Welcome Addison Kate!!

Wow, so it's been a while since I've posted last, but I have had a lot going on and a good excuse to be busy. Our beautiful baby is here and healthy and thriving!! Here's the whole story (And as you all know I am a big details person, so I'm sure this won't be short...)

On the Saturday (5/16) 2 weeks before my due date, Jordan and I woke up and as I was laying in bed, I felt a few contractions that were much stronger than the Braxton-Hicks that I had been feeling. I didn't think too much of it until I got up to go the the bathroom and felt a bit of fluid come out. I knew that I did not pee on myself so I told Jordan. It wasn't a gush or anything, but it was unusual.

We decided to go walking and while we were getting barked and bahhed at by the neighborhood dogs and goats (what kind of noise does a goat make, and how do you spell it??) I felt a bit more fluid. Jordan was getting very worked up at this point, while I was calm and wouldn't let myself believe that my water had broken and that I was actually in labor. Jordan decided to call his sister, mother, and a few friends to get opinions of if my water had broken or not, because they are the experts on this, you know.

I got in the shower and finished packing my bag (Ironically I felt a strong urge to finish buying everything I thought I would need for my hospital bag at Target the night before. I had to have them even though my due date was 2 weeks away. Also at Target I had a few painful contractions.) before I called the doctor's office to see if I should go to the hospital or not. After Jordan had talked to everyone he knows who has a child to see if I was in labor or not and after he freaked out while trying to pack his bag (the process went like this; Jordan walks frantically from room to room and from drawer to drawer not getting anything accomplished, trying to figure out what he's doing. It was quite comical to watch him be so worked up and spastic.)

We finally decided to leave to go to the hospital, but stopped on the way to have a friend install the carseat base (which we had to take of the box. We had not even looked at the carseat except the picture on the front of the box. So much for practicing taking it in and out of the car before baby gets here. opps...). We also stopped at Wendy's to eat lunch since I was determined to not be starving while in the delivery room.

So we finally got to the hospital about 12:00, checked in and went up to triage. I got hooked up to all the fancy little machines and the nurse checked me and saw that I was still only 1 1/2 centimeters dilated. so she checked to see if the fluid that had been leaking was amniotic fluid by using this little strip that is supposed to turn bright blue if your water has broken. It didn't turn blue!! So long story short, she sent us home. The End.

Just kidding, there is more to this story, but we did get sent home. This was a very emotional thing for me. I felt dumb and disappointed and really just wanted to cry. Making it worse, was the fact that we pretty much called everyone we know and told them I was going to the hospital, so we had to call and tell them that it was a false alarm. And Jordan thought I had just peed on myself because "Jenny, what else could it be?"

Instead of going home, Jordan decided that we should walk the baby out of me, so we walked around the mall and Babies r us for 3 hours. I was continuing to have fluid leaking and I was having contractions every 10 minutes or so, but they weren't that strong (they hurt but not bad). At that point I was so tired and frustrated and just wanted to go home and take a nap, but Jordan had other plans.

We left the mall and went back to the hospital. This time we skipped the check-in desk and just walked back up to triage. We did the same process and... What do you know... the little strip turned bright blue. the nurse looked at us and said,"Well, Today's the day! Congratulations, you're going to have that baby!" She walked out of the room and Jordan and I just looked at each other with tears in our eyes. It was such a strange thing because it caught me off guard. I just kept thinking that I'd just get sent home again and wouldn't let myself think that it was for real. Jordan left the room to call people and I just laid in the bed a cried. I think that this moment was the first time I was really nervous about the whole "I'm having a baby" realization.

I got in a room at 5:00 and they started me immediately on a pitocin drip to speed along the process. At 6:30 the doctor checked and saw that I was still only about 1 1/2 centimeters, so he inserted a balloon device that helps dilation move along quicker. It acted as a small baby's head (about the size of a golf ball which would get me to 3 to 4 centimeters) by pushing down with every contraction. So as soon as that went in, I was in A LOT of pain. The doctor told me it was not too soon to get an epidural, so at 7:00-7:30 I was getting an epidural and feeling pretty good. Jordan laughed at me because I was just sitting in bed reading magazines while my contractions were coming on strong and fast.

At 9:00 the nurse came in to empty my bladder and to check my progress. She tried to pull on the balloon thing to tighten the pressure and it just came right out. Turns out I was already at 5 centimeters!! I was very excited to hear that I was half way there, since I was preparing myself for a very long labor or the possibility of a c-section if I wasn't progressing quickly enough. For the next 4 hours we slept and watched TV. Around 12:30 I was starting to have back labor and feeling it very intensely, so they upped my epidural. I went from having a "walking epidural" where I could feel my legs and move them pretty well, to being nearly paralyzed from under my chest down. I could move a few toes on my left leg and that was about it.

At 1:00 the nurse checked me again and let us know that I was at 10 centimeters and that we would do a practice push. It went very well and then we started the real pushing process. I was feeling the back labor again and between that and using all of the muscles in my back to lean forward and push, I was exhausted. I have never in my life been so tired and worn out. I don't know how woman can handle pushing for several hours at a time. I was thankful that my contractions slowed down and were only coming every 5 minutes or so (This is one of the many things about the delivery process that is so interesting to me. God definitely designed the body to take over and just handle it). I would push with the contraction for about 30 seconds and then fall back on the bed and fall asleep between them. Since my legs were so numb, Jordan and the nurse had to hold up my legs, one on each side. Jordan would get so distracted (you know, by the baby's head that was coming out of my body...) he would forget about holding up my leg and it would just flop off the bed until I would remind him to pick it up. I pushed for about 30 minutes or so until the baby was crowning. Then the nurse went to get the doctor and about 25 minutes later, he finally came into the room. As he was getting ready, Jordan looked down and let everyone know that "Um... She's coming out. She's coming out , right now!!!" And sure enough, our little girl got impatient and decided that her time to enter the world was right then and she was tired of waiting on the doctor to get ready. I was so numb from the epidural that I had no idea what was happening. Of course I couldn't tell what I was doing the whole time I was pushing, either, but I guess all of the effort and horrible red faces I was making worked.

So after all of my rambling, the end result:

Addison Kate Cline

6 lbs, 13 oz

19.5 inches

born: Sunday, May 17, 2009, 2:38 AM

Addison has been such a good baby. She will be 4 weeks tomorrow ( I can't believe how fast it's gone. She's going to be grown before we know it. So sad...). We are both just so in love with our beautiful baby and thank God for her every day! I'm also thanking God for allowing me to have such a smooth delivery process and that Addison is such a healthy girl. (She is a breast fed baby and lost down to 6 lbs 7.5 oz in the hospital, had gained back up to 6 lbs 12.5 oz at 5 days and was 7 lbs 10 oz at 2 weeks. I would say that she is about 9 lbs now, so needless to say she is eating up a storm and is turning into to quite the chunky monkey. SO cute!!)