Adelyn's Birth Story Part One

Now that she's over 3 weeks old I figure it's time to write this thing down before sleep deprivation erases all the details from my mind.  I just never want to put her down long enough to write this out...so we've compromised and this is what we're doing right now:

I was holding her in my lap and she started randomly screaming until I put her on my chest. Baby girl loves cuddling.

So I guess the story starts early on April 4th. I started having early labor contractions at some point in the early morning hours. April 4th would have been my grandpa's 100th birthday so we were really rooting for a baby that day but no such luck.  The contractions lessened in intensity during the day and got worse at night after I'd been asleep. This continued until Sunday night.  Around 10:30 or 11 I started having worse contractions but I tried sleeping until midnight and then I woke Jake up and we started timing them.  They were 7ish minutes apart...then 6.5...then 6...then randomly shot up to 10 minutes for awhile. And then down to 4 minutes. We kept this up until about 5am. They started hurting so unbelievably bad...they hurt all through my stomach, lower back, and were spreading down through my thighs.  I called my midwife and she said to go to the hospital and she would see me around 8:30 when she got there.

The whole 40 minute drive to the hospital my contractions were 3-4 minutes apart.  We got there around 6am and I was 5 cm dilated and the nurse said we weren't leaving without a baby.  This both relieved me and freaked me out.  Since I wasn't 39 weeks yet they couldn't give me anything to start labor or break my water so I had to go naturally.  I was afraid that I wouldn't be dilating and would have to live with those painful contractions until Friday when I would be 39 weeks. Thankfully, labor was progressing just fine.

They monitored the baby for awhile and then told me I could get up and walk around to help move things along so I put on a robe and walked about 5 feet down the hallway before I started having another contraction.  As Jake was asking me if I wanted to walk through it or stop and rest, my water broke. Everywhere.  A nurse walked out of the room next door and I just stared at her and then turned around and walked back in my room to get cleaned up....not the most glamorous experience to say the least.

The nurse came in and checked me and I was 7 cm dilated.  I think it was about 8 am by this time but I have no idea. There was no concept of time at this point.  Things got real, really quickly after this.  My midwife came in and suggested I move to a chair and sit backwards on it and rest my head on the back of it.  This helped ease a little bit of the contraction pain.  I went into labor knowing I wanted to have a natural delivery...and right around this point I regretted that decision :)  I started feeling this intense need to push but I was still only 7 cm dilated.  There was so much pressure with every contraction and it honestly felt like my body was pushing without me doing anything.  This really freaked me out and I lost sight of the end goal for awhile.  Thankfully, Jake was there to keep me focused and level headed (as much as you can be when you're giving birth). I was so tired at this point and just wanted to sleep, which obviously was not an option.

I sent Jake out to get the nurse probably 3 or 4 times because it felt like I had to push.  Apparently at one point I told him I wanted a C-section and made him go tell the nurse.  I don't remember that.  She came in and had Jake coach me to pant every time I felt the pressure to push because it would stop the urge.  It was hard and painful but eventually she checked me and said I was 10 cm and my midwife had just came back from the office.  I finally got to start pushing.  As weird as it sounds, it was painful but it was almost relieving to do what my body had been wanting to do for hours at this point.  I finally got to give in to the pressure and after 30ish minutes of pushing, our baby girl was finally born at 11:06am.  It was the most painful and rewarding experience of my life.  Jake got to pull her out and put her up on my chest.  We were both full of adrenaline and completely in love from the very beginning. I couldn't have done it without Jake there coaching me.

And that's about all I have the attention span to write at this moment. More about Adelyn's birth day and our hospital stay to come! I'll leave you with a few hospital pictures for now :)

Our family <3

Daddy is already wrapped around her finger.

Mommy may also be wrapped around her finger...just a little bit :)

Adelyn has arrived!

Our sweet baby girl was born at 11:06am on April 8th. Eventually I'm going to sit down and write out her birth story and I think Jake is going to write his side since I was in so much pain that I don't remember half of the delirious things I said to him during labor.  But for now I'll just say that she is perfectly adorable. I love her little sneezes, yawns, and cross-eyed looks she gives us.  She's more alert each and every day and I'm so excited to watch her grow. For now, I'll leave you with way too many photos :)

Our family <3

Our content baby girl

3 days old

First doctor's appointment

One week old!

