Well, for you to get the whole story we have to start from the beginning. It all started about 9 months ago when.... just kidding :)
Friday, April 8, I headed to work just like any other day that week. I went to the bathroom as soon as I got there and there was a lot of blood in the toilet. I called the Dr to let her know and just see if it was something to be worried about, which it wasn't, and went on with my day. Throughout the day every time I went to the bathroom there was something not quite right. When I got home that day Barret and I just hung out and waited for Daddy to get home from work. We had Lemon Pepper chicken for dinner and baked potatoes, which were yummy! After dinner we headed to Menards and Home Depot to look at paint swatches for our new place. I felt fine, but at the same time, I just felt like something was a little off.
We headed home, put Barret to bed and of course, I baked a dozen cookies, which I ate all but 3 (and I wondered where all my weight gain was coming from), and Steve and I sat down on the couch to watch a few episodes of How I Met Your Mother, this seems to have been our routine for the past couple of weeks and was becoming less and less enjoyable each night and a lot shorter for me. I got up to go to bed about 8:45pm and had no problem falling asleep.
About 11pm I woke up to use the bathroom and get a drink of water. Headed back to bed, when I woke up at 1:00am. Steve had fallen asleep on the couch so I turned the TV off, went to the bathroom, and grabbed a drink of water. As I sat down in bed to lay back down I felt this sudden gush. I thought, was that my water? I just went to the bathroom, it couldn't have been pee. I laid in bed for a minute to see if any pain came, I didn't want to wake up Steve and go to the hospital for no reason. About fifteen minutes later I felt this horrible pain in my left side and it wasn't going away. I went out to the living room and woke up Steve. "Can you call your sister? I think my water broke, but I'm not sure, and I'm in a lot of pain." He was very quick to call and get things ready. Of course Barret heard us up and walking around the house and he wanted in on the action. He came out into the living room with his blanket and his Bear and we just kept telling him that everything was going to be okay and that he needed to go back to sleep. Chelsey got to the house and we said our goodbyes and our I love you's to Barret.
When we arrived to the hospital my contractions were clocking in at 5 minutes apart. By the time I was all hooked up and getting 'comfortable' they were already between 3 and 4 minutes; this was about 2:45am. When they checked my cervix I was dilated to a 4 (if you remember I was stretched to a 3 on Thursday at my appointment)! Yay, I was excited because it seemed to be moving along quickly already.
Around 3am they moved me to the tub so I could try laboring in there. 'Try' is the key word here. I don't know if I thought something magical would happen by me being in the tub or if I was just kidding myself, but every ounce of me was expecting to have little to no pain when I got into the tub. WRONG, I was. The tub did help ease the pain I'm sure, but I was still very uncomfortable. (I'm going to advise bringing along little floatation devices to set on the bottom of the tub to make it a little more comfortable, to anyone who is interested lol). I wasn't in the tub too long before my contractions were right on top of one another. The nurse came in and checked me about 4ish and I was almost a 7! Yikes! This is when the pain put me into tears. I was ready to be done, and I kept telling Steve I couldn't do it and I didn't want to do it and I actually was making a lot of yelling noises which I didn't think people really did :) I decided, or rather finally said out loud, that I needed to get the epidural. After about a 10 minute walk from the tub to the bed, which were only a few feet away, I didn't think I was going to make it. The nurse checked me and I was an 8, the anesthesiologist was not happy with me and did his job as quickly as he could, given I couldn't relax and I was contracting nonstop. He kept arguing with the nurse about how I shouldn't have waited so long and that the nurse should have done this and should have done that because it was only going to take him longer now to do what he needed to do. I finally yelled and told him to shut up, then gracefully apologized. It was kind of awkward and not me at all, but I was about to give birth and in a ton of pain, so it was okay right? After he finally left and my entire right side was numb, and my left side was just a tad numb aside from the severe pain I was feeling in my pelvic bone, I looked at the nurse and said you need to call the doctor, I feel like I need to push. I was a 9 and ready to go. At this point it was almost 6am. I thought the baby was going to just plop out right there with no doctor to catch, no nurse to clean him up, no nothing. I wasn't ready, but he was, and I was nervous and trying to hold him in (if that's even possible).
