Remember, remember the 5th of January...

And while you're remembering that, remember the 30th of December through the 4th of January, as well. That was the hard part.

On Sunday night (the 30th), I started leaking fluid and since my water has never broken before, I wasn't sure if that was what it felt like. I called the Dr. on call who said it didn't sound like amniotic fluid and told me that if the volume increased or if I started bleeding to call back. Well the next day, I started having contractions about every 15 min. They were painful, but not bad enough that I couldn't sleep through them. I called the Dr. again, and he said that if they were between 5-10 min apart and painful enough that I couldn't talk through them, to go in to the hospital to be checked. Well, the contractions for that day didn't get any worse, but the fluid increased, so they sent me to the hospital to be checked.

I had dilated to about 1.5 cm (which was only a half cm more than my appointment the week before) and the fluid was not amniotic fluid, so that was good. They sent me home to wait until the contractions were closer together and more painful.

It didn't take long for them to become both of those things, and for the next 2 days, they were about 7 min apart and were too painful to sleep through or really talk through. We went in to the hospital again to be checked, and I was at 2 cm (woo hoo!) and about 90% effaced... but they sent me home b/c I didn't make any progress after being there for an hour. It was frustrating b/c I hadn't had more than 7 minutes of sleep at a time for the 2 days previous and so the pain was becoming less tolerable (I'm not sure if it was actually worse, though)

after 1 more day of sleep deprivation and contractions, I called the Dr. again to see if there was anything we could do to help me get some sleep b/c I was so tired I was just crying and felt hopeless... They gave me a prescription for Percocet and told me to take 2. I slept for about an hour, and then started waking up to the pain again.I was having to breathe through my contractions, but Erik did not want to go back to the hospital until it was the real thing. The contractions were coming between every 5-7 minutes.

On Friday, after not sleeping again all night, I called the Dr. one more time, hoping that they would offer to induce me since I was in so much pain and still could not sleep. I told them that the pain was bad enough that I couldn't sleep at all. They told me to get some unisom and take it at the same time as the percocet, right after taking a warm bath, and that should help me sleep. I told her that I was already tired enough, that it was the pain that was making it so I couldn't sleep. She didn't seem to care much, so I took 2 more percocet, had an hour of sleep, and then continued the waking up every 5 min.

On Saturday morning around 4:30, I woke up to another contraction and noticed that I had started bleeding more. I called the Dr. on call who never called me back and told Erik we had to go to the hospital. We went and FINALLY they told us we could stay (since I was about 5 cm dilated at that point). I threw up a little bit b/c of the lack of sleep and all of the pain, and then they gave me an epidural. I slept for the first time all week, while my body worked on getting the baby out.

We called my mom who got on the first plane she could. Erik called his mom who came down to the hospital around... 9:30 or 10... maybe... (I wasn't very good at keeping track of the time since I was in and out of sleep). Sarah went and picked my mom up from the airport, and they got to the hospital at about 12:00. We took bets on when I would have the baby, which ended up being at 2:40 after pushing for... I think about 45 min.

The whole process is kind of funny. The Dr. came in and broke my water, then the nurse had me pushing, then the dr. came back and delivered and stitched me up... It seems like the nurse really did a lot more work than the dr...

After that, Alice was not breathing very well, so they took her to special care. I got to see her and hold her for about 10 seconds before they took her away. She was very cute, but also kind of squished looking :) After a couple of hours of wondering what was going on and sending Erik to check on her and update me every once in a while, my mom finally asked the nurse if I was allowed to go back and see her. She said yes (it would have been nice to know a bit earlier...) so I went saw her. I could touch her, but still couldn't hold her. She had on an oxygen hood (looks like a plastic bubble that they are blowing oxygen into) to keep her oxygen saturation high enough. She had a little tiny IV site in her arm. It was really sad and i cried of course, but she was still very cute.

They decided to let me try feeding her, but every time they took away her oxygen hood, her saturation went too low. They got ready to put an oxygen tube on for the feeding, but the nurse decided to just get everything ready to go and let her try feeding on her own. I fed her and from then on she did fine and her oxygen levels stayed up and they let her come out of the special care and into our room. We all got to hold her and cuddle her, and I felt much better after getting to spend some time with her.

Here are some pictures of Alice:

http://car0lyn.com/alicepics/

And here is her professional picture (they always have better lighting!)

http://www.utahportraits.com/hospital/index.php?pg=baby&action=view&BabyID=010508amh

I'm still a little sore... recovering... but I'm already down below my pre pregnancy weight, so I feel better physically (I can move again!) and I'm starting to forget how painful the 5 days of labor were... If I had to do it all again to have her, I would :)

Sorry that was so long. If you made it this far, I commend you! :)