head was close to crowning as well. I couldn't tell you how many pushes, because I didn't choose to do them, and I'd push like 3 or 4 times during a contraction. It hurt, so I reached down to poke at myself and they told me if I did that next time I pushed, I'd feel her head. So I did, and I said "That's not a head, that's a nub!" Heh. Luckily for me, she did not have a big head. She tried to cry immediately, before the rest of her was born. After the head was out, I had more control of my pushing. One of her arms was up by her shoulders, so the midwife reached in and pulled it out. I gave her hell. I thought she would just fall out after that, but I had to push a few more times. After she was out felt pretty freaking good, but I didn't get a lot of time to enjoy it. I guess I started gushing blood, so they started massaging my uterus and that hurt so much I thought I might keel over. I whined a lot at this point. They gave me a shot of oxytocin, and that seemed to help. Then they were doing something else and there was gushing and massaging again - but they stopped it before I needed another shot. I almost didn't get to go home because of that, they said I lost like a litre of blood or something. A whole bunch anyways. After they sorted all that out, I got the fun of stitching, 5 on the inside and one on the out. My midwife said they are pretty superficial, and the one on the outside was just torn skin and she stitched it so it would hurt less.

So, Serena Celeste was born at 11:10pm on her due date, May 14. She has a 13" head and is 19 1/2" long. She weighed a huge 7 pounds 11 ounces. I never ever would have guessed she'd weigh so much. She has a bunch of blonde hair, and cute ears.

Mike kicked ass as a birth partner, he acted really calm, even when I yelled "Oh my god, I'm pushing!" in the car. He did stay by my head, but he said he saw most of the birthing. He cut her cord and even took a picture of the placenta. Heh. He's been taking really good care of me since we came home (which was 2:30am, btw - I went right past my parents and straight to bed).


Since then...

The first week home was pretty rough. I was trying to breastfeed, but as it turns out I don't produce enough. Poor kid was sucking all day and not getting much, which also lead to poor me not getting much sleep. She was feeding so much, and not peeing enough it became apparent that it wasn't going to work out, so we decided to switch to formula 100% (it's just easier). Since then, Serena's been a completely different baby who actually sleeps. She is much crankier in general than Bri was though.

Bri likes having a little sister for the most part. She likes to cover her up nicely with a blanket. Bri's always talking about how soon Serena will grow up and play - I don't think she'll like that as much as she thinks either. ;)

2 weekish baby check-up

We trekked back to the midwife's for the 2 week visit (although it was really only 1 1/2 weeks) on Tuesday. Serena had gone down to 7 pounds even, but now she's back up to 7 lbs 9 oz. I went down to 113, yay. Everything seems to be going very well with everyone. Serena sees the regular family doctor for the first time June 1, and we go see the midwives for the last time June 30.

Bri wrecks herself

And in a final feat of fun, Bri fell over on the 24th (you know, when everything is closed) and twisted her leg up nice. She falls over a lot, this isn't really anything new. However, when she tried to get back up, she fell over again. That was new. We hauled her off to a walk in type place here (I wanted to go, but I wasn't taking Serena to Emerg) and the doctor said she may have fractured it, and told us to go get X-rays the next day. Bri was still limping, so we took her in. She was very good for the x-ray. She's fine now, and they never did call back with the results, so we're pretty sure she didn't fracture it, just twisted it badly.

Potty Training

Lastly, I am hesistant to say Bri is pee trained, although she has not had an accident in 2 days. We are having some major issues with the poo - she purposely holds it in, and then leaks a little bit out in her pants several times a day. I don't know what to do about this at all, I'm going to ask the doc when we take Serena in. She's getting closer anyways, which is good.