Marshall's Here!

I woke up Saturday morning after 3 am thinking that I just had a tummy ache. I went pee and went back to bed. As soon as I laid down I had another pain, but much stronger so I got up to see if they were close together, just wishing I could have the baby soon. I got downstairs and started monitoring them. They were 1 min long and 1 1/2 minutes apart. I was not enjoying the no break and I thought they were actually too close together to be real labor, but boy were they strong braxton hicks. I decided to wake my husband up around 3:30 because they were starting to kick my butt, I was nauseated and it felt a lot like when I went through transition with my first son. I thought I still had a while and felt like I was being wimpy by thinking they were "transition strong" when I was obviously in early labor. My contractions then started to feel different. I never had the urge to push with my first, so it took a couple contractions to realize it, but I felt like I had to push! Again, I tell myself I'm crazy, thinking I have to push when I'm probably only 4-5 cm. After a couple more contractions, I couldn't take it any more and decided I would try to push. It felt amazingly good. I knew I couldn't push though, in fact I wasn't even sure if I should tell my husband that I had to push, I just told him we needed to leave now. I wasn't even going to get dressed, I was only in a bathrobe. One more contraction later, trying not to push was much harder. I told him I might be close to having to push. He quickly got our son in the van and then came to tell me to hurry up. I told him as nicely as I could that I couldn't not push and walk to the van at the same time, he would have to wait until my contraction passed. Luckily these pushing contractions had a longer break between them, I wasn't timing them, but probably a 2 minute break.  For motivation, I just kept thinking about a birth story I had just read. A woman was in labor and got sent home because she wasn't progressing. While she waited at home, she ended up progressing fast and found she was feeling the urge to push, but it took her over an hour to realize it. She lived an hour away from the hospital. It was almost three hours of having to push before she delivered at the hospital. Every contraction I just kept telling myself that she held off pushing for about three hours, I would only have to for a little bit longer.

On the way to the hospital I feel like his head is starting to come out. I'm trying not to watch the road because my husband is speeding and treating all stop lights like stop signs. We finally arrive and I got dropped off at the ER entrance, and my husband pulled into an ER parking spot. I try to get inside before another contraction. I get to the desk and have another one. While having the contraction, I tell her: I'm pregnant (I don't know if she could tell since I was in a robe), I'm trying not to push, but the baby is coming out. She quickly appears beside me with a wheelchair and I kind of get in (I couldn't really sit because I had a baby coming out).  She starts wheeling me towards the elevator, but I tell her I think he's crowning. She asks me if I'm sure and I tell her "well, I don't have a mirror and my stomach's in the way, but it feels like it." She then rushes me to an ER room to get checked. I get in the room and tell her that I just got done having a contraction so if she wants me to get on the bed, I better move now. She tells me to hold on. After a few seconds she tells me to get on the bed. I got to the bed and had another contraction. I squatted because I couldn't stand during it and my water broke. It was only about 1/8 cup and I think I would have missed it had I not seen it. I take my now damp flip flops off, climb in the bed.  I am squatting because I do not feel comfortable any other way.  I am told to switch my robe for a hospital gown. The ER doctor looks at me very fast and says he doesn't see a head so they start to wheel through the ER to the elevator. I have another contraction as soon as we are leaving the room.  I feel like his head is coming out again. I tell the doctor I think he's coming out and he tells me not to push and they move faster. I then take my gown off so he will look. I didn't care that I was in the middle of the ER and a ton of patients and staff could see me. He looks at me and all color drains from his face and he looks to be in shock.  He starts yelling commands. He also grabs a couple ambulance people because they had delivered a baby and he hadn't. We get back in the room in under 2 seconds and they ask me to lay down. I couldn't lay down because he was coming out.  As soon as the bed stopped moving and I wasn't worried I was going to fall on the baby, I pushed a little. His head popped out. I took a few breathes and waited for the doctor or someone to check if his umbilical cord or something was around his neck.  Everyone was just staring, so I pushed and the rest of him slid out, followed by tons of fluid.  I'm now squatting in a puddle of bloody fluid and my son is gargling fluid. I again look at the doctors to see what they are going to do and they are just staring at him. I started to reach down to pick him up, but that's when they snapped out of it and picked him up.  They suctioned him out and cut the cord. My husband then tells me he's going to go sit down because he was feeling light headed...I didn't even know he was in there, but I guess he came in right as I pushed him out and had a great view of the birth (but some might say a horrific view).

I can finally lay down and they give me an iv of pitocin to get the placenta out quickly. I don't enjoy the mashing on my stomach to get it out though and tell them it can take 20-30 minutes for it to come out. They hand Marshall to me and say he's doing fine. He had a 7 and 9 apgar score. I then get covered up and we head upstairs to a labor and delivery room. I should have arrived earlier if I wanted a room that could do water births.

