Our Blessed Life: April 22, 2013 Kendall's birth day :)

As many of you know I've dealt with preterm labor for about 8 weeks of this pregnancy, and then pregnancy induced high blood pressure which turned to slight pre-eclampsia for a few weeks. On Sunday, April 21, 2013 I woke from a nap to be extremely swollen, light headed, and just yucky feeling. I had Josh come in from doing yard work and take my blood pressure. It was pretty elevated for me at 155/95. (I had higher BP the night before and called my doctor and she had me monitor it for an hour to make sure it would go down some. It didn't continue to climb so my doctor told me to continue to monitor it and take it easy until my appointment on Tuesday.)
Anyway, on Sunday we monitored the BP for an hour and it didn't get any better, it kept climbing. So I took a shower, called my on-call doctor who said that since the BP kept climbing, I was already 38 weeks, and had been having issues for a few weeks that we would probably be having a baby that night. She had me go ahead and come in to L&D for monitoring, urinalysis, and lab work.
Josh and I got our bags ready and headed to Fayetteville where we fully expected to be sent home again without a baby.

When we arrived at the hospital around 7pm they hooked me up to the monitor to check baby's heart beat, contractions, and blood pressure. After 3 high readings the Dr. Hardman came in and checked me, said I was dilated to a 3 and 80% effaced. She asked, "Did you know you're having contractions?" I laughed and told her, "Yes, I've been having them for like 10 weeks." She said, "Man, you couldn't pay my uterus to contract when I was pregnant! Your's are every 2 minutes apart." I told her, "Yeah well, my uterus is a boss....it just won't make any progress!". She informed me that they were making a room ready for me and they would be admitting me shortly. I asked, "Wait, so we are for SURE having a baby this time?!" She told me we sure are. We wouldn't be leaving without our baby this time :)

She had me give a urine sample and took lab work to check liver functions and enzymes and stuff for pre-e. Shortly thereafter the nurse came in and said I had protein in my urine and they had to get me admitted asap to start the magnesium IV to keep from any seizures due to the high blood pressure.
Once they got me to a room they hooked up the magnesium, the saline IV, and the pitocin. With magnesium it can make you feel terrible, quickly. (Side effects can include: muscle weakness, lack of energy, blurry vision, slurred speech, headache nausea & vomiting, and flushing.) I've heard some pretty terrible stories from friends who were given magnesium sulfate and I was *terrified* of how I'd feel. Because of the possible side effects they have to catheter you and keep you in the bed so as not to fall. Anyway, as soon as they gave me the mag I started to flush and feel hot, but that was it. I didn't experience any of the other side effects, thankfully! Although I was contracting on my own pretty regularly, magnesium sulfate is also used in pregnancy to stop the cervix from dilating and thinning, so when it slowed my contractions they decided to counteract it with a pitocin drip. The contractions picked up quickly so I went ahead and asked for my epidural since I couldn't get up and try and get comfortable.

After my epidural was placed Dr. Hardman came back in to check me and I was still at a 3 but 100% effaced. So I was making progress, but slowly. She broke my water at about 10pm. My mom, sister, and Josh's mom were at the hospital with us at this point. Around 4am the nurse came in and checked me and I had progressed to a 6-7 and at a -1 station. I was finally making progress! They let me rest for another 2 hours and came back around 6am to check me. I was dilated to a 9 and almost there!! I called my sister so she could get back to the hospital in time to push. The nurse said she expected we'd be pushing in a couple hours. Dr. Markell would be in at 7 to check me and hopefully we could start pushing shortly thereafter.
At 7am Dr. Markell checked me and I was 10cm, complete, and ready to go! The nurse wanted me to labor down for 20 minutes on each side before we began pushing in order to make baby a little more ready. At 7:50 they came in, checked me one more time, said it's time to push and started getting things ready. At this point I was completely FREAKED OUT and nervous. Thank GOD my sister was there to keep me calm as could be. My nurse was amazing. She coached me through everything. At 8:06 I took my first practice push when my nurse, Barb, told us Kendall had a head full of dark hair!! I pushed about 7 more times with the help of Josh, my sister, and the nurses. At about 8:35 my nurse ran into the hall, hollered for Dr. Markell who came in, had me push one more time. This time baby's hand got stuck so she had me stop for a minute while she fixed that. I pushed one more time and our chunky monkey punched her way into this world at 8:46am. She wasn't a loud crier at all. In fact Josh and I were both worried at first because she wasn't making much noise at all. They cleaned her off a bit and placed her on my chest where I boo-hooed and talked to her for a good 5 minutes. I was so amazed, enamored, and completely in love with our sweet rainbow baby girl.

They nursery nurse took her, cleaned her off, weighed and measured her and gave her back to me where we let her find her way to nurse. She latched on in just 15 minutes and did so good. It was amazing!

The love and absolute amazement we felt in that moment for the tiny life we helped create can not be described. Everyone tells you, from the moment you announce your pregnancy, how challenging pregnancy, parenting, and babies are. They don't tell you have awesome it is. Well let me tell you, if they tried, they couldn't come close to describing it.
Because Kendall was considered large for gestational age at 8lbs 5oz and 21in long she had to have her little heel pricked and her sugars checked a few times the 2 days we were there. Her numbers were great and she didn't need any special attention for that.
We had a short stay in the hospital and we were home by Tuesday afternoon around 3pm.
Breast feeding went ok until we got home. Once we were home I was so emotional and so worried about her getting enough that I became very hard on myself about it. Kendall was doing great, she's a natural after all!
On Friday we had her first pediatric appointment where we discovered was jaundice, had been dehydrated for 2 days, and had lost 11oz since birth. Dr. Wilkinson assured us these were all normal considering we had been breastfeeding, but I was heartbroken that my poor baby had not been satisfied and was dehydrated.
After 4 complete emotional breakdowns, feeling insane levels of anxiety, and the beginning of depression, Josh and I decided that breastfeeding was not going to work for us. I was miserable. I couldn't enjoy my sweet baby girl because she was famished constantly. She made me hurt, which made me cry, which made me not let down, and made her hungrier. It was a vicious cycle. My baby deserves a healthy, happy mama so that's what she's getting :)
Today, Josh went back to work. I cried for an hour last night because I was terrified to be left completely alone with Kendall. Why? I don't know...I guess just knowing that I am now responsible for a whole other life for 18 years is very overwhelming. We have had a great day full of eating, pooping, and sleeping. (For Kendall, not me ;)) And daddy will be home in less than 3 hours!

We are over the moon to have our sweet baby here with us. After a very long, hard, and bittersweet year we are so relieved to finally have our child here with us.

Here are a few more pictures Josh's cousin, Drew Lacy, and a girl she was mentoring, Kelsey Pruitt, took of Kendall yesterday.