A Surprising Saturday

So, Saturday. DH and I both had plans to do some more things with the nursery. I was going to finish moving out the remaining non-baby items such as wrapping paper and a few other assorted items like Christmas Cards which had been stored in one of the dresses and are now waiting to leave the room for the basement. DH was going to re-do the light/fan switch to correct the horrible buzzing noise caused by the dimmer for the light and put up the window valences (and perhaps go out and get the blackout shades I also wanted to add to install those as well).

In other words, nothing really major was planned outside of a good sleeping in before starting the day, but they were still items which needed to be addressed before the Little One made her appearance at the end of August.

Because of this, Friday night we both were up until Midnight - I futzed around on-line for a while until I got bored, and then I watched DH play a PS3 game he recently picked back up. At midnight I decided to head to bed even though I wasn't particularly tired and DH decided to come up with me. Unfortunately he had eaten something which disagreed with his stomach and shortly after getting into bed he got back out to spend some quality time in the bathroom. Me, I went to sleep until I woke up for my regular overnight visit to the potty only to find him still on the potty, not having ever returned to bed. I went down the hall to the 2nd bath and did what I needed to do.

You know what they say about plans - man makes them and God laughs? (You should since I mentioned it last week.) That's where the surprise came in.

When I got back into bed, and went to settle myself into my preferred side sleeping position, there was an almighty gush of liquid from my lady parts. It was an unstoppable torrent. Given that I had just fully emptied my bladder, there was no mistaking what had happened. Yep. My water broke at some time between 2:45 and 3AM Saturday morning.

At 33 1/2 weeks.

So, after fetching me a towel so I could dry off and make it to the bathroom for a pad and to the closet for clothes, off went DH to call the OB's office who told us to head to the hospital.

Less than 12 hours later, including a ambulance ride with lights and sirens blaring to a more high-tech hospital about an hour away by normal speeds, an epidural, a half hour of Pitocin to speed up the epidural slowed contractions, and about 20-30 minutes covering about 5 contractions worth of pushing, our little girl made her impatient way into the world at 1:27pm on Saturday July 10, weighing in at a respectable 4 lb 6oz, and measuring 18.5" long. In my unabashedly biased opinion she is the most beautiful little girl in the nursery.

She and I are both doing very well - I had two level 2 tears which have been are handled by Motrin, and apart from some slightly elevated billiruben levels, all her systems are working like they should be. Sunday evening she got the nod to start formula at 5ml and this afternoon to jump to 11ml. We even gave breastfeeding a try - we didn't do so well, but we're both learning as we go. Despite the positive outlook, current estimates are that Little One will have to stay for probably 3 weeks. =(

It's not exactly what I had planned for Saturday or for Little One's arrival, but it could have gone a lot worse. For the record, even when your birth plan is as simple as "go into labor on my own, and leave the hospital with a healthy baby" it can be too complicated.

More of the birth story and pictures to come once I can find and connect the camera to the computer.