Little Miss Nettie Smith

So I got a surprising 9 hours of sleep last night (total, not in a row) and Nettie is asleep once again.  Figured I'd at least try to start this post.  Kind of hard to believe that we've had Nettie for almost a week now.  She's fit so perfectly into our lives, and to risk sounding cliche, it's like she's was always here.  Anyways... on with the story.

Our induction was scheduled for Sunday (June 5th) at 830pm.  On the instruction sheet that they gave me at my final doctor's appointment, it told us to call the hospital an hour before the set time to make sure that there was a bed available for me.  Neither Tucker or I thought this would be a problem because the two times that we'd been up at the hospital before (once for our tour, the second to be monitored for a little while) it had been fairly slow in the Labor and Delivery area.  We called anyways, and the girl I talked to asked if they could call us back because she needed to find out about availability from someone who was on break when we called.  That was fine with me.

We finished collecting our stuff and headed down to the car at 8 even though we still hadn't been called back.  I decided to call again as I walked to the dumpster to throw away some trash and while Tucker pulled the car around.  I spoke with the person that had been on break and (go figure) they didn't have any room for me.  Talk about a major disappointment.  She said that we would probably have to go in the next morning instead, but asked how late we were willing to go in that night, just in case something opened up.  I told her that it didn't really matter since we had been planning on being up the whole night anyways.

So, we went and got some hamburgers from Burger King (we had already started driving by the time I finished talking with the woman), which we probably wouldn't have normally done, but I hadn't eaten since noon-ish per my instructions, the nurse told me to go ahead and eat since they didn't know when I was going to be called in, and we didn't have any food in our apartment (sort of, nothing to make a meal out of at least).  Back at home, we decided to watch a little tv before I went to bed, but between 930 and 10 the nurse called and asked if we could come in at 1130 that night instead.  Um, duh.

When we got to the hospital, we had to check in at the emergency room because patient registration (where we would have gone during the daytime) was closed for construction.  Checked in, and made our way up to L&D.  When we got to the desk there, a nurse took us back to our room and started to ask all the normal questions.  By the time I had gotten changed and stuff signed it was close to midnight, and they needed to check my 'progress' to see if they would start me on pitocin or a balloon thingy (honestly can't remember the name of it) that they would put in my cervix to help me get started dilating.  I was only about 1cm, which wasn't much of an improvement from when they had checked me on Tuesday.  So in went the balloon.  They said that I should start feeling a little crampy (which I did), and so they would give me a pill to help me sleep.   I agreed to take the pill, thinking it would take like half an hour tops to get the dang thing, but didn't end up getting it until after 230ish am.

The next morning my new nurse woke me up at 6 to take a shower and to check to see if the balloon would come out easily (meaning that I had dilated to at least 3cm).  The balloon definitely came out, and I was between a 3 and a 4, completed effaced.  They got all my IVs started right around 645am and so now all we had to do was wait.

Around 1130am, they came to check me again and decided to break my water.  In doing this, we found out that little Nettie had already pooped for the first time because there was some staining to the fluid.  The only difference this really made was that they would have to check her briefly before allowing me to hold her right after she was born.  No big deal.  Up until this point though, I hadn't been uncomfortable or feeling any sort of pain, like, at all.  I remember thinking how easy being in labor was.  Little did I know that as soon as my water was broken, things would change.  I started to actually feel the contractions, and to me it seemed like they were coming like 3 minutes apart (I never actually timed them out though).  My parents and Jenna had arrived at the hospital by this point too, and whenever I started to have a contraction, my dad would let me squeeze his hand.  I went like this for about 15 minutes before I decided to call the nurse back in to tell her to start getting me ready to have an epidural.

So they started me on another bag of fluids that I had to drain before they would even call the doctor down.  They finally called him down around 1pm and by 105pm they had the IV in my back and the medicine going.  Ah, sweet relief!  I felt great again.  I dozed off and on for awhile (pretty sure that my family left to go do something else when they came to do the epidural), and they didn't really feel the need to check my progress for a few hours.  Around 440pm, though, the nurse came in and told me that she was going to turn the pitocin off because Nettie's heartbeat was starting to look a little bit questionable.  Nothing to worry about, but it was starting to look like it could become irregular.  They also gave me an oxygen mask to wear to see if that helped at all.

While the nurse was in the room turning off the one IV, I mentioned to her that I would sometimes feel pressure like I had to go to the bathroom.  So she called a doctor in to check me (and like 5 people came along, apparently they had all been at a delivery next door and decided to come; a couple of them were 'student' doctors though, so they were just observing).  They checked me, and lo and behold, I was completely dilated!  They had me try pushing a couple times (which I don't know if I was doing right cause all I could really feel was that pressure), and then they decided to let me sit for about another half hour before doing more pushing so that I didn't have to push for like an hour and so that Nettie could descend a little more on her own. 

