Mommy

I'll try to do the best I can blogging so I can keep everyone updated on how we are doing! If you haven't heard already, Emory Ryan Arnold was born at 9:45 on Tuesday, November 17th. Here is our birth story:

From my previous post, you can figure I was a little leary about going to the hospital if I didn't know for sure that Emory was coming then. I was a little bummed Monday night because of the whole fiasco that we had gone through on Sunday. I decided to get the Christmas decorations down (or have Andy get them down) from the attic in case I didn't have time to put them up later. I took my time decorating and got a few things put up when I started to have lots of cramping. I thought a bath would make me feel better. I took my time bathing and even shaved my legs, but mid-bath I heard a loud POP noise and automatically thought that my water may have broken since I had heard my sister say the same thing when she was in labor...but it was impossible to tell because I was in the bathtub! I got out and dried off and then realized that no matter how much I dried off, I wasn't getting dry! After a quick call to Medical Exchange to make sure I should come in (and was very happily surprised to get in touch with my own doctor who was on call!), we grabbed our bags and headed to the hospital!

The snap in weather and meteor shower are what people keep saying were the reasons why Emory was baby number 11 born that night. When we got to the hospital we had to wait about 30-45 minutes for a room, and my contractions keep getting stronger and stronger, though it was mostly all in my lower back. We finally got a room and they set me up with an epidural, which wiped out all of the pain! I even got to get some rest while we all waited for me to dilate. Andy was so great the entire time and did whatever I needed to make me feel comfortable, and I was so blessed to have him there!

I started feeling a lot of pressure on my sciatic nerve on the left side as well as increasing pain on the left side around 8 a.m. but the nurses were worried that more medicine would interfere with my ability to push, so I did without another dose of medicine. My epidural bag by that time was empty and starting to wear off, and I could really feel it on the left side. Finally the nurse said it was time to start pushing and informed me that since it was my first baby, we would most likely have to push for 1-2 hours. The first thought in my mind was that I wouldn't survive pushing for 1-2 hours! Around 9:35 we started pushing, and within minutes of extremely hard pushing the nurse had to call Dr. Garner to come over. After only 9 minutes of pushing and 6 contractions total, Emory made her way into the world!

She weighed a whopping 8 pounds and 10 ounces and was 20 1/4 inches long!! We were all so surprised at how big she was and how fast I was able to push her out, but nothing can stop a woman who has her mind made up!

The next few hours were a whirlwind. We got to go home the next day around 1:30 after meeting with my doctor, Emory's Pediatrician, and the lactation nurse twice. We were so happy to be home!

I wasn't feeling all that great on the way home or that night. I had neck and shoulder pain that was so excruciating that I couldn't turn my head from side to side, and along with that I had intense headaches. The headaches were so bad when I first stood up in the morning that it knocked me back down onto the bed. I felt great other than these thigns, but everyone kept saying that the headaches were from getting used to feeding her and that my neck pain was from the extremely hard pushing I had done in the hospital. No matter what we did, nothing helped the neck pain. My feet also had begun to swell considerably - even more than in the hospital.

On Friday Andy and I decided to take a trip to Babies R Us, but when we got there I was feeling really bad and decided to call Medical Exchange to figure out what I should do about the headaches that we now figured were spinal headaches. The nurse told me that I needed to head to the Emergency Room. We were both very scared and apprehensive as we made our way to the E.R. Andy took Emory down the street from the hospital to a friend's house while my sister came and sat with me in the E.R. As we sat there for hours waiting to be called, we realized that Emory hadn't had a bowel movement in over 24 hours and that my feet were so swollen that I was most likely incredibly dehydrated. We tried to call the lactation nurse numerous times but it was after hours so we didn't get a response.

After about 4 hours in the waiting room we finally got pulled back and the dr. immediately knew what was wrong with me; I was very dehydrated and needed some pain meds for my neck and shoulder pain. Andy came up with Emory since I was now in a small partitioned room and we waited another hour or two for the fluids to come. Finally, around 11:30 we were discharged from the E.R. and headed home.

This morning I felt a thousand times better, but Emory still was dehydrated. It had been about 30 or more hours since she had had a bm so we were really getting worried. We finally got in touch with both the lactation nurse and the nurse on call at the Pediatricians office, who gave us some advice on what we could try to stimulate her to go. It worked!! I have never been so happy to see poop in my life!!

Now, we are all feeling better. I still have a lot of headaches but have some pretty good medicines to take in the morning (they are loaded with caffeine so I can't take until the morning) but my neck and shoulder pain are feeling much better and Emory is getting back to normal. It has been a great but exhausting week for us.

Andy and I never imagined all you could feel for such a little person that you have never met before, but she has us both wrapped around her fingers. We are so thankful that she is doing well and can't wait to move forward, but I am trying to cherish every moment because I know it won't last for very long.

Just a quick thank you to everyone for your Facebook comments, texts, calls, food brought, etc. We are so blessed to have such loving friends and family and I can't wait for Emory to meet every one of you!!

I'm going to attempt to keep this updated, as I said earlier, so everyone will be able to keep up while I'm off work. Now it's time to get about an hour of sleep before our next feeding! But, again, I wouldn't have it any other way :)

*Pictures to Come*

Psalms 127:3
"Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward."