Mommy, I didn't want to hurt you

It all started a week and a day ago, May 5th 2010.
And on May 6th, 2010 at 8:06 at night, I met my princess.
Julianna Sophia Shelton was born.

Wednesday, May 5th:

I normally got a lot of Braxton Hicks and contractions throughout the day, but this day, the contractions were just a little stronger and a lot more frequent.  I laid down in the afternoon for a nap and decided to time them.  Every 7 minutes, I would feel one.  Strong and consistent.  Wow! Could this mean that I will be having my baby girl soon?  Is this more of what my Dr. and everyone else has been referring to as practice labor?

My plan was always to just go with the flow. 
To live life, like my wonderful Doula had adviced me to.
So I did.
Woke up and even tried going for a walk.
I didn't get far.  I was in a bit of pain - more than usual.
We got back home and continued our "normal" lives.
I even remember that night asking Jodi if we could get a little "romantic" (thinking it may be what we needed to get the party started).  But forget it! HA!  As soon as he came upstairs and into our room, I said "Ugh! there is no way I can do anything tonight!  I can't even move! So, no whoppie for you!"
 Not that either of us was in the mood lately anyways...

I think I slept for about 40 minutes,  From a little past midnight to almost 1am.
One strong contraction must have woken me up and from there on,  It was ON!!!
At 2 am, I got my laptop out again and started timing them.
They were around 4-5 minutes apart, I guess.
Around 3am, I woke Jodi up.
A bit later, we called our parents and Adrienne, my Doula.
Jodi's parents hoped in their car. They would be arriving in about 5 hrs.
Mom, was buying her airplane ticket and Adrienne said she was going to get ready and head over.

Things seemed to be progressing.
4 minutes apart.
3.
2!  Contractions were 2 minutes apart! The lasted for about a minute to a minute and a half each.
(the 6 mins apart one was when I was talking on the phone again with my mom and forgot to click on it)

Holy Shit!   I am having my BABY!!!!!!!!!!!

I was in so much pain by then.  My belly seemed like it was going to BURST!  It was so hard.  I couldn't move much.  I stood up and walked in between them and tried to get my stuff ready, as I knew we were going to be heading to the hospital pretty soon.

At around 5am, Adrienne was here.
We were all downstairs.  Jodi made her coffee.  She heated a sock filled with rice and some stuff that smells like Roses.  And we went upstairs.

It wasn't easy being me, is all I can say.

I tried focusing my energy on my baby.  We had my relaxing music in the background. Candles. Tub filled with warm/hot water., you name it!

I remember breathing hard and trying to think that every contraction was bringing baby Julianna down.  I tried remembering all those encouraging words that everyone was giving me during these past few weeks...  The videos I had watched.  The wonderful messages from my VBAC support group.   I knew I had to go through this and "embrace" it as much as I could.
I knew this was WHAT I WANTED.

Adrienne's soft words and powerful messages kept me going.  She knew exactly what I needed to hear and how I needed to be touched and massaged.  She knew how to, in the midst of all the nerves, and pain and anxiety, make me feel like I was in a wonderful place.

At around 7am, MY WATER BROKE!!!

I couldn't believe it! I always wondered what that would feel like, since I never experienced labor with Jojo.  It wasn't a big gush, it was small to medium gushes of water here and there.  It was, and I know this may sound weird, but it was kinda cool.  To know that my body and my baby were getting ready.

An hour or 2 passed and things were getting pretty intense. I remember how at some points I would have contractions that would NOT stop.  As soon as one started to get less strong, another one started and I would go thru that intense pain over and over again, without any pauses in between.

When Adrienne stepped out of the room and yelled out "Jodi, we need to go to the hospital now!" (or something like that), I knew she knew that we had no time to waste.  Baby may be coming out sooner than we thought and we needed to get out of there!

We dropped Jojo off at Christian and Lisa's and headed to the hospital around 8 in the morning.

Took us about 20 minutes to get to the hospital, and let me tell you, that ride was insane.  I am hoping no one saw me huffing and puffing in there or they would have had a pretty funny sight.

When we got there, I couldn't even walk.  They sat me on a wheel chair (against my will, since I wanted to try to walk to my room) and took me to where I would labor for the next 11-12 hours.

I had a little bit of a struggle trying to voice out my wishes and birth plan to some nurses. They wanted to hook me up with IV and do the continuous monitoring, and all that hospital stuff they do all the time.  I didn't.  I wanted to do this with the least interventions POSSIBLE!!  So, there I laid, telling them what to do! lol

My Dr. arrived and finally I was checked.  I was 5-6 cm!  Kinda exciting, but NOT REALLY! I wanted more! 

9AM.  10AM.  11AM....

Everything was looking GREAT!  I went from 7cm to 8 to 9 pretty quickly.  At 1 PM, I was 9cm, 100% effaced and pretty ready to welcome my little girl. 
However, she had different plans.

Baby was still high up.  -2 station, is what the Drs and nurses kept saying, as they kept checking me.
Every contraction was stronger and it was getting harder and harder for me to stay calm.
I was breathing hard.  Humming.  Grunting.
I was starting to talk about getting that"damn" epidural (which, according to my birth plan, was the last thing I would ask for when I felt like dying).

At about 5PM, I think I reached my breaking point.  Nothing was happening.  My baby girl was NOT decending into my birth canal.  These painful and unbearable contractions were NOT helping at all. 
After talking to plenty of nurses (some of which were super nice and supportive of me wanting a VBAC), my Dr, amy Doula, the anesthesiologist and Jodi (who was going NUTS seeing me in so much pain), I opted to get the popular drug. ugh!  If I only knew that things would progress and I would be pushing her out, I would have lasted a lot longer and endured a lot more pain - but it really looked like change was not in the future.

According to everyone, the epidural would probably be helpful in my circumstance, since I was so so close.

I got a very low dose.  I could feel and even move my legs - and I liked that.
I was not in PAIN anymore, and I loved that.

ahhhhhhhhhh............  RELIEF!
And I was pretty loopy, since they also gave me some other drug that makes you feel like your drunk before administering the Epi.

I felt like I wanted to tell everyone I loved them in their face.  I was pretty high! lol

During the next few hours, me and my Doula worked on positioning my body differently..  I did both sides, on my hands and knees, sitting up straddling the bed and rocking....

6PM check - nothing.

Dr was starting to talk C-Section at this time and I broke down.  Tears were coming down my cheeks and I was just begging everyone to give me more time.  I wanted to wait as long as I could.  This is what I wanted all my life, to push my baby out myself and be the first one to hold her and kiss her and show her love.
I felt everyone's heart melting as they touched me and caressed me, but there was nothing anyone could do, except my baby Julianna.
I think at this point, everyone was routing for me, and at the same time, feeling so sorry because my chances were getting slimmer and slimmer.

A few minutes later, she suggested me trying to push and see if she would come down.  I had read about "purple pushing" and wasn't really keen on doing it - but at this point, we had no other options.  I would have rather pushed when my body would tell me to w/out any coaching or counting.  But whatever! Let's do it! 
So I PUSHED!!
(and now I look back and sort of love the fact that I even experienced THAT part of the whole process)

My mother in law held one foot, my doula, the other one.  Jodi stood right next to me, rubbing my forehead and I grabbed both my legs, raised my head, closed my eyes and waited for their orders.

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 breathe!
I pushed as hard and strong as I could ever imagine pushing.  I felt my face wanting to explode.  I did that three times, quietly and peacefully.


Then we tried it again, 3 more times.
Dr. kept saying how great of a pusher I was.  Ok, good! and?
and nothing! Baby still was high up.

Well, the clock was ticking.
I think I did a few more pushing here and there.


and THEN -  it came to a point when we ACTUALLY SET A TIME were if things remained status quo, we would have to "give up" and explore our other "option" (and GOD knows how I hate that word). It would be at 8 o'clock.


The one GREAT thing was that baby's heart beat was PERFECT.  Her and I were both SAFE during all this.  However, with my water breaking and me getting so many internal checks, everyone was a little worried about all the bacteria and me getting any infections.

I remember when I got checked around 7PM something changing in me.  I am not sure if it was because I was so tired and pretty drugged, but I was laying in bed with a big smile in my face and feeling extremely at peace.  Still kinda holding on to a little hope, but pretty content if it didnt go my way.

Everything happened so quickly after this.  They checked me one more time, just in case.  Nothing had happened. Oh! by this time, my first epidural had worn off and I was feeling the contactions a little bit and a LOT of pressure down there. 
Anesthesiologist (who was the nicest ever) came in, gave me the big drug and soon after, they were taking me to the OR.  I think daddy was just relieved that there was a plan now and in no time, he would be meeting his daughter.

I was just exhausted.  I wasn't sure anymore how I was going to be able to even open my eyes after the surgery to meet Julianna.  I couldn't even say a whole sentence.

There I was.  Laying in a different, harder bed, inside a very very very very cold room.  Looking at the clock, at the ugly lights right on top of me, at all the hospital "toys"... YUCK! Oh well.