I didn't really care that I would have to wait a little bit longer, but it was exciting that stuff was actually going to start happening soon.  My Dad left the room and we waited for about 15 minutes before I decided that the pressure (which was starting to strengthen and was really hard to ignore) was great enough that I had to call the nurse back in.  I definitely felt the need to push now.  So she sat down on the bed with me around 520pm, I'm sure thinking that we would probably be pushing for awhile because she didn't bother to call the doctor yet.

We started pushing.  It took me a couple of contractions to figure out exactly what to do because of the epidural, but about fifteen minutes later, the nurse got up to call the doctor.  We kept pushing, and I could definitely feel something coming out of me.  In just a few more pushes, Nettie's head was about half way out of me and my nurse told me not to push anymore.  I remember thinking that she was ridiculously stupid.  How the heck was I supposed to hold off on pushing when the baby was basically coming out of me on my own?  I kept telling her, "I need to push, I can't stop, I need to push," but she kind of ignored me.  I really couldn't stop myself from pushing though; it was physically impossible.

The doctor arrived just in time to wash her hands real quick and watch as Nettie came out into the nurse's hands (way to go, Doc) at 538pm.  Tucker cut the cord (I think), they checked her out, and then I was holding her.  My perfect, sweet, little baby.  She was here, and I couldn't have cared less that they were starting to stitch me up (I had a 3rd degree perennial tear because Nettie came so quickly).

In total, I pushed for about 20 minutes.  Apparently that's quick.  I'm just pro at pushing I guess, haha!  Both Jenna and my mom were able to be in the room with us as well when Nettie was born, which I think is kind special.

Now as far as naming her goes.... During the time that my family had been gone that afternoon, Tucker and I looked at the list of names that we liked and narrowed it down to three.  My favorite: Eleanor Janet.  Tucker's favorite: Emmeline Lynette.  And then a completely out of the blue name that we hadn't really discussed before: Lynette Meryl.  Tucker suggested it, saying that he thought it would make a pretty first name as well as a pretty middle name.  I actually kind of like it.  We both agree that if that name was used, we would not be calling her Lynn for short.  And we decided to pair Meryl with it (my little sister's middle name) because unfortunately, Lynette Janet didn't quite flow well enough for us.  At this point, we didn't decide for sure on a name because we both still wanted to see her first.  But I think that my mind was sort of already set on Lynette, and as soon as she came out, I was certain that that was her name.

Little Nettie weighed 8lbs 2oz and was 20 1/4 inches long.  When she popped out of me, she inhaled quicker than the nurse could suction out her mouth and nose (remember the meconium staining in my water), but she was screaming so well right after they checked her that they weren't concerned about that at all.

We got the chance to try breastfeeding while they were stitching me up, and Nettie latched on perfectly (and has ever since).  About an hour or so (I think, not really sure) after Nettie was born, my family all got to come back to the room to see her.  Lois and Stephanie had arrived as well and were able to see her.  When they came in, I asked if Tucker had told them her name yet (because he had been the one to go out and get them).  He hadn't.  So I told them, and immediately started to cry when I said her middle name and looked at Jenna (I'm kind of a softy).  I'm pretty sure that we caught Lois off guard with our name choice though (Lynette is her middle name), and the next morning when she came to visit I remember her asking if we like Meryl Lynette better, haha!  Lynette is definitely her name though.

The rest of the hospital stay was pretty easy though.  I was never really in any pain or discomfort from my stitches (still aren't actually), and so I never had to take anything stronger than Ibuprofen.  Poor Tucker though, due to lack of sleep the first couple nights that we were in the hospital, started to feel really crappy and got a sinus infection sort of thing.  Because of this, and the fact that Nettie did not like sleeping in the little tub they had in our room for her, I got a total of about 6 hours of sleep for the 3 nights/days that we were there.  Though, that hasn't really bothered me much either.

Also, holy crap, I am a milk making machine!  I know this is gross/tmi, but the second that I take my bra off to nurse or take a shower, I'm seriously dripping all over everything.  Kind of annoying.  But I shouldn't complain really, because Nettie has already passed her birth weight, and according to the lactation consult I talked to this morning, she's done it a week faster than most solely breastfed babies.  Go us!

Mostly she's just the best baby in the world.  She's adorable, and she sleeps really really good.  Lately (meaning the past two days) she's gone for 4-5 hour stretches before waking up, which is very nice for me and Tucker because we both seem to have gotten a head cold.  We also got some newborn pictures taken of Nettie (courtesy of my mother-in-law and two awesome sisters-in-law), so hopefully those will get edited soon so that I can show them off to everyone :).

But yeah.  Be jealous of my uber cute baby :D