It's 3:30 in the morning on December 6th, on the schedule for today, have a baby!
I woke up to contractions and timed them for an hour straight. 5 minutes apart, 1 minute long, for 1 hour. Yep, time to wake up Justin! It's go time! Bags all packed and we're off to the hospital. The nice thing about 4:30 in the morning is there's absolutely no traffic. We arrived at the emergency room and we're the only ones in the place. A nurse came out with a wheel chair for me when out of nowhere a crazy Mom came in the entrance and said, "My daughters having a baby! We called ahead, my daughter's having a baby!" I told the nurse she should probably take her back first.
So now it's our turn and they wheel us to triage and get me changed into their very stylish hospital gown. They tell us to walk around the hospital floor for an hour and then come back. When you do this you tend to dilate more given the exercise and gravity working with you. So we walk. We walk and we walk. We have to stop ever 4 minutes so my contraction can completely knock me on my ass. Justin was my rock. He'd just hold on to me while I'm keeled over or death gripping the wall. They kept getting stronger so at this point I'd had enough walking and was ready to go back to triage. All this walking, keep in mind, was to see whether or not they were going to send me home. I kept telling Justin, there's no way they can send anyone home in this condition. I was actually nervous they would tell me those two little words, "Go Home." I guess I was determined not to hear them because once we got back to triage the contractions got worse. We're talking, "Justin go get the nurse now" worse. By now they've checked me and I've progressed enough to hear, "Ok we'll start you on fluids and get you a room." Magical words I tell ya.
So while I'm waiting, for what feels like forever. My contractions are now getting to be unbearable. I'm breathing deep, to the point that the nurse says, "We don't want you to hyperventilate." I'm cussing and now I'm crying. They bring in this nurse, yes, "this Nurse," to put in my IV and she misses the vein not once but twice! I swear the IV hurt more than the contractions. I look at Justin and say, I want my Mom. He texts her, and I'm like, seriously? You text her at 5am? But sure enough like a champ, Mom responds. She was up early to play golf, but now she was on her way to see her first baby have a baby.
Keep in mind triage is a big room with 4-5 beds all separated by curtains. So everyone can hear everything that's going on. With that being said, when I was finished with my walk and coming back into my room I could see the gal in curtain #2. Seriously so annoying! She was all done up. We're talking hair and make up at 6am. She could've been going out for a night out on the town. She looked calm, relaxed and ready for her close up. So hear I am the potty mouth sailor behind curtain #2, with 2 bandaids on my wrists, death gripping the side of my bed, and hyper ventilating between each contraction. I must've had 3 different nurses come in trying to calm me down and all I can do is ask each one of them for an epideral and then cry some more. The Gods must've heard me because in comes Dr. Chen, the greatest little Asian man you've ever seen. Apparently he was in route to get Beauty Queen behind curtain #2 for her scheduled C-Section and apply her epideral. Instead they bumped Miss Perfection and he came to me first! He tells me he's not going to waste anytime and they're going to leave me in the bed and wheel me to my room. He goes over the epideral procedure while we're walking. They have you sign consent forms prior to any anesthesia being administered which I thought was kind of funny. I mean, it's not like I read any of the documents, nor did I really hear what they were saying regarding the documents. It's like yeah, yeah, yeah, scribble scratch, lets do this already! Dr. Chen worked his magic and 20 minutes later I'm feeling no pain and smiling once again.
It's now about 7:30 and Mom gets there. We tell her our dramatic morning and I'm secretly grateful I'm a slight drama queen with no tolerance for pain. We begin with our first nurse, yes I say first, because we ended up having 6 total nurses throughout the 24 hour period I was in the labor and delivery room. Time begins to go by and I'm slowly dilating. Dr. Belisle, who coincidently was the main Dr. I saw at the practice just happened to be on call that day. As long as I had my baby before 11am the next day she would be the one delivering me. 11am? No sweat! I'm thinking this kid will be out by lunch time. Well, lunch time comes and goes. They start me on pitocin. 3pm my contractions begin to come back, eeek! What does this mean? Have I reached my limit already? Then I learn about a fabulous little button that Dr. Chen forgot to tell me about. The button that keeps on giving. Well, that's not entirely true, but it does give up to two doses of additional epideral medicine per hour. That button never left my side!