And then, they started.

C-Section #2

Baby Julianna's Birth:

As you can see, she was a healthy girl!

She didn't cry immediately after, but when she did, it was soooooo cute!

Very soft and kinda raspy.

To me, very girly.

It was very very hard for me in there.  I had the shakes - BAD! I couldn't stay still. My hands, arms, mouth and even head, were shaking.  My mouth was dry.  I was so extremely exhausted.  I kept trying to say that I didn't know how I was going to hold her and kiss her.  I had no energy to even talk!

I had to stay in there very long.  They had to remove another very large cyst.  I am NOT posting the pics of it, but it looks like a little monster - with HAIR and everything! So bizarre!!!

Anyways, Miss baby girl J was healthy.  She pooped immediately after coming out and a few times while they cleaned her.  And I must say, during this whole week, she has not stopped! lol

(With Jojo, we went 10 days at home without chaning one poopie diaper)

To me, she looked SO MUCH like her big brother! I couldn't believe it!

And of course, that means she also looks like me - since the whole world, including myself, thinks Jojo looks just like his mommy! :-)

(Not sure if you noticed in one of the pics before, but she was also born with a cone head.  I guess from trying to push her out).

My Dr. came in after and had a little pep talk with me.

I guess we all agreed that this was the safest and best thing we could have ever done.

I CAN'T SAY I DIDN'T TRY.

From drinking Raspberry Leaf Tea, To taking (both ways) Evening Primrose Oil pills, to eating Eggplant  Parmessan, to walking every day (even in pain), to beggin Jodi for some whoopie, to bouncing on my yoga ball all day every day.....  And then, to labor for so long and even try to PUSH....  

I gave it MY BEST.

And that is why I feel ok with it.

I am not sad.

I DO NOT regret anything.

I wanted to experience labor - it's beauty.  The pains, the body changes, everything....

I honestly think NOW that my baby's size DID have to do with her not being born vaginally.

I know I read so many stories of big babies being born huge with no complications.

But now, I know God was there with me and he chose this path.

I think that it could have been a different outcome, one that may have not been that happy.

Who knows, baby's health.  Mommy's health. (besides the fact that I would have had to go in again for another surgery to remove that cyst later on)

It all could have been a different story.  Who knows what kind of damage could have been done down there...

(everyone kept saying how she would have destroyed my v jayjay and all those horror stories...)

I know Julianna didn't come down because she didn't want to hurt me... :-)

My recuperation WAS SO MUCH better this time around.  Don't take me wrong.  I did have a lot of pain (and still do here and there).  But I was standing on my own in no time.  I walked much sooner and was even able to shower.  (something I never had a chance to do while recovering from my first surgery).

The hospital STAFF could have not been any nicer.  I LOVED everyone there!

There were 17 babies in the nursery.  (the whole staff was in shock there were so many) and Julianna was the biggest one! ha!

The Lactation Consultants would come very very often to help  me with breastfeeding my baby princess.
And I can't thank them enough, because now, I have a breastfed ONLY baby!!! :-)
(something I didn't have either with Jojo.)
I love it I love it and I love it!

Here are some more pictures of our stay in the hospital:

Mom got these as little souveniers for our visitors and hospital staff.

JONATHAN MEETING HIS SISTER

(he wanted NOTHING to do with her)

(he actually seemed kinda scared of her)

Taking professional pics :-)

Flower Jojo was supposed to give to Julianna.

On Mother's DAY, we got to go home.
Good Bye, East Cooper Hospital.
Thank you everyone for your wishes, flowers, prayers, and support.
Special Thanks to our favorite nurse, Darlene.  Who we plan on inviting for dinner very soon.
Also, thank you Adrienne for being so supportive and being such a great Doula.  It meant the world to me to see you cry next to me during my surgery.  I know how connected we were during this whole process.
Thank you to my family and my husband for being there for me in person and in spirit.
And Thank You God for giving me my perfect, precious, healthy daughter.
I am COMPLETELY IN LOVE WITH HER and can't let her go.
I love just holding her all day!  I cry so often by just staring at her. 
She is ABSOLUTE PERFECTION.

It was all in all, an amazing and beautiful experience that I would not trade for anything in the world.
Who knows what the future holds.... Maybe baby #3?
HA!
I am in lala land now and can't believe how easy this week has been for me.
No sleep at all, pain in the body and a lot of hormones having a party inside me.
BUT I LOVE IT! I love it all!
(and if you ask me now, I would have a bunch of more of these little peanuts!)

BEST MOTHER'S DAY EVER!!!!!