A birth story

This will be a long post with lots of over sharing. As always, feel free to move onto the next one if you desire.
My pregnancy with Lincoln was not fun. I started feeling pukey sick before the pregnancy test even read positive. We moved into our apartment in West Valley while I was in the worst part of my morning sickness, so that was kind of a fiasco. It took months to get that apartment put together. It never really did come all the way together in the end. I laid on the couch for weeks just feeling like I was going to die and praying that somehow my toddler and I would survive the day. We stayed in our pjs and watched movies most days.  Somehow I was still pushing my way through 2 days of 12 hour shifts at work each week. Around 16 weeks or so, I started feeling a little better, and actually probably felt less nauseous this time than I did with my last pregnancy from then on. But I felt huge and exhausted and was barely holding it together. As my pregnancy went on, they loaded me up with nursing students at work every single day I worked for weeks. I was stressed.
It wasn't that surprising when I showed up at my 32 week appointment and had protein in my urine and a high blood pressure. Because of my history of preeclampsia, but doctor ordered some labs, a urine test, and bed rest. That meant no more work. Other than that, I was not able to adjust my activity level too much because I have a toddler at home. I tried to pick her up less.
My labs came back okay and my urine protein level was a bit below the diagnostic threshold for preeclampsia, so they diagnosed me with gestational hypertension. From that point on, I had to go see my doctor once per week. Additionally, I had to go to the hospital twice a week for a non-stress test.

Non stress test

Zack and Clara came with me to a couple of my non stress tests. Clara enjoyed sitting in the chairs like mommy.

Essentially, they hooked us up to a monitor and watched to baby's heart rate for a certain amount of time to watch for any signs of distress. If he was not active enough during the test, they would stick a buzzer on my stomach and buzz it to wake him up. I always hated when they did that because he would startle like crazy. Poor baby.
Guys, lots of that stuff sucked. 3 appointments per week is a lot. Plus, I absolutely couldn't drag Clara with me to my non stress tests by myself because I was strapped to a chair the entire time, so I had to arrange babysitting for that almost every time (thanks so much to Zack's mom who did the bulk of that for me!). Some weeks, I secretly hoped my blood pressure would soar into critical range or that my urine protein level would finally reach the level for preeclampsia so I could just have to baby already and quit dragging my huge body to the appointments. Terrible, right? I was also stressed about taking so much time off work without actually having a baby in my arms.
Because of all the problems I was having, I thought they might induce me at 37 weeks like they did with Clara, but my doctor was convinced that we should push on to 39, so we did. She did strip my membranes at 38 weeks, but nothing happened as a result.
I turned 39 weeks pregnant on a Sunday, so we scheduled my induction for Monday, May 12th. They wanted me to call at 6:00 that morning and they would tell me what time to come in for my induction.

Waiting to find out what time to go in to the hospital

I set the alarm and got up super early and the answer was that I should call back at 8. I did so, and they still weren't sure but told me that I should call back at 9 if they hadn't already called me back. I had a feeling that they would call and say "come now" so I got all ready. Lo and behold, when they called just before 9, they basically said "how soon can you get here?" Off we headed.
After getting Clara all squared away, we arrived at the hospital around 10.

If I remember right, I was dilated to a 2 and 80% effaced when they started my labor. At 11:00, they started my on pitocin.  After about an hour, I did start to have some pretty painful contractions, but I got up to use the bathroom and the contractions basically went away after that. When they checked me at 1:00, I was dilated to a 3 and 80% effaced. They went ahead and broke my water. Just like last time, it was a TON of amniotic fluid that came out. It was actually pretty comical. We were all just cracking up and fluid just kept coming and coming.  Soon after that, Zack left to get some lunch, and while he was gone, my contractions really amped up.  With Clara, I asked for the epidural pretty much as soon as I felt a twinge of pain.  This time, I tried to power through it for a while.  I had not been at the hospital for very long at that point and I wondered if I was just being a total wuss.  But my nurse came to check on me and actually asked if I was ready for my epidural and I said that I absolutely was, so they sent in the anesthesiologist. Zack got back from lunch just in time for my epidural at 3:00. Soon after the epidural, I felt way nauseous so they gave me some zofran via IV and I felt much better. At 3:30, I was dilated to a 4.5 and 80% effaced. A check at 5:00 showed me dilated to a 6 and 90% effaced. At 5:45 I was dilated to a 7 and 90% effaced. At 6:50, I was dilated to a 9 and 100% effaced. Throughout all this time, I was pretty comfortable and relaxed. My epidural this time made my legs WAY more numb than the one I had with Clara. I couldn't really control them at all. I had to get help any time I wanted to move, which was a little frustrating.

I was also anxious to get the baby out maybe, but otherwise fine. My nurse had a student with her, so I had 2 people checking me every time, but that wasn't a big deal to me. I was a nursing student once, so I get it. Around 7:00, there was a shift change and I got a new nurse.  

At 7:30, they had me start pushing. I was feeling some pressure and such, but I was somewhat nervous about starting to push already because the nurse said that the baby was still a little high. That's probably part of the reason I ended up having to push for quite a while. With Clara, I was at a teaching hospital and the room was just full of people when I was pushing. At one point, they pulled one of my doctors out of the room to sing happy birthday to her, I remember. Everyone was just chatting away and it felt kind of lighthearted and stress free in a lot of ways, like a big baby party. This time, it was Zack, my doctor, and my nurse, and frankly, I thought it was more awkward that a room full of people.  I felt like we should be making conversation or something, but I was super worn out from pushing after a while and did not really want to talk. Then the doctor and nurse started gossiping about workplace politics, which seemed like a weird thing to do in front of a patient, but what do I know.
Finally, at 8:51, our baby boy was born.

As he came out, the doctor and the nurse both said that he was a big baby, and when he was weighed, he came in at 9 pounds even, 21 inches long.

The pushing really wore me out this time, much more than it did with Clara even though I pushed longer with her, but other than that, it was pretty easy and comfortable. I did have to get some stitches, but enjoyed just cuddling my baby and trying to feed him. I love those first moments together.

First family photo (sans Clara)

Our view from the recovery room was not as good as the view we had in Philly, but we were surprised and happy to have a view of the capitol building and downtown.

When Clara met Lincoln for the first time (the next day), we had her bring him a stuffed bear that she made at build a bear. We had some toy cars to give to Clara as a gift from Lincoln. She loved it.

Meeting baby brother for the first time

Even though LDS hospital would not have been our first choice, we ended up there for a lot of complicated reasons. I don't regret it. It was a nice experience, all of the staff who cared for me were excellent, and we brought home a healthy, chubby little baby to join our family.