Surprise Announcement! She's finally arrived😊
Welcome to the world, Amira Monroe!
Things have been crazy since my last newsletter went out, and there was very little in it about this part of my life, but I wanted to share this with you all.
Sunday, wee hours of the morning, I had been contracting regularly, nearly every 5 minutes. We thought it was time, I got up and showered, at something, only for them to die off two hours later. We went to my nephew's birthday party that afternoon, and Monday was a lot of nothing. I walked a lot throughout the day, but thought nothing would happen.
I couldn't sleep that night and stayed up, contractions started at 10:30 and kept coming. They were fairly strong, they remained within 5-10 minutes apart until 3 am. I ended up calling the doctor when my blood pressure got uncomfortably high. I felt nauseous, dizzy, was struggling with strength. So they asked us to go in.
Only for things to mellow out, so labor and delivery sent us home after an hour of monitoring.
Well, I had a check-up at 9:50, so I took a 2 hour power nap and went to my appointment. Problem is that on my way, I began to feel terrible once more. My blood pressure was high, I felt sick and anxious, and when I saw my doctor and he heard what had been happening, he decided to induce me right then.
At first, it was all fine, I got the pitocin started, got the IV, all was flowing fine, so they came in to give me an epidural, and that's when things got rough. My water had not been broken yet, I was only dilated a 3-4, but within an hour or so of getting my epidural, the machine beeps that something is wrong. They call in the anesthesiologist and he fixes it, so we move on. I get to about a 6, my doctor breaks my water, and we keep moving, only for my epidural to have worked itself out. It's no longer working.
They remove it and do it again a little higher while I cried through every contraction. I finally get relaxed, we're making progress, and when I reach a 7 in less than an hour, the epidural wears off again. There's a kink somewhere. 3 nurses and the anesthesiologist later, they get it fixed, but I'm an 8, and every contraction feels as if I'm being crushed in half. They worked to push the button every 10 minutes to get me the boost as it was a race to see what would come first, Amira or the epidural. Well, it reached my butt cheeks by the time I was fully dilated and ready to push, but my doctor was in the OR giving a c-section, so we had to wait 15 minutes. That was my saving grace. The epidural took just enough effect that the 3 contractions worth of pushes had her own a record time for me. It was all so fast.
Needless to say, I am in a lot of pain, but I am home now, resting, and healing as best I can. My husband is off for 2 weeks to be with us, and when he goes back to work, I intend to try following suit to the best of my ability with 2 kids at home over summer. Hopefully we'll get out one more book this year😊
I just wanted to share some of the excitement and love with you all. I appreciate your support so much in this journey, so I wanted to share a piece of my own happiness with you all.🩵
Until next time, I'll be healing and enjoying all the baby snuggles😊
