My Baby Story Part III

When the doctor came in to give me an epidural, he had a nurse anesthetist in training with him. But since the doctor was in a hurry because he had to go to a small child in the OR he did the epidural himself and wasted no time doing it. I bet he had it done in less than two minutes. Less than two minutes to ease such pain. I call him Dr. Feelgood. The epidural kicked in almost immediately and I was feeling much better. The nice nurse I had agreed to let me see if I could pee in a bedpan instead of getting a catheter. Good news, I could pee on my own, so no catheter! The nurse had me laying flat on my back because she told me the pain medication was positional and if I sat up it would go lower than my abdomen where I needed it. So I'm laying there and watching my contractions on the monitor. The contractions were getting weaker probably because of the epidural. So the nurse called my doctor and she said to start me on a pitocin drip at 4:00 am. So now began the waiting for the pitocin. Noel managed to sleep on the bench in the room. He ripped the padding off of the wall behind the bench (it was velcro) to make the bench wider. He complained a lot too! I tried to sleep but it was hard with a million cords coming out of/ off of me. I had the epidural, the blood pressure cuff, the monitors for the baby, the heart monitor for me, the IV, and an oxygen mask. Oh yeah, I forgot about the oxygen mask and I can't exactly remember what that was for. I did fall asleep for a little bit but when I woke up I had positioned by arm all wrong and the IV was backed up. Dag that smarted. When I couldn't sleep I was lucky that there was Gunsmoke on TVLand--not just one episode either--several! I felt like we were right at home. None the less, I was just biding my time until 4:00 am....



Baby's first tub bath. She was unsure, but isn't that to be expected?

My Baby Story Part II

By the time Noel came back I was definitely in labor. When he got back the first thing he wanted to do was finish watching Gunsmoke. He now says the last two minutes tied the whole show together. Noel says this whole Gunsmoke thing is not true, but that's how I remember it. After that show, I told him to turn it off and he did. We waited here at the house until the contractions were five minutes a part for two hours. The contractions were really getting strong and actually were coming even closer together and Noel demanded we leave right then. When we got to the hospital at 5:00 pm we went to the labor and delivery floor and told the guard I was in labor. The guard then opened the doors and told me to go to triage. I had to go by myself and that was strange to be in labor and be walking down the hall looking for triage by myself! Triage was full so they went ahead and put me in a birthing room. The nurse assigned to me was all business. Noel was able to come in thirty minutes later. By this time, my contractions were really ramping up and I thought I must be getting ready to have the baby! haha! Yeah right! I was only 3 cm dilated! OMG I couldn't believe it. Luckily nurse Ratchet was off duty at 7:30 pm and the nicest nurse in the world came in and took over. I decided to go walk the halls to help the contractions along and oh boy did that help them along! They were so strong and close together I thought I was going to puke. I was in the hall holding on to Noel's neck on the verge of insanity! Oh, yeah and we had a trash can in case I puked. So I made the decision to go back to the room. We walked around the room instead of the hall. That lasted for a while and then I made the decision to get an epidural....


Our sleeping baby.

Napping with Daddy.

The past two days she has spent much more time awake--believe it or not by looking at these pics!

My Baby Story

I think I better get this down because I think some things are getting fuzzy already. So here goes...

Let me start from my due date of Thursday, October 16, 2008. On Thursday I went into the Dr.'s office for a non stress test to make sure Little Ruby was OK since she had hit her due date and had not come. After the test I was informed that she was beautiful and doing beautifully. Cool. When I came home, I continued my work out regime of walking, squats, lunges, hip swirls, and sitting on the birthing ball. Friday evening I felt the urge to make a big dinner. I ended up making a Thanksgiving type dinner on Friday and it about killed me. On Friday night, October 18, 2008, I noticed I was feeling a little strange. My back and abdomen were cramping and the cramps did not go away when I changed position or when I fell asleep and woke up again. That had never happened before so I thought maybe something was going on. Saturday morning we got out of bed and I was definitely feeling strange and I was having little bitty contractions that were completely irregular, but this was the first time I had contractions more regular than a sporadic one here and there. I got into one of my pregnancy books and found that it could still be a while until hospital time so we went about our business Saturday morning. We went to the grocery store and picked up a few items and went to the library to borrow a DVD set of Gunsmoke that Noel had been jonesing for. We came back home and began the waiting. The contractions started becoming more noticeable and regular. We watched Gunsmoke. The contractions got stronger. We took another walk and that really made the contractions stronger and every time I went to the bathroom a contraction would come on no matter how irregular. Anyway, the contractions started to get uncomfortable and maybe a little painful and Noel was still watching Gunsmoke. He wanted to hear the commentary before the show but couldn't get it to work right so we ended up listening to the theme song over and over again. I thought I might throw the DVDs out of the window! Next thing you know the phone rings and it's a tenant telling Noel that the pilot light is not lit. Noel told her that I was in labor and the girl said it could wait until the next day. Well that would not work because we'd have a newborn the next day so I told Noel to hurry up and go light the pilot and get back as fast as he could!

To be continued...

Ruby and her Great Grandfather.

First Walk

Today we went outside because it was such a pretty day. Baby Ruby slept the entire time. I'm not even sure she knew we were outside. I know this picture is a little cheesy but it was the only one I had where I didn't look like I weighed 500 pounds! Looks like Baby Ruby and I will be out walking a lot until I shake this baby weight.

Our Precious Baby

Ruby after her first sponge bath. She hated it and cried like the dickens but really liked it when I toweled her off. She bounced back quickly :)

This is Ruby with her great-grandmother, Nannie. I wonder if they planned to wear the same clothes.

Here is Ruby in her car seat carrier. She is so beautiful and such a good little girl.

Introducing Ruby Noel DeHaven

Ruby was born at 10:08, Sunday morning. She weighed 7 pounds 12 ounces and is 19 and a half inches long. She is perfect. Carrie is doing great. She did an awesome job. I am sooo proud of her.

Hooray for epidural!

This is Noel filling in for Carrie. We are at the hospital waiting for Ruby to get here. Carrie started labor around 2:30 this afternoon and we were at the hospital by 5:00. She was admitted and then the contractions really started coming on stronger and stronger. At around 9:30 Carrie made the decision to get an epidural. Now she is very comfortable and feeling happy about Ruby's pending arrival (she was NOT happy before the epidural). I'll post photos as soon as I can.