Welcome To The World

Welcome to the World Baby Autumn! You were born today at 12:20 pm. You were 7 lbs. 13 oz. and 22 inches long. But before I jump ahead of myself, I'd better start at the beginning. I woke up this morning around 3:00 am with really bad cramps in my lower abdomen. I thought it was just bad gas, because I've had that before. So I went and spent some time in on the toliet and then went and laid back down. However, nothing helped and I was still having really bad pains. It was so bad that Dad and Grammy Lisa both woke up. I decided to call the hospital and tell them what was going on to see if I should come in. They said to go ahead and come in, and Grammy Lisa was pretty sure it wasn't labor pains b/c usually with labor your whole stomach gets hard as a rock and my upper stomach was pretty soft. Anyways, I was getting dressed and had to throw up. The bad part was that we had tacos with spicy salsa for dinner earlier. That was not fun to throw up.
Anyways, Dad went out and warmed up the car while I got ready. Grammy Lisa went back to sleep and said to call her if we needed her. She was pretty sure they were going to send me back home. Well, we too off and got to LDS Hospital. We parked, and as we were walking in, I had to stop and bend over b/c I was having really bad pains. At that point I was pretty sure it was contractions instead of just bad gas. We got to the labor and delivery, and they put me in a room. Dad had to help me put on my hospital gown, and I was in so much pain that I was really impatient with him. It was this weird snappy thing that we couldn't figure out, and I was kind of snappy with Dad. But he finally got it. The nurse came in and hooked me up to the monitors and got me comfortable.

To make a long story short, they checked my cervix and I was dilated to a 9!!! This was around 5 am, so I called Grammy Lisa and told her she'd better hurry up and get dressed and get to the hospital b/c they said I would probably have you before 7 am. Well, that didn't happen. I made sure that they put in the epidural right away, and that was AMAZING! The only problem was that I had lost a lot of fluids when I threw up and I was super cold, so they had a hard time finding a vein and had to keep poking me over and over. But regardless, I love modern day drugs and convenience. We had to wait for my water to pop before anything could happen. That is b/c I had this bacteria in the birth canal. So they had to give me penicillin to kill the bacteria. So, we waited and waited. I even took a nap at one point and was snoring.

Finally, around 9:00 a nurse came to check the progress on my cervix and when she did, my water broke. Then they had to give me some more penicillin and some petocin. My epidural was starting to wear off, and I was feeling the contractions and they HURT! I have no earthly idea how Aunt Lexie had Baby Andrew natural. I would have killed someone. So they gave me some more epidural drugs and I was happy again. So I just had contractions for a while and then finally around 12:00 they told me it was time to push.
Dr. Andrea Hebert, who had been my OB/GYN doc all along was on her way over to the hospital. But in the meantime, Dr. P? came in the room to check things out. She was having me push, and Dad was holding my left leg and Grammy Lisa was holding my right leg. While I was pushing, we heard the fire alarm go off and thought it was a drill. Nope, come to find out, there was a fire in the basement and then a flood on the roof that went down through the whole hospital through room 7. Thank goodness we weren't in that room and thank goodness the fire sprinklers in the ceiling didn't go off. So I just kept pushing like normal.

Dr. P said I was doing great and while I was pushing, the top of your head was showing and you had a lot of hair. Dr. P was playing with your hair! :) Anyways, she just kept telling me to push and after 20 minutes of pushing, out you popped at 12:20. You had a really cone shaped head b/c of being in the birth canal. They took you right out and put you on my stomach. Your little blue bummy was right in my face and it creeped me out at first. But then they started wiping you off and you cried and at that moment I bonded with you. I had told a lot of people before you were born that I was worried I would feel like I was just babysitting you and that I would want to give you back to your "real mom." But in that moment when you cried and I held you, I knew that you were mine forever and I started to cry. It was an amazing feeling that I will never forget. It's hard to believe I could bond so quickly and closely to you that fast, but I did.

Anyways, they cleaned you off and weighed you and measured you. You were 7 lbs. 13 oz. and 22 inches long.

One fun thing is that the nurse's name was Lisa, so there were 3 Lisa's in the room. Grammy Lisa called Grandpa Kerry and Grandpa said he had a feeling there were 4 Lisa's in the room (b/c he is going to bless you and keeps teasing he's going to name you Winter Lisa). So Dad said, "I have a feeling that Nick is going to be blessing Baby Autumn." So funny. It was a super neat experience all over and was very laid back and casual and comfortable, which I liked. So after we got you all taken care of and put drops in your eyes, and I was sewed up from tearing, they moved us to a recovery room. They played, "Rock A By Baby" over the loud speakers in the hospital so everyone knew a new baby was born! So cool.
Our room was small but nice. You had your first visitor that night...Aunt Jeri.