My doctor was the one on call for the weekend which made me even more excited, but when the nurse came in and told me she couldn't make it because of child care I was a little more than upset. I wanted to cry, but there was nothing I could do about it. This baby was coming and a different Dr. one that I don't know and had never heard of was on her way to deliver my baby. She arrived about 6:10 and we began pushing. I pushed through about 4 contractions and she looked at me and said she would be back after filling out my paperwork. The baby wasn't visible except for a small portion of his head. She told me to sit and wait it out a little bit so he could work his way down a little more or I could keep pushing to help alleviate some of the pain I was feeling on my pelvic bone. I opted to keep pushing, even though it was only making me more tired, but the pain I was feeling was absolutely horrible.
The nurse stayed in with me to help guide me, but I felt completely alone and like I was doing it all myself. Around 6:30 they came in and concluded that the baby was facing the wrong way and he was a little on the left side at a weird angle (explaining the horrible pain I was having in my pelvic bone). He was stuck there and his head just wouldn't adjust. The Dr. called my Dr to let her know what was happening and that I was still pushing. My Dr. was going to be in at 7am and all I had to do was wait it out. During that wait time the shifts were changing and I was assigned a new nurse, who I loved and was so helpful during the rest of the delivery. She coached me through each contraction and held quite the interesting conversation with Steve all at the same time. Nothing like talking about beer and coffee in the delivery room :)When my Dr. finally arrived at about 7:15, I thought I was going to lose it. I was so tired and so ready to be done, I asked if she could just pull him out with the forceps (which I had already asked the nurses prior to do so too; clearly joking but being serious all at the same time) She felt what was going on and reached in with her bony fingers and turned him the right way. I pushed through four contractions and there he was. Levi Thomas Dean Gaffney made his way into the world at 7:43am crying and screaming already. As soon as Daddy cut the cord he peed on me and the Dr. It was really a great way to introduce himself :)
He was perfect, and both Steve and I looked at each other and said he looked just like his big brother Barret. They wrapped him up and put him on my chest so I could get a good look at him and he just laid there crying and wailing. For a moment I felt like I didn't know what was going to happen or how I was ever going to get him to stop crying. I felt like I had never done this before. They took him away to get him cleaned up and warm and when they handed him to Steve my heart just melted. He looked so perfect in his Daddy's arms, and all of my secret hopes that the baby would magically be a girl, disappeared and I was so excited to see another baby boy. Levi was just perfect and I was so in love with my new little man. When Daddy handed him to me we realized he didn't really look like Barret at all, he had my nose and he had Daddy's eyes, but that was it, he was his own person, his own sweet little individual and he was ours!
The family all arrived just before or just after he was born and took their turns welcoming him into the world. Daddy went home to get Barret and brought him back wearing his 'Big Bro' shirt. He was different than I expected. He was quiet and shy and just wandered into the room looking at me, wondering what on earth was going on. He climbed up in the bed with me and looked at his baby brother. He was so interested in what that little thing was that was wrapped up in a blanket in Mama's arms. Barret kept pulling the blanket away to look at what was underneath and then when Levi would cry or make a noise he would try to cover him back up. I was so happy to see that Barret wasn't scared or upset that Mama had another baby in her arms. I was so excited to see our family of four instead of three. I was so excited to share this wonderful moment with my favorite people in the world.
Barret spent a few hours with us in the hospital later on in the day too. He was more interested in the room than the people in it, and even found a way to drink a cup full of water from the toilet. YUCK!
Levi spent most of the time in the hospital crying, eating, or sleeping (the norm). We cuddled and snuggled and had a great old time in the hospital :)
Levi even slept a straight 6 hours on Sunday night giving Mama a sense of relief. Monday morning we got home from the hospital about 10:15 or so and had a great first day home relaxing and adjusting to our new life as a family of four!
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