Oh Baby... Finally!!!

And the journey began on October 19, 2010...

I went to the doctor for my weekly checkup - 39 weeks and 2 days pregnant - hoping that Lyla and my cervix had made some progress during the past week. No such luck. I was still 1 cm dilated, as I had been for 3 weeks, and only getting more impatient and uncomfortable. My blood pressure had been on the rise for a few weeks and when the doctor took a look at my most recent blood pressure, she asked, "would you like to be induced?". I said YES PLEASE. She then said she would induce me the next morning! Wow, I definitely didnt expect to be induced that soon, but I was super excited! While I was getting my blood pressure taken, YET AGAIN, she came in and told me that I would need to check into the hospital that day at 3pm so that my cervix could be "ripened". I wasn't sure what exactly that meant, but that gave me just enough time to drive home, let the dogs out, make sure my hospital bags were complete, and drive back to new braunfels.

The first call I made was to Tyler to let him know he needed to get his hiney back into town. He debated whether or not he would make the drive to Houston that morning for work and decided to go for it. He had barely made it to Houston when he received my phone call telling him I was getting induced! He said he started shaking :) And then he made the drive back into town.

I made it to the hospital by 3, filled out all my paperwork, checked into my private suite :) and changed into my lovely hospital gown (my extremely fashionable outfit for the next 4 days). I then got my IV and got strapped into the heart monitors and started answering the thousand questions the nurse had for me. Tyler finally arrived to join the experience.
The nurse then gave me my medicine to "ripen" my cervix - medicine that had to be in place for 12 hours - and I was told they would break my water once the 12 hours was up. Almost immediately I started feeling slight cramping in my abdomen which continued for the next 10 hours, getting more and more painful. I started having actual contractions around 3am (about 10 hours into the ripening process). They were bearable until about 7am - which is about the time I was in agony and asking where in the world my epidural was!! I finally got my epidural, and was immediately feeling 100% better. My body was numb from my mid section on down, but at least I couldn’t feel the horrible contractions anymore!!

I suppose it was around 11am when the nurse checked my cervix again and said that I was ready to go! Baby was ready to come out!!! By this point, I could feel the contractions again, but they weren't as bad as they had been. The nurse said I had to push until Lyla was on the brink of delivery, so after about 30 minutes of pushing, we had arrived at the final destination. Tyler was so interested in the whole process, and even decided that he needed pictures of EVERYTHING. He could see and touch Lyla's little head during the whole pushing process.

Since we were ready to go, the nurse called the doctor to come deliver Lyla. She came in all decked out in her baby delivering gear and after only about 5 minutes of pushing, Lyla's head was out. And then her shoulders and the rest of her! Baby girl was born on October 20, 2010 at 12:20 pm. She weighed 7 pounds and 2 ounces and was 21 inches long.

Our first look at baby Lyla! WOW, what a wonderful experience!!! I couldn't stop crying, and Tyler couldn't stop smiling :)

It was very painful, even with the epidural. But its kind of what I expected - pushing a watermelon out of my body never sounded like an enjoyable experience. So on her way out, Lyla's umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck (Tyler said her little head was blue) but when she came out, the cord broke and squirted blood everywhere - gruesome I know. Our precious baby girl had finally arrived, safe and sound. Then, doc said that my placenta was basically stuck inside me and wouldn't come out. And since I had already lost a lot of blood, the doctor had to go on a treasure hunt in my uterus trying to find the rest of my placenta and get it out of me. This was a horrible and very painful experience and lasted about 30 minutes - thankfully since Lyla was out of me, I could get some heavy duty pain killers.

Since I lost a lot of blood, the doctor told me I had 2 options: 1) I could get a blood tranfusion, or 2) I could take iron pills 3 times a day for a month (but I would feel like crap for a while). I didn't so much like the statistics surrounding the blood transfusion... apparently there is a 1 in 300,000 chance of getting HIV from a blood transfusion... no thanks!! I decided to go with the iron pills. The doctor was right - I felt HORRIBLE for quite a while... I'm just now starting to feel normal again after 17 days. The soreness and achiness has started to fade and my energy is slowly returning.

We were finally able to leave the hospital after 4 days. Both Tyler and I started to go stir crazy and I could only take so much hospital food.

Packing up the precious cargo!

We are so thankful to have our healthy baby Lyla here with us now. She is the most precious, wonderful, beautiful, amazing part of our life now and we are loving and enjoying every second we get to spend with her. Its taking a little bit of adjusting, as expected, but I think we are getting the hang of it :)