By now, Mom, McKenna, Heidi, Layne, Nicole, Bill and Lindsey are waiting right along with us. It's now getting close to 9pm. The Dr. comes in and says I'm at 9.5 cm dilated, but I have a thick lip on my cervix. If that lip doesn't retract, move or go away I won't be able to deliver vaginally. This breaks my heart. I'm now being threatened with the one thing I didn't want to do, both. I have no problem with a C-Section but I'm not interested if I've already done the hard work first. I want it to be one or the other, not both. Dr. B has me rotate positions in hopes that it'll help get rid of the lip. So now begins a waiting and praying game.
The next time she comes in she doesn't have good news. However she has a possible solution. This solution involves turning the baby. How you ask can she do that when the baby is clearly inside me? Yep, it's what you're thinking. Amen for epiderals! I don't feel a thing. Now we have to wait and see what happens. If the lip retracts then we can proceed, if it doesn't then we'll have to talk other options. Again, the waiting game.
It's now 11pm, Dr. B checks me and good news!! The baby didn't flip back and the lip is gone! Sigh of relief! I now have one hour to make a December 6th birthday. So then the nurse comes in and we begin practicing for delivery. Basically that means, let the pushing begin! Even though I was dilated she wasn't in position to come out so the idea was that I would slowly push her towards the exit. When I say slowly, I'm not kidding. An hour and 20 minutes of intense pushing, breathing and counting to 10 with one minute breaks in between 4 times per contraction. It's one hell of a work out! While this is happening they don't advise you to push the magical button of goodness. Apparently if you can feel the contraction you can use it to your advantage while pushing. Uh huh... This basically equals, me getting lippy with the nurse, crying and back to hyperventilating. After an hour and 20, Dr. B tells the nurse to take a 45 minute break and for me to push the magical button not once, but twice! Amen.
Justin and I take a nap and when we awake he decides the reason she's not coming is because we don't have a name picked out yet. He said, she needs to know we're ready for her, if she has a name then it's real. So he walked over to our little white board and where it says, Baby's Name: He writes, Violet. Our baby's name will be Violet. I couldn't be happier.
So with our name finally picked out we have a new sense of hope and determination. After all, we have a name don't we? We work out a truce between the epideral and not pushing the button too much but not going cold turkey either and begin again. The nurse, Tami, gives me encouragement and I really feel like I can do this. It's now 1 o'clock in the morning on December 7th so her birthdate of December 6th is out the window. Probably better for my roulette game anyway to have a 7 over a 6. Baby Violet, if your reading this one day, yes your debut birthdate was quite important. I'll explain it on your 21st birthday. So here we go....
It's now 2:30am, we've been up for 23 hours. I've been pushing for an hour and a half, I'm exhausted. Tami our nurse still has hope in her eyes but I'm begining to think she always looks like that. While she's away getting Dr. B Justin and I talk about the pros and cons to a C-section. All I can do is think about Beauty Queen behind curtain #2 and how if and when we have a 2nd child, I could be the calm, relaxed, beauty queen. With that being said, I'm begining to be okay with surgery. Dr. B explains we have 3 options. Continue pushing and see what happens (not going to happen), have an episiotomy and vacumme Violet out (after hearing the risks, complications, and possibility of it ending up in a c-section anyway....Pass) or a C-section. The answer was fairly easy. The next thing I know I have a team of nurses, Dr's and a new anesthesiologist getting me prepped for surgery.
It's not long now. I'm behind the blue curtain and freezing my ass off! Teeth chattering, entire body shaking, I ask the anesthesiologist if he's going to tie my arms down. He laughs and says, we don't normally do that, do you want your arms tied down. As I shake uncontrollably, I'm like yes! He doesn't, but apparently he thought it was funny that I asked.