It turns out my OB was actually at the hospital and told us we should have called because either way she would have met us in the ER. I told her that I was more concerned with not delivering at home or in the car and didn't want to give my husband one more thing to do. I had a tiny tear and my OB said she doesn't usually do stitches for that small of a tear, but the way I tore she wanted to give me a couple. Marshall got weighed and measured. He was 7lbs 1oz and 20.1 in long. He looks just like his dad.

Baby prep

We got a changing table while we were still trying to create the parasite. We found one for a great deal at a yard sale. It was practically new, not wobbley, and only $15. It just needed some paint. It's original color is white, so why not change the color at the same time. We waited until we got the rest of the nursery furniture and decided to paint it dark brown to match the other pieces. I kind of wish we would have choose some bright color, like yellow or blue, since the room is kind of blah with gray paint, gray carpet, and all dark brown furniture, but I enjoy the matching aspect of painting it dark brown. I'll just have to find another way to add some color. I'm hoping we can buy some fabric for curtains in there. That would help. Anyways, this changing table is becoming quite difficult to paint. First, the man spray painted it, but it was running and then we ran out. I said since the spindles are painted, we'll just hand paint the rest so we won't have the issues with runs. We got the same brand and color paint (rustoleum) and I went to work painting it. I realized, once I got ready to paint, that the spindles were kinda painted. That's ok, I was going to go over them anyways. I got the top row done. I think it took over an hour to just get the spindles on the top. It would take another 2-3 coats, at least, to cover the white spots. For some reason, it does not stick the the white paint. The spray paint stuck, but I worked my hardest to get it to cover, and it appears to be still unpainted where the white is. So I'll be painting the flat spots in the middle. It covers great there, even better than the spray paint did there. This shows what the top two look like painted by brush, and the bottom is what they looked like before I hand painted. This bottom picture shows the white peeking out from under the brown. I could not capture what it looks like in real life, but it gives you some idea.

On my mind: Diapers and Vegetables

I think I've come to the conclusion that I should not do blueberries or strawberries this year. With all the yard work we have to do, I don't know if it would be sensible to add something I may not even get to enjoy. Husband has accepted a job and we may be moving. He accepted this job over a year ago and we are just waiting on the call for when and where to go. I hope they keep him here, but with no guarantee, I may not even be here to enjoy this year's garden. I think once March gets here and it's a little bit warmer, we'll be spending tons of time outside clearing our chain link fence and cutting down dead trees and weed trees. We also have to get the garden spot ready. I can't wait to eat the first tomato.

As for diapers, I have a lot of diaper covers knit up for a newborn (about 4 in size newborn and small), but I only have 12 actual diapers so far, and they are prefolds. I really want some fitteds and hope I find time to make about 12. I can't wait to have this baby. I feel like I am so far from ready though. We did get the crib and the dresser. Husband's parents helped us out with that, thank goodness. This new house is eating all our money. Our most recent project (but still not finished) is re grouting my bathroom. We have all the prep done and half the grout work done. It is looking wonderful. We were trying to put this off until all the unpacking was done, but a tile fell. In fact, it fell on the boy. No injuries though, just surprised him. We'll my half-caff coffee is now empty and I must get back to working. I think I'll finish cleaning the kitchen, unpack a few boxes, declutter a little (focusing on the dining room) and hopefully a little vacuuming.

Already thinking about the garden

I usually go into a crazy garden planning period at the beginning of every year, but this year is especially bad. I have our new garden planned out and it shouldn't need too much tweaking. It's going to be a pretty tradition style garden but it's about double what we had at the old house. Living on a acre also allows me to plant corn. In addition to corn, I am growing: tomatoes, green beans, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, onions, broccoli (new), lettuce (new), pumpkin, bell peppers, possibly hot peppers (new), and sweet potatoes (new). I'm taking on quite a few new vegetables, so I'll need lots of luck. I'm also toying with planting strawberries or blueberries. I don't want to do too much, but I'm pretty ambitious so I'll probably do both.

We closed on our new house at the end of November and we moved in December 8th. We also had my family over for Christmas. We are still moving a few boxes over here and we have a lot of un-packing to do. Luckily we increased the size of our house by about 1000 square feet and we have lots of build-in storage here. It's a 1940's cape-cod style house. I absolutely love it! It has a lot of repairs that have to be done, but we are taking it one repair at a time. The only problem is we usually fix something just to have another thing break. Ugh!

I'm also 4 months pregnant and with all this work I'm doing, I think I'm causing myself to have some pretty strong braxton hicks. I'm trying to take it easy (not very successfully though) so we don't have to make a trip to the ER. We find out the sex on January 11th and I can't wait. I'm a little bit big for how far along I am, so I'm a little nervous with the fact that they might find two in there. I don't know if I would have the energy or money for two.