They melt my heart

She really is a great baby. Hardly ever cries or fusses. She's already figuring out her days and nights and she only woke up twice last night to eat. Love her more each and every day!!

Contracts and Contractions

We got the call last night...as long as inspections go well we will be home owners on May 30th!  It's still not sinking in to me. Not just home owners of any old home but the home that we went and saw on Tuesday and absolutely fell in love with.  It's going to be ours...now to find some very cheap furniture that looks nice so we don't have a completely empty house...haha.

To follow up on that excitement, I woke up at 2:30 this morning with contractions that were actually keeping me from sleeping, which is something new.  They started right in the middle of my lower back and felt like someone was ripping my back in half.  Nothing even close to how painful I expect labor to be, but definitely NOT the contractions I've been having up to this point.  After an hour of those contractions coming 3ish minutes apart and getting more intense I called labor and delivery who just decided to bust my "we may be having a baby!" bubble.  She basically told me they won't stop labor but until I'm 39 weeks they can't do anything to help it along either so my water has to break on it's own and since I'm wanting to do a natural labor there was really no point in me going in just to be sent back home.  She said I could be in these early stages for 24 hours or more...so who knows when we'll have this baby.  I recently read that only 15% of women actually have their water break when they go into labor so now I'm like uhhh am I just going to be having these uncomfortable contractions for the next week before we can do anything about it!?

So I was up from 2:30 this morning until 7...the contractions eventually lightened up and quit hurting in my back. I went back to sleep until about 10:30....they were still not very strong but within the past half hour they've started hurting in my back again but they aren't quite as strong as they were last night. I know the longer I can keep her cooking, the better for her but I'm already over these contractions.  They either need to go away or turn into something. Plus today would have been my Grandpa's 100th birthday so it would definitely be a special day to give birth :)  Time will tell.  We could possibly get a house and a baby in the same week....and really why would we do it any other way :)

Ultrasounds and House Offers

So we had our ultrasound yesterday...I was 37 weeks and 4 days and Adelyn was measuring at about 36 weeks and 1 day...give or take 21 days! Yeah...I don't know why they even bother doing those ultrasounds....so she's measuring anywhere from 33-39 weeks. They estimate her weight at 6 pounds and 3 oz give or take a pound...which is a little better. I'm going in next week for another one...I guess probably partially because of the diabetes and partially so they can compare it to the one yesterday and see how they compare rather than using the estimated measurements.

After the appointment we went on some more house hunts.  The first house we looked at was SO cheap but for good reason. It was rough rough rough.  We're not scared of a project but there are some projects that are just too big...especially when we're going to have a newborn.

We had another house we wanted to look at but the owners called the agent and said they were packing to move this week and didn't want anyone looking at it until Monday? I understand the house is probably a mess but if you're moving you probably need to sell it like...now right? Oh well...we had one more house that Jake had just found yesterday morning.  It still didn't have pictures online, which means this visual person skips right over those listings.  Thankfully, my husband read the description and thought it sounded like a promising house.

It was the first day on the market so that's why there were no pictures online.  It was an AMAZING house...I think it's definitely worth more than the family is asking for but they apparently are very motivated to sell and need to move pretty quickly.  It's at the top of our price range but it is completely move in ready.  The yard is kind of small but we can work with it.  It's 4 bedrooms and 2.5 baths so we literally would probably never have to move unless we chose to.  It's in a great location with great schools.  It's close to a busy road so that's obviously a drawback.  It definitely has a few negatives but for how nice the house is we can deal with the negatives.

 So we put an offer in last night.  I felt like I was going to puke. It's such a huge commitment! However, we'll know by 6pm tonight if they accept our offer or not. Crazy to think that we could be home owners a month from now. Also crazy to think that the sellers may have sold their home the first day it was on the market! We've prayed about it a lot and we both feel at peace either way which lets me know we did the right thing.  If for some reason they don't accept our offer, we know it wasn't the right home for us and we keep looking. Now it's just playing the waiting game :)

*Edit* I almost didn't post this for fear of "jinxing" our offer...silly, I know. It may seem a little soon to be making it so official that we put an offer on a house...but I want to remember this time no matter how it turns out.  No matter where we end up, I've already seen God's hand guiding us through this journey and I want to be able to look back and see just where God led us on the journey to finding our home.