Justin comes in looking handsome as ever in his blue scrubs and the fun begins. I can't feel my hands but he's holding them the entire time. I know they're working on me behind the blue curtain but I can't tell exactly what they're doing. I feel a little bit of pressure and all of a sudden I feel lighter. I even told Dr. B that. She laughed. So we're both sitting there knowing the Baby Violet is out, but we don't hear anything. Justin can see there's a team of people over by the wall working on her but once again, no sound. I think I hear something that sounds like a baby crying but I guess it was my mind playing tricks on me because Justin said, no, I don't think that's our Baby. What felt like the longest 3 minutes of my life, finally, Violet's beautiful miraculous voice whales out of no where. Justin said, now that's our Baby. A little more time passes and one of the nurses came and got Justin. He got to see Violet and watch all the action. Then finally, he comes over to me with her in his arms. I couldn't see much because of the way I was laying but I knew she was safe, she was perfect, and she was ours.
3:14am Violet Rae McConkey was born into our lives.
7.5 lbs & 19.75 inches. She's long and skinny just like her Father.
Look at all that hair! Her hair is dark brown and her eyes are blue. The blue is typically temporary and her eye color will be determined at 3-6 months.
Violet's first bath!
Justin got to have all the fun and go into the nursery with Baby Violet and see all the fun. I'm so glad he took such great pictures!
Meanwhile, I'm still on the operating table getting put back together. They eventually take me out to the post op room where I'm still freezing and shaking uncontrollably. It's now 4:30ish in the morning and we've been up for 25 hours. One of the nurses gave me something to help with the shaking and I was finally able to relax. Not really knowing what to do I closed my eyes. The next thing I know Justin's putting Violet on my chest. I still can't feel my hands but I can move my arms. (It was weird) She didn't move though. She just laid on my chest right next to my cheek. The feeling that comes over you is unexplainable. It's intense and amazing all at the same time, so I cried some more.
I now introduce to the world, our daughter, Violet.
Greatest Picture Ever!!
My Mother is officially a Grandmother. She insists on being called Nana, so Nana it is.
Justin's Mom is also a Grandmother once again. I'm sure Violet will call her Mamaw like we all do.
The hospital rooms have white boards with all your details written down. It helps keep track of which nurse is on call and what's happening with Baby Violet. We took a picture of our completed board just before leaving.
After what felt like forever, we're finally ready to leave. Coming in at 4:30am on December 6th and finally getting to leave the morning of December 10th we were ready to bring our Violet home.
Here we go! First car ride coming up!
Locked and loaded, here we go!
Crockett's reaction to Violet has been curious with a hint of I really don't care about this chick as long as you keep feeding me and throw the frisbee. Roxi, on the other hand, has been a bit obsessive and protective. She's right by her side when we let her and gaurds her against Crockett every chance she gets.
I just love this face! This one is more, "Uh? Where we going and do I have to go? Cause seriously I'd rather be sleeping or eating."
First at home bath. Justin's a pro! He took the reins and knew just what to do. Violet wasn't exactly ecstatic.
We arrived home on Monday afternoon and Justin went back to work Wednesday morning. Mom has been here everyday helping me get around, taking care of Violet while I try to sleep, and being just wonderful. It really has been nice. I'm so lucky and fortunate to have her.
I could be running on what's called New Mommy Adreniline still but I manage to squeeze in a nap or two here and there. We've had such wonderful friends, family and neighbors stopping by bringing food, gifts and love for Violet. I'm still in shock at how fortunate we are and am truly grateful.
With Violet now a week and 2 days old, I'd say our first week went rather well. She's already gained some of the weight back she lost and grew! Her first Dr's appointment they said she was 76% in height and 22% in weight, basically long and skinny. I'd say she's on track to have Daddy's build. Probably my forehead, bless her heart, but at least she'll be built like her Father.
I can't wait to watch her grow. Everyone says hold her close because it goes by so fast. It's funny at 4am it doesn't feel like time is going by? With one week down I guess time has already begun to speed up. In the next 11 weeks I'll do my best to post new photo's and update as often as possible. After all, she's just too darn cute to not share with the world.
