My pregnancy with Garrett was pretty similar to this one. I found out I was pregnant about a week before Christmas in 2004. I have exact dates for all of this written down in a "What to Expect When You're Expecting" calendar, so I'm not going to drag that out to remember. With Garrett, we were not quite to the point of being ready to have a baby when the second line showed up on that test. We were both a little surprised, to say the least. I cried, mostly because I didn't know how Keith was going to respond when I told him. So I waited for him to get home from work, we ate supper, and then I sprang the news on him. He looked at me in shock for a few minutes and didn't say much for the rest of the evening. It took awhile, but we both adjusted to the idea and got excited about having a baby. I only had one bout of morning sickness, beyond the random moments of nausea, and for the most part had an easy pregnancy.
I taught school throughout the majority of my pregnancy. Months 7 and 8 were during my summer break, so I was able to spend that time finishing up Garrett's room and doing a lot of relaxing and soaking in the cool air. I do remember constantly feeling hot when I was pregnant with him, which could have had something to do with the fact that he was born in August, the absolute hottest time of the year in Texas. My brother got married in south Texas about 8 weeks before Garrett was due and I know I froze Keith to death on the drive down and back for the wedding, and that's no small feat.
3 weeks before my due date, I had to start the new school year. I walked into my classroom for the first time after being gone for 2 months to discover all the furniture had been moved around and (worst of all) there was no a/c! In August! For some reason, the a/c was out in my room and the room next to me for the entire 3 weeks until I left for maternity leave. I think I had 3 or 4 fans in there to try and make things bearable. The most fun though was moving all my furniture back to where it belonged. I wasn't worried about going into labor while moving everything because I was ready to be on maternity leave, but let's just say it was interesting trying to move a 4 drawer filing cabinet across my classroom while being 9 months pregnant. I was able to get my substitute set up and ready to start the year off for me and then my maternity leave started. I remember going to my last doctor's appointment on my first day of maternity leave and telling him that I was so ready to be done. Turns out I was dilated to 3 cm already so he said he would induce me the following Monday.
My family was only 5 hours away at this time, so they drove up that weekend. Monday morning, Keith, my mom, and I left our house between 5 and 5:30 am because I had been told to be there by 6 am. At 8 am, my doctor came to the delivery room and broke my water. Initially I had very mild, inconsistent contractions, so at 10 am I was started on pitocin. Once this got in my system I was definitely feeling uncomfortable. My doctor came back to check me at noon and I remember thinking to myself "If I'm 7 cm or more, I'm going to try to do this without an epidural." I was 6 cm. So I told the doctor to bring in the anesthesiologist. Keith left at this point to go to lunch. He had no desire to be in there while I was getting the epidural and I didn't want him in there. My mom stayed and helped me to breathe through the contractions while the epidural was being put into place. I made sure that, while I couldn't feel my legs, I could still move them. I didn't want too much of an epidural, just enough to keep me comfortable. By this point, I had visitors who wouldn't have dared come in the delivery room pre-epidural, but now felt comfortable enough that I wouldn't take a swing at them since I was medicated. Throughout the afternoon, when my doctor would come in to check on me, he would say "This baby has a big head!" And I would say "You're scaring me" to which he would respond "You're scaring me!"
The further along that I got, the worse I felt. First, I had to throw up. It came on me all of the sudden and my mom was just barely able to shove a bed pan in my face before it happened. Then, after an exam, I began feeling very light headed. I told the nurse I thought I was going to pass out, so she brought out an oxygen mask and made me lay on my right side. At this point, Garrett's heartrate was starting to drop, so they moved me around until I was in a position that kept his heartrate at a level that looked good. 5:30 pm rolled around and the nurse came back in to check me. She said it was time to start pushing, but we were going to do some practice pushes so I could get a feel for it. Once she felt like I was ready to push for real, she called the doctor and started disassembling the room. Atleast it felt that way, lights pop out of the ceiling, the bed is broken down to be in a better position for delivering a baby, all sorts of equipment and people showed up to take over with the baby once he was born. My doctor showed up with someone he was training and I started pushing. I remember hearing my mom say "I see his head!" and a few more pushes later he was born at 6:30 pm. The cord was wrapped around his neck twice which explained why his heartrate was dropping earlier. He also had a conehead and a lot of bruising on his scalp, so the doctor wasn't kidding when he had commented on the size of his head.
The rest of our hospital stay was relatively uneventful. Garrett had jaundice so we ended up staying in the hospital for an extra day so he could spend time until the lights to try and bring down his levels. Since we went home over Labor Day weekend, which means that our doctor's office was closed, we had to go back to the hospital every day to have his jaundice levels checked. It was NOT fun holding down a newborn to get his heel pricked.
It took us awhile to get into a good routine once we had him. I never knew how much of an adjustment it would be to have a baby. Now I feel like I'm a little better prepared for Cooper, simply because I've gone through this once. I know there will be plenty of other new and different experiences with him that will still take time to adjust to, but atleast I now have an idea of what it will be like. I have to say that I'm more than ready to move on to this next phase and it will be here before I realize